Tal Kopan – Page 4 – immigrationcourtside.com

GONZO’S WORLD: WHITE NATIONALIST AG MAKES VICIOUS UNFOUNDED ATTACK ON REFUGEES & THEIR ATTORNEYS THE CENTERPIECE OF HIS SPEECH TO LARGEST CLASS OF INCOMING U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES — “Good lawyers using all their talents and skills work every day … like water seeping through an earthen dam to get around the plain words of (immigration law) to advance their clients’ interests.”

Sessions to immigration judges: Immigrants’ attorneys like ‘water seeping’ around law

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a new group of immigration judges Monday that it is their job to “restore the rule of law” to the immigration system over the contrary efforts of the lawyers who represent immigrants.

The remarks at the training of the largest-ever class of new immigration judges implied that the judges were on the same team as the Trump administration, and that immigrants and their attorneys were trying to undermine their efforts.

“Good lawyers using all their talents and skills work every day … like water seeping through an earthen dam to get around the plain words of (immigration law) to advance their clients’ interests,” Sessions said, adding the same happens in criminal courts. “And we understand that. Their duty, however, is not uphold the integrity of the act. That’s our duty.”

Sessions noted that “of course” the system “must always respect the rights of aliens” in the courts. But he also warned the judges of “fake claims.”

“Just as we defend immigrant legal rights, we reject unjustified and sometimes fake claims,” Sessions said. “The law is never serviced when deceit is rewarded so that the fundamental principles of the law are defeated.”

The comments came in the context of Sessions’ repeated moves to exert his unique authority over the immigration courts, a separate legal system for immigrants that is entirely run by the Justice Department.

Sessions approves every judge hired and can instruct them on how to interpret law, and thus decide cases, as well as how to manage cases. He has used that authority multiple times in the past year, including issuing a sweeping ruling that will substantially narrow the types of cases that qualify for asylum protections in the US. Those decisions overrode the evolution of years of immigration judges’ and the immigration appellate board’s decisions.

Sessions reminded the new judges of that authority and those decisions in his remarks, saying he believes they are “correct” and “prudent” interpretations of the law that “restores” them to the original intent.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/10/politics/sessions-immigration-judges/index.html

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Another totally inappropriate and unethical effort by Sessions to insure that migrants, particularly asylum seekers, receive neither fair consideration nor Due Process from U.S. Immigration Judges in connection with their, in many instances, very compelling cases for protection.

Let’s shine a little light of truth on the Sessions’s dark myth-spinning:

As recently as 2012, the majority of asylum applicants who received decisions on the merits of their claims in Immigration Court were granted protection;
Conditions in most “sending countries” — particularly those in the Northern Triangle — have gotten worse rather than better;
There is no reasonable explanation for the large drop in approvals in recent years other than bias against asylum seekers;
Even after Sessions took over, 30% of those who get merits determinations won their cases;
The success rate is higher for those released from detention and given fair access to counsel;
Most detained migrants, particularly those intentionally detained in substandard conditions in obscure locations, do not have reasonable access to counsel;
Most attorneys representing detained asylum seekers serve pro bono or for minimal compensation (particularly in relation to the amount of time and effort required to prepare and present an asylum case in detention);
Detention of asylum seekers simply to deter them from coming is illegal;
Separation of families is a deterrent is also illegal;
Neither detention nor “zero tolerance” prosecutions have been shown to have a material impact on the flow of refugees to our Southern Border;
Sessions has provided no evidence of any widespread fraud in asylum applications by refugees from the Northern Triangle;
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”), the leading interpreter of refugee and asylum protections, has consistently criticized the US’s overly restrictive approach to asylum adjudication;
Article III U.S. Courts continue to be critical of both the unlawful policies being promoted by Sessions and the fundamental errors still being made by the BIA and some Immigration Judges in analyzing asylum cases and claims under the Convention Against Torture;
According to the US Supreme Court, a chance of harm as low as 10% can satisfy the generous legal standard for asylum;
According to the UNHCR, asylum applicants should be given the “benefit of the doubt;”
Most of those who fail to get asylum, like the abused woman denied protection by Sessions in Matter of A-B-, face life threatening situations in their home countries — we have merely made a conscious choice not to offer them asylum or some alternative form of life-saving protection.

As Sessions sees that his time as Attorney General will likely come to an end before the end of this year, he is doubling down on his White Nationalist, xenophobic, racist, restrictionist, lawless agenda. He wants to inflict as much damage on migrants, refugees, women, and people of color as he can before being relegated to his former role as a rightist wing-nut. He also seeks to convince the Immigration Judges that they are not independent juridical officials but mere highly paid enforcement agents with an obligation to deport as many folks as possible in support of the President’s agenda.

I do agree with Sessions, however, that the newly-minted Immigration Judges have a tremendously difficult job. If they adopt his philosophy, they are likely to violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution and laws of the US and to wrongly return individuals to death-threatening situations. On the other hand, if they carefully and fairly follow the law and give full consideration to the facts, they will be compelled to grant protection in many cases, thus potentially putting them on EOIR’s “hit list.” (Basically, new US Immigration Judges, even those with many years of civil service, can be “fired at will” by EOIR during their first two years of “probation” as judges.)

The only solution is an independent Article I Immigration Court that will guarantee that someone as totally unqualified as Sessions can never again impose his personal will and bigoted, anti-Due-Process views on what is supposed to be a fair and impartial court system.

PWS

09-10-18

TAL @ CNN: BREAKING: SCOFFLAW ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES DEFYING COURT DECREE ON KIDDIE DETENTION – MONUMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL SHOWDOWN IN FEDERAL COURT COMING!

Trump admin seeks to keep immigrant families in detention indefinitely

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration has released a proposal to overhaul the way that undocumented immigrant families are treated in custody, a maneuver that would allow the government to keep the families in detention as long as their immigration court case remains open.

The proposed federal regulations would notably revoke the court case known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, which governs how undocumented children can be treated in custody. The regulations are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Friday.

The more than 200-page rule would have sweeping implications for the immigration detention system in the US and is likely to face swift resistance from advocates who brought the Flores case and those who have supported it.

One of the biggest proposed changes would create a federal license system to allow for detention centers that could hold families. The administration argues that it is the state-based licensing system that is causing issues that would restrict family detention.

The arguments for the rule are similar to the case the administration has made in court before Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the settlement. Gee has rejected those arguments in her courtroom.

“This rule would allow for detention at (family detention centers) for the pendency of immigration proceedings … in order to permit families to be detained together and parents not be separated from their children,” the rule states. “It is important that family detention be a viable option not only for the numerous benefits that family unity provides for both the family and the administration of the INA, but also due to the significant and ongoing influx of adults who have made the choice to enter the United States illegally with juveniles or make the dangerous overland journey to the border with juveniles, a practice that puts juveniles at significant risk of harm.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/politics/trump-administration-immigrant-families-children-detention/index.html

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Pretty outrageous. But, about what we would expect from a racist White Nationalist Administration with no respect for the Constitution, laws, Federal Courts, or human dignity, and that is hell-bent on wasting our taxpayer money on evil causes.

I predict that this will “reactivate” the Flores litigation before Judge Gee. She, in turn, will “stuff” the Administration on its insulting, contemptuous, and clearly bogus justification for the detention.

These individuals are coming to the US seeking to exercise legal rights to apply for protection. Every reliable study shows that if released under alternatives to detention, informed of what the system requires, given adequate notice, and, most important, given reasonable access to lawyers they show up for their hearings nearly 100% of the time and actually prevail on the merits in a significant number of cases (the success rate is kept artificially low by the disingenuous anti-asylum jurisprudence created by Sessions and by a pre-existing legal bias in the system against many asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle, also fanned and encouraged by Sessions’s overt xenophobia).

Stay tuned for another monumental waste of taxpayer money on yet another misguided Administration attempt to impose a White Nationalist immigration agenda!

PWS

09-06-18

TAL @CNN: DACA GETS A TEMPORARY REPRIEVE AS JUDGE HANEN DENIES PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION — “Here, the egg has been scrambled,” Hanen wrote. “To try to put it back in the shell with only a preliminary injunction record, and perhaps at great risk to many, does not make sense nor serve the best interests of this country.”

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/31/politics/texas-daca-continues/index.html

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Updated 6:00 PM ET, Fri August 31, 2018

Texas judge says he’ll likely kill DACA — but not yet

Washington (CNN)A federal judge on Friday hinted he will likely invalidate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the future — but for now the program can continue to operate.

The ruling was an unexpected, albeit temporary, reprieve for the program, which President Donald Trump opted to end almost exactly a year ago.

Texas-based District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote Friday that he believes DACA is likely illegal and ultimately will fail to survive a challenge before his court. DACA is an Obama-era program that protects young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation.

But despite that — and despite finding that the continuation of DACA could harm the eight states and two governors who challenged the program — Hanen decided not to issue a ruling that would have immediately blocked DACA’s continuation.

Since Trump sought to end DACA last September, the program’s future has been in doubt. Members of Congress largely say they want to preserve the program legislatively, but have failed to pass anything in two opportunities to do so. In the meantime, three federal courts have sustained the program.

While Hanen rebuffed the red states’ request to end DACA immediately, his inclination to invalidate the program eventually contributes to what experts expect to be a fast track to the Supreme Court in the coming year.

Hanen said that there were two issues that required him to deny the request to immediately halt the program: One was timeliness. He found that because Texas and its coalition of states waited more than five years after the implementation of DACA, even as it challenged a related program, to file this suit, that it lost some of its ability to claim damages were immediately harmful and thus required an immediate response.

In addition, Hanen ruled that though the states could prove they were harmed by the continuation of DACA, mainly in costs of benefits to recipients, the potential consequences of ending DACA immediately were more harmful.

Three federal judges have blocked the administration from ending DACA as it tried to do last September, ordering the Department of Homeland Security to continue renewing permits under the program.

But Hanen was widely expected to be unfavorable to DACA, as he had previously prevented a similar, expanded program from ever going into effect under the Obama administration.

The new case challenging the DACA program, instituted in 2012, drew heavily from that decision Hanen made on the 2014 expansion of the program and creation of a similar program for undocumented parents of Americans.

Hanen said in his Friday ruling that he largely agreed, and DACA was likely to be illegal under the same reasoning as that expansion.

But one major difference prevented him from immediately halting the program — the fact that it was already in effect.

“Here, the egg has been scrambled,” Hanen wrote. “To try to put it back in the shell with only a preliminary injunction record, and perhaps at great risk to many, does not make sense nor serve the best interests of this country.”

But in his 117-page decision, Hanen was clear that he did not intend his ruling to be interpreted as good news for the future of DACA, at least long term.

He said the popularity of the program was not relevant to whether it had been legally created — the crux of the challenge to it.

“DACA is a popular program and one that Conress should consider saving,” Hanen wrote. Nevertheless, “this court will not succumb to the temptation to set aside legal principles and to substitute its judgment in lieu of legislative action. If the nation truly wants to have a DACA program, it is up to Congress to say so.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who led the challenge to DACA, hailed the ruling in a statement, despite it being an interim loss in court.

“We’re now very confident that DACA will soon meet the same fate as the Obama-era Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program, which the courts blocked after I led another state coalition challenging its constitutionality,” Paxton said. “Our lawsuit is vital to restoring the rule of law to our nation’s immigration system.”

Hanen’s ruling Friday defuses the threat to DACA for some time. In a separate order, Hanen took the unusual step of making it possible to appeal his denial of an immediate halt to the program, and gave the parties three weeks to figure out next steps before the case moves to its next phase.

The Department of Justice declined to defend DACA in the lawsuit, but did ask Hanen to limit the effect of any ruling he may have issued.

Spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement that Hanen had agreed DACA is unlawful, “as the Justice Department has consistently argued,” and said the department was “pleased” with the decision.

In the administration’s stead, DACA was defended by the pro-immigrant advocacy and legal organization MALDEF and the state of New Jersey.

In a statement Friday, MALDEF hailed the ruling but noted it still believes DACA to be legal.

“While MALDEF continues to disagree adamantly with the judge’s views on the legality of DACA under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), and on whether the state of Texas even has standing — as required by the Constitution — to challenge DACA, today’s court decision appropriately leaves DACA in place with respect to over 100,000 Texans and hundreds of thousands of others nationwide,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF.

This story has been updated.

CNN’s Ariane de Vogue and Jason Morris contributed to this report.

\

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It’s not clear to me that Judge Hanen can kill the program even if he finds it illegal, given the contrary findings and injunctions already in effect from several other U.S. District Judges. Indeed, there are several cases already pending in the DC Circuit and the Ninth Circuit that cold moot the whole issue. It’s the kind of mess we get into when Congress abdicates its duty to legislate.

PWS

09-01-18

TWO FROM TAL @ CNN: 1) RACISM TRUMPS IDEOLOGY IN TERMINATION OF NICARAGUAN TPS; 2) SESSIONS’S CHILD ABUSE UPDATE – HUNDREDS REMAIN SEPARATED WHILE ABUSER REMAINS AT LARGE, DISSING FEDERAL JUDGES!

‘Suicide,’ ‘catastrophe’: Nicaraguans in US terrified of looming end of protections

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Cassandra has lived and worked in the US over 20 years. Threats to her life have been made to her family and friends back in Nicaragua. It would be “suicide” to move back, she says.

But the Trump administration says she and thousands of other immigrants like her must do so by January.

On Jan. 5, roughly 5,300 Nicaraguans who have lived in the US since at least that date in 1999 will lose their protected status. If they have no other immigration status in the US, they will be forced to either return to the country or risk living in the US illegally.

The decision to end temporary protected status for Nicaraguans last November was overshadowed by similar Trump administration decisions to end such protections for hundreds of thousands more immigrants from neighbors Honduras and El Salvador. Nationals of Nicaragua received the shortest time frame of any of those TPS recipients to get their affairs together: 12 months.

But since that decision was made, Nicaragua has plunged into violence and political unrest, with at least 322 people dying there since mid-April, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States. By the White House’s own count, the toll is more than 350. The UN Refugee Agency has put out guidance to its member countries asking them to allow Nicaraguans to enter and to apply for asylum once there.

The situation is bad enough that the Trump administration sanctioned three Nicaraguan officials in July for human rights abuses, saying President Daniel Ortega and his vice president “are ultimately responsible for the pro-government parapolice that have brutalized their own people.”

In light of the violence, a bipartisan group of seven bipartisan lawmakers wrote to President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in late July asking the President to either reconsider ending temporary protected status for Nicaraguans or to designate a new status for them.

“It would be, frankly, I think, unacceptable to then send folks back to that same place that we’re sanctioning,” Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, one of those who signed the letter, told CNN. “It’s a barbaric regime that’s literally murdering people in the streets. … It would be a catastrophe, and it’s one that can be avoided.”

Diaz-Balart said he has not gotten a response from the administration to the letter, though he remains hopeful it will reverse course.

The Department of Homeland Security ignored repeated requests for comment from CNN about whether it’s considering extending further protections to Nicaraguans.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/tps-nicaragua-trump-immigrants-fear/index.html

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Hundreds of immigrant kids remain separated from parents

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Hundreds of children separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border remain separated from their parents, including 497 in government custody, according to a new court filing Thursday.

The figure includes 22 children under the age of five still in government care. Six of those are 4 years old or younger whose parents were deported without them.

A total of 1,937 children have been reunified with parents, up only 14 from last week.

The numbers have changed only slightly from last week, as the court filing from the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union case describes a slow and laborious process to try to connect the families that have been separated.

It remains unclear exactly how many parents were deported without their children, though it’s in the hundreds. By the government’s latest count, there are 322 deported parents who have children still in custody.

But the ACLU, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of separated parents, says the administration has previously given it a list of deported parents that includes 70 additional cases. The administration said, according to the ACLU, that some of the discrepancy is due to kids being released from care. It’s not clear what will happen to those families.

US District Judge Dana Sabraw will hold a status hearing on the case Friday.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/family-separations-hundreds-children-separated/index.html

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So, we send good folks who have been contributing to our economy and society back to likely harm at the hands of the repressive leftist Government of Nicaragua basically because they are Latinos. Of course, almost all of them have very plausible asylum, withholding, CAT, or cancellation of removal claims. So, more than 5,000 cases will needlessly be thrown back into our already overwhelmed Immigration Court system. No wonder the backlog continues to mushroom under Sessions’s White Nationalist policies! Racist-driven policies always come at a high cost!

In the meantime, Sessions continues publicly to thumb his nose at Federal Judges, while making less than impressive efforts to comply with their lawful orders. And, families and children continue to suffer from Sessions’s White Nationalist agenda.

PWS

08-31-18

TAL @ CNN: TRUMP’S WHITE NATIONALIST BASE STILL LOVES SESSIONS — No Other Confirmable AG Is Likely To Be As Overtly Racist, Immoral, & Willing To Subvert The Law As Sessions!

Sessions ‘irreplaceable’ on immigration to base

By Tal Kopan, CNN

When then-candidate Donald Trump touted Jeff Sessions’ support on the 2016 campaign trail, he’d joke that even he was surprised he beat out other immigration hawks for the prized endorsement. It was an indication of how strongly Trump resonated with the base on immigration and border security — and how strongly Sessions represented it.

Now, Sessions’ supporters are hoping the President hasn’t forgotten that lesson.

Sessions’ support among Republicans in the Senate is publicly weakening, as the President continues to tweet his frustration with his attorney general and early backer over his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But Sessions’ supporters are saying one simple fact should keep the attorney general in office: There is no one else who could better execute Trump’s own vision on immigration, and no one who bears more credit for what the President has achieved thus far.

Sessions “is almost irreplaceable because of his commitment and understanding of the core issue on which the President won his election,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for slashing immigration dramatically.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham this week argued Trump deserves to replace Sessions, saying the relationship is “beyond repair.”

That sentiment is not shared, however, in Sessions’ strongest base of support — the groups that have long advocated for the immigration-restricting policies that the attorney general has aggressively pursued.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/politics/jeff-sessions-support-immigration-base/index.html

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Yeah, I can see that Sessions would be a hard guy to duplicate. He’s a true relic of the Jim Crow era who wears his disdain and disrespect for people of color on his sleeve. I also suppose that one reason he turned out to be “confirmable” was the desire of many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get rid of his wacko, far right, obstructionist presence.

Over at Justice, Sessions doesn’t have to convince anyone that what he is doing is legal or good policy. He just does as he pleases. The Federal Courts rein him in on a regular basis. That leads Sessions to utter insulting trivialities about “interference with the Executive.” Interfering with a member of the Executive Branch who is riding roughshod over the Constitution and the statutes is just what Article III courts are supposed to be doing!

About the only thing at Justice that Sessions hasn’t screwed up is the Russia investigation (although he tried by approving the “bogus memo” from Rod Rosenstein recommending the firing of Comey which Trump later admitted was a fraud). And, that’s only because he was quite properly disqualified. While Sessions couldn’t care less about the law and ethics, he does have some sense of self-preservation. Participating in the Russia investigation could have been a Federal crime (although the Federal criminal law on non-financial conflicts of interest is somewhat murky) as well as a basis for stripping his law license.

PWS

08-28-18

TAL @ CNN: REP. WILL HURD (R-TX) SEES THROUGH THE TRUMP/SESSIONS BORDER FARCE – WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THE REST OF THE GOP?

Republican lawmaker: Border wall, family separations counterproductive to security

By Tal Kopan, CNN

After traveling to the hotbed of illegal immigration and drug trafficking, Republican Rep. Will Hurd is more convinced than ever that America doesn’t need a border wall.

“The $32 billion that would go into a border wall, I’m just even more convinced that it would be better spent with some of these existing programs, and we’d see a quicker decrease in drugs and illegal immigration,” Hurd said, referring to US initiatives to help Central America.

Hurd spoke with CNN after a three-day trip to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, three countries that drive most of the illegal immigration to the southern US border. In Central America, Hurd met with national security officials and community representatives.

A Texas lawmaker with the largest stretch of US-Mexico border of any congressional district, Hurd has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s promised border wall and the administration’s family separations at the border.

The moderate Republican’s seat is also one of the races Democrats are targeting aggressively in their hopes to flip control of the House. Hurd is facing a well-funded Democratic challenger, Gina Ortiz Jones, in a race that has already cost millions.

Trump has only doubled down on his hardline immigration policies headed into the midterms, including a border wall costing tens of billions of dollars. Though he and his base remain convinced that such aggressive policies are key to Republicans’ political success, Hurd has been a strong voice on the right for more moderate policies.

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/will-hurd-donald-trump-border-wall-central-america/index.html

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Every part of the Trump/Sessions/Miller intentionally cruel immigration enforcement program has been a failure from the standpoint of sound law enforcement. Yet, the more they fail and the more the Federal Courts and others point out their illegal actions, the more the Trumpsters double down on everything vile. In the end, the damage will only be stopped when Trump & company are voted out of office.

PWS

08-29-18

EXPLOSIVE EXPOSE’: TAL @ CNN SHOWS HOW WHITE NATIONALISTS IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IMPROPERLY SKEWED THE DECISION TO TERMINATE TPS!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/24/politics/trump-administration-tps-end/index.html

‘It IS bad there’: Emails reveal Trump officials pushing for TPS terminations

Washington (CNN)There was a simple explanation in October 2017 when a Department of Homeland Security official was asked why a memo justifying ending immigrant protections for Central Americans made conditions in those countries sound so bad.

“The basic problem is that it IS bad there,” the official wrote.

Nevertheless, he agreed to go back and see what he could do to better bolster the administration’s decision to end the protections regardless.

The revelation comes in a collection of internal emails and documents made public Friday as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the decision to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who live in the US, most of whom have been here for well over a decade.

Friday’s document dump come as backup for the attorneys’ request that the judge immediately block the government’s decision to end these protections as the case is fully heard. A hearing is scheduled for late September.

Trump admin was warned a policy change could strengthen MS-13. They did it anyway.

In the emails, Trump administration political officials repeatedly pushed for the termination of TPS for vulnerable countries, even as they faced pushback from internal assessments by career staffers and other parts of the administration.

In one exchange, the now-director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Francis Cissna, remarks that a document recommending that TPS for Sudan be terminated reads like it was going to recommend the opposite until someone was “clubbed … over the head.”

“The memo reads like one person who strongly supports extending TPS for Sudan wrote everything up to the recommendation section and then someone who opposes extension snuck up behind the first guy, clubbed him over the head, pushed his senseless body of out of the way, and finished the memo. Am I missing something?” he wrote to key DHS staffers. Another high-ranking official then asks for the memo to be “revised.”

In a similar exchange, policy adviser Kathy Nuebel Kovarik asks her staff to address what she perceives as inconsistencies in the justification documents for ending TPS for El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

“The problem is that it reads as though we’d recommend an extension b/c we talk so much about how bad it is, but there’s not enough in there about positive steps that have been taken since its designation,” she wrote.

Staffer Brandon Prelogar responded that “it IS bad there.”

“We can comb through the country conditions to try to see what else there might be, but the basic problem is that it IS bad there (with regards to) all of the standard metrics,” Prelogar wrote. “Our strongest argument for termination, we thought, is just that it is not bad in a way clearly linked to the initial disasters prompting the designations. We can work with RU to try to get more, and/or comb through the country conditions we have again looking for positive gems, but the conditions are what they are.”

Trump’s immigration policies were supposed to make the border safer. Experts say the opposite is happening.

DHS did end protections for all three countries, despite dire predictions previously reported by CNN from career analysts about the consequences including potentially strengthening the vicious gang MS-13.

Immigrants are suing over the ending of TPS for these countries, alleging the protections were terminated due to a prebaked agenda that violated the law, as well as a racist agenda. The judge has previously allowed the lawsuit to proceed and forced the production of these internal documents, over the objection of the government.

The program covers migrants in the US from countries that have been hit by dire conditions, such as epidemics, civil war or natural disasters. Previous administrations, spanning both parties, had opted to extend the protections for most of the countries involved every few years when they came up for review.

The Trump administration says the conditions in each country have improved from the original disasters to the point that the protected status had to end. DHS has maintained that under its reading of the law, decisions to extend may be based only on conditions from the original disaster — not any that have arisen since. That breaks with the reading of the law from all prior administrations, attorneys argue — citing a deposition of a former USCIS director also submitted Friday.

The documents show a gradual process of the front offices of DHS taking more control of the TPS decision making. Early in the administration, career staffers drafted a document that would have justified extending TPS for Haiti. Officials asked that it be changed, and it was initially extended just six months ahead of being terminated completely.

For later decisions, the documents show the State Department complaining that it was marginalized from the process. In fact, a Federal Register Notice for the termination for Sudan had to be pulled back and edited after the State Department complained that it had been changed from a version it had approved at the last minute to something inconsistent with current US policy toward the country.

The emails show that Gene Hamilton, a close ally of Attorney General Jeff Sessions who was a senior counselor at DHS before moving to the Justice Department, made some of those last-minute revisions, attempting to remove references to human rights violations, among other changes.

When presented with Hamilton’s changes to some language already agreed to with the State Department, Prelogar wrote that “we’d just say that this could be read as taking another step toward providing an incomplete and lopsided country conditions presentation to support termination, which may increase the likelihood of criticism from external stakeholders to that effect.”

The trail also shows the State Department had recommended TPS for Sudan be extended, although it did so late in the game, and that it was caught off-guard by the changes.

In a last-minute email, the State Department’s Christopher Ashe wrote to the acting director of USCIS that there were problems.

Documents reveal DHS knew ending protections could cause more, not less, illegal immigration

“The Department has identified some significant mischaracterizations that are at odds with the Department’s understanding of circumstances on the ground. We believe that lacking correction, the (Federal Register Notice) could be out of step with the Administration’s broader engagement on Sudan — much of which DHS is not engaged on and is likely unaware of the nuances that USCIS’s changes in the language could have,” Ashe wrote.

He continued that State was “caught off guard” by a decision to make the announcement.

“We literally were forced to dispatch our Foreign Affairs Officers by taxi to the Embassies with virtually no notice to inform the host governments of the imminent announcements. We had thought we had obtained a commitment for sufficient notice to make such notifications,” Ashe wrote.

DHS terminations of protected status ignored diplomats’ recommendations, report says

Nuebel Kovarik responds on the email chain that DHS would reject the suggested change by State that would imply not “all” nationals of Sudan could return, saying it would contradict the decision to terminate. She agrees to change the notice to acknowledge that some regions of Sudan may remain too dangerous for return.

State had asked for that, noting that otherwise it could “encourage the Government of Sudan to believe they have the greenlight from US (government) to force the return of displaced persons … to return to deadly conflict-affected areas. These areas are places where even well-armed UN peacekeeping forces decline to engage for fear of violence and recent killings of peacekeepers.”

But Nuebel Kovarik declines to hold off publishing the official announcement to accommodate the change, saying it’s “minor” enough to be done later on as a revision.

“We don’t say the country is perfect,” she concluded.

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Great to have Tal back and “telling it like it is.” Just like at the DOJ, racist hacks like Cissna and his unholy cabal are distorting and downright suppressing facts to implement a predetermined White Nationalist agenda. Every decent American should be appalled! These folks are blatantly dishonest in maters that affect human lives. They probably belong in jail; if not, they should never hold public office now or in the future

It’s time for all Americans of conscience who believe in our Constitution and the rule of law to rise up at the ballot box in November and take our country back from the White Nationalists!

PWS

08-24-18

JAIL FOR SCOFFLAW SESSIONS? — U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE EMMET G. SULLIVAN HAS HAD ENOUGH OF AG’S LAWLESS BEHAVIOR – THREATENS CONTEMPT OVER ILLEGAL DEPORTATION!— “This is pretty outrageous,” said U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan after being told about the removal. “That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/judge-halts-mother-daughter-deportation-threatens-to-hold-sessions-in-contempt/2018/08/09/a23a0580-9bd6-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html?utm_term=.61aa9f3c7462

Arelis R. Hernandez reports for the Washington Post:

A federal judge in Washington halted a deportation in progress Thursday and threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt after learning that the Trump administration tried to remove a woman and her daughter while a court hearing appealing their deportations was underway.

“This is pretty outrageous,” U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said after being told about the removal. “That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?”

“I’m not happy about this at all,” the judge continued. “This is not acceptable.”

The woman, known in court papers as Carmen, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union. It challenges a recent policy change by the Department of Justice that aims to expedite the removal of asylum seekers who fail to prove their cases and excludes domestic and gang violence as justifications for granting asylum in the United States.

Attorneys for the civil rights organization and the Department of Justice had agreed to delay removal proceedings for Carmen and her child until 11:59 p.m. Thursday so they could argue the matter in court.

But lead ACLU attorney Jennifer Chang Newell, who was participating in the court hearing via phone from her office in California, received an email during the hearing that said the mother and daughter were being deported.

Activists rally against the Trump administration’s immigration policies outside the New York City offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in July. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

During a brief recess, she told her colleagues the pair had been taken from a family detention center in Dilley, Tex., and were headed to the airport in San Antonio for an 8:15 a.m. flight.

After granting the ACLU’s request to delay deportations for Carmen and the other plaintiffs until the lawsuit is decided, Sullivan ordered the government to “turn the plane around.”

Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni said he had not been told the deportation was happening that morning, and could not confirm the whereabouts of Carmen and her daughter.

The ACLU said later that government attorneys confirmed to them after the hearing that the pair was on a flight en route to El Salvador. The Justice Department said they would be flown back to Texas and returned to the detention center after landing, the ACLU said.

Calls and emails to the Justice Department’s communications office were not immediately returned Thursday afternoon.

“Obviously my heart sank when I found out,” Chang Newell said. “The whole point of this was to get a ruling from the court before they could be placed in danger.”

To qualify for asylum, migrants must show that they have a fear of persecution in their native country based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a “particular social group,” a category that in the past has included victims of domestic violence and other abuse.

Carmen fled El Salvador with her daughter in June, according to court records, fearing they would be killed by gang members who had demanded she pay them monthly or suffer consequences. Several coworkers at the factory where Carmen worked had been murdered,and her husband is also abusive, the records state.

Under the fast-track removal system, created in 1996, asylum seekers are interviewed by to determine whether they have a “credible fear” of returning home. Those who pass get a full hearing in immigration court.

In June, Sessions vacated a 2016 Board of Immigration Appeals court case that granted asylum to an abused woman from El Salvador. As part of that decision, Sessions said gang and domestic violence in most cases would no longer be grounds for receiving asylum.

“The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim,” Sessions wrote at the time.

The ACLU lawsuit was filed on behalf of 12 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — three of them children — all of whom failed their initial “credible fear” interviews.

Two of the children and their mothers were deported before the suit was filed. None of the adults had been separated from their children as part of President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy.

The lawsuit says Sessions’s ruling, and updated guidelines for asylum officers that the Department of Homeland Security issued a month later, subject migrants in expedited removal proceedings to an “unlawful screening standard” that deprives them of their rights under federal law.

Asylum seekers previously had to show that the government in their native country was “unable or unwilling” to protect them. But now they have to show that the government “condones” the violence or “is completely helpless” to protect them, the lawsuit says.

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Here’s Tal Kopan’s report for CNN:

Judge blocks administration from deporting asylum seekers while fighting for right to stay in US

By Tal Kopan, CNN

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from deporting immigrants while they’re fighting for their right to stay in the US — reportedly excoriating the administration and threatening to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt.

DC District Judge Emmet Sullivan on Thursday agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union that the immigrants they are representing in a federal lawsuit should not be deported while their cases are pending.

During court, Sullivan was incensed at the report that one of the plaintiffs was in the process of being deported, according to The Washington Post. He threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt if his order wasn’t followed, the report added.

“This is pretty outrageous,” Sullivan said, according to the Post. “That someone seeking justice in US court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/09/politics/judge-halts-deportations-sessions/index.html

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Is a real judge finally going to hold America’s most notorious child abuser and scofflaw accountable? Is a strategy of sending DOJ lawyers into Article III Federal Courts to lie, misrepresent, obfuscate, and present largely frivolous legal positions finally going to backfire? Too early to tell, but this is a hopeful sign.

My recollection is that Judge Sullivan has always had a well-deserved reputation as a no-nonsense judge who demands the same professional performance from Government litigators as he does from the private bar. By contrast, I have previously pointed out how under Sessions DOJ lawyers too often conduct themselves in a flip and contemptuous manner that would have landed private lawyers in hot water. Things like falsely claiming that “there was no policy of family separation” when it was precisely what Sessions had created, as a deterrent, through his outlandish “zero tolerance” policy, and actually publicly bragged about.

That is, when Sessions wasn’t busy misrepresenting statistics, misapplying Biblical quotes, telling demonstrable lies (“asylum fraud is a major cause of eleven million undocumented individuals” — what a whopper!), and dehumanizing vulnerable asylum seekers and their families who are merely trying to get a fair chance to plead for their lives under US and international law. Or perhaps trying to promote a ludicrous fictional connection between Dreamer relief and genuine national security.

Hopefully, Judge Sullivan will continue to be outraged when he gets into the merits of the case and finds out just how Sessions has intentionally misconstrued asylum law, manipulated an agency that he de facto runs, and used CINO (“Courts In Name Only”) to deny Due Process, intentionally inflict misery, and impose potential death sentences on fine people, vulnerable human beings, many of whom deserve protection, not rejection, and all of whom deserve to be treated with respect and given a full chance to present their claims. I believe that the ACLU will be able to show Judge Sullivan how Sessions has arrogantly abused his authority and corrupted both the USDOJ and our entire justice system to advance his White Nationalist agenda.

The Government obviously knew that this mother and daughter were plaintiffs in this case. Their presence during litigation presented no threat whatsoever to the United States. The Government’s disingenuous, unnecessary, and contemptuous actions show exactly what kind of racial animus and disdain for human life and for the American justice system are behind Sessions’s actions. Let’s hope, for sake of our country and the innocent people he is harming, that Judge Sullivan finally holds “Scofflaw Sessions” accountable!

PWS

08-08-18

WHITE NATIONALIST ADMINISTRATION’S NEXT TARGET FOR ABUSE: LEGAL IMMIGRANTS! — PLUS, SESSIONS’S CONTINUING “DECONSTRUCTION” OF DUE PROCESS AND JUSTICE IN THE U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS!

Tal Kopan reports for CNN:

Sources: Stephen Miller pushing policy to make it harder for immigrants who received benefits to earn citizenship

By Tal Kopan, CNN

White House adviser Stephen Miller is pushing to expedite a policy that could penalize legal immigrants whose families receive public benefits and make it more difficult to get citizenship, three sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The White House has been reviewing the proposal since March at the Office of Management and Budget, which is the last stop for regulations before they are final. But concerns over potential lawsuits have delayed the final rule, and the draft has undergone numerous revisions, multiple sources say.

The crux of the proposal would penalize legal immigrants if they or their family members have used government benefits — defined widely in previous drafts of the policy.

The law has long allowed authorities to reject immigrants if they are likely to become a “public charge” — or dependent on government. But the draft rule in its recent forms would include programs as expansive as health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, as well as some forms of Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

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

Two non-administration sources close to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which would publish and enforce the proposal, say that Miller has been unhappy by the delay and has pushed the agency to finish it quickly. The sources say Miller even instructed the agency to prioritize finalizing the rule over other efforts a few weeks ago.

Miller is an immigration hardliner within the administration, a veteran of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Senate office who has been at President Donald Trump’s side since the early stages of his presidential campaign.

But two other administration sources downplayed the idea of any instructions to defer other policies until it’s done, though they acknowledged Miller is keenly interested in the rule.

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/07/politics/stephen-miller-immigrants-penalize-benefits/index.html

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Tal also highlights the continuing bias and political interference with the U.S. Immigration Courts under Sessions, spotlighting the continuing vocal public opposition of “Our Gang” of retired U.S. Judges, led in this case by Judge Jeffrey Chase, to the wanton destruction of Due Process in our Immigration Courts as well as the NAIJ, representing current Immigraton Judges (I am a member):

Immigrant ordered deported after Justice Department replaces judge

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Judge Steven Morley has overseen the immigration case of Reynaldo Castro-Tum for years. But last month when Castro-Tum was officially ordered deported, it wasn’t Morley at the bench.

Instead, the Justice Department sent an assistant chief immigration judge from Washington to replace Morley for exactly one hearing: the one that ended Castro-Tum’s bid to stay in the US.

The unusual use of a chief immigration judge from headquarters has raised concerns from retired immigration judges, lawyers and the union for active immigration judges. They say the move seems to jeopardize the right to a fair process in immigration courts.

It also highlights the unique structure of the immigration courts, which are entirely run by the Justice Department, and the ways that Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who serves as a one-man Supreme Court in these cases — has sought to test the limits of his authority over them.

The saga of Castro-Tum starts in 2014, when he crossed the border illegally as a 17-year-old. The Guatemalan teen was apprehended by the Border Patrol, which referred him to custody with the Health and Human Services Department as an unaccompanied minor. He was released to his brother-in-law a few months later and registered his brother-in-law’s address with the government. Multiple notices of court hearings were sent to that address, the government said.

But after the fifth time Castro-Tum failed to appear in court, immigration Judge Morley closed the case until the government provided him with evidence that Castro-Tum had ever lived at the address they were sending the notices to. The Board of Immigration Appeals sent the case back to Morley to reconsider with instructions to proceed even if Castro-Tum failed to show again. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Earlier this year, Sessions referred the case to himself and ruled that immigration judges across the board could no longer close immigration cases as they saw fit. The attorney general said immigration judges lack the authority to make such “administrative closures” of cases.

Sessions gave Morley 14 days to issue a new hearing notice to Castro-Tum. The Philadelphia-based immigration attorney Matthew Archambeault, who had begun following the case, appeared in court and volunteered to represent Castro-Tum, as well as to track him down. He asked the judge to postpone the case a bit longer to give him time to do that, which Morley granted.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/07/politics/immigration-judge-replaced-deportation-case-justice-department/index.html

ICYMI:

Trump nominates new ICE director:

http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/06/politics/ice-trump-vitiello/index.html

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Thanks, again, Tal, for your reporting and for all you do to expose the Administration’s daily scofflaw performances in mal-administering our immigration laws.

Folks, we are in a battle for the “hearts and minds of America.” Will we fulfill our destiny as a vibrant, diverse, creative “nation of immigrants?” Or, will be become a “shell of a nation” controlled by emotionally stunted, scared, White Nationalist bigots pursuing a philosophy of White racial favoritism, discrimination, persecution, and “beggar thy neighbor” economics.

The next election will be the test. Statistically, Trump’s White Nationalist Nation, pushing a platform of overt xenophobia and bigotry, does not represent the majority of Americans. But, they (with the help of their “fellow travelers” in the GOP) have seized effective control of our Government on many levels. Unless we dislodge them at the ballot box and take back America for the majority of us who neither are nor sympathize with White Nationalism, our nation may well be doomed to a gloomy future.

Get out the vote! Just say no to Trump, Sessions, Miller and their White Nationalist cronies!

PWS

08-08-18

SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: FEDERAL COURTS DELIVER “DOUBLE BODY SLAM” TO TRUMP & SESSIONS ON CHILD SEPARATION, DACA!

Judge slams Trump admin for suggesting ACLU, others should find deported parents

By Tal Kopan, CNN

A federal judge called the Trump administration’s slowness to track down migrant parents it had separated from their children and then deported “unacceptable,” saying the responsibility is “100%” on the government.

The stern admonishment from District Judge Dana Sabraw came a day after the administration argued that immigrant advocacy groups — not the government — should be responsible for tracking down the more than 500 parents it had separated from their children at the border and deported without them.

Sabraw said during a Friday phone hearing that if the government doesn’t track down the parents, it will have “permanently orphaned” their children.

“The reality is there are still close to 500 parents that have not been located, many of these parents were removed from the country without their child, all of this is the result of the government’s separation and then inability and failure to track and reunite,” Sabraw said.

“And the reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanent orphaned child, and that is 100% the responsibility of the administration,” he added.

Sabraw instructed the administration to name one or two officials to be a single point of command in the reunification effort, and to submit a detailed plan for how they will reunify children with parents either deported or, in a smaller number of cases, released into the US.

“In reviewing the status report it appears that only 12 or 13 of close to 500 parents have been located, which is just unacceptable at this point,” Sabraw said.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/trump-administration-aclu-deported-parents/index.html

Judge again says DACA must be restored

By Tal Kopan and Dan Berman

A federal judge on Friday again said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program should be fully restored.

Judge John Bates said the Trump administration still has failed to justify its proposal to end DACA, the Obama-era program that has protected nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation.

Bates agreed to delay his ruling for 20 days to give the administration time to respond and appeal, if it chooses.

More (being updated):http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/daca-ruling/index.html

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Basically the Administration is “flicking the middle finger” at Judge Sabraw and his family reunification order. And, they are also doing the same thing to Judge Bates by nonchalantly screwing 800,000 young people, American’s future, without providing any legal rationale.

As a former judge, I actually understand why these judges are letting this “roll off their backs” and focusing on making the Administration solve the problems they created. Judges have to be the “adults in the room” even in an Administration of infantile minds.

But, at some point, a lawyer like Sessions who thumbs his nose at judicial orders and fails to provide any legal support for a litigating position that affects 800,000 American residents should face disciplinary proceedings. Not only has the Administration’s response been unacceptable, but so has the professional and ethical performance of Sessions and his DOJ lawyers. What about “Bivens liability” for Sessions and other Administration officials who knowingly and intentionally violated Constitutional rights in the child separation program, had their attorneys lie to the court about the very existence of the policy, and refused to take responsibility for fixing it.

Perhaps when this is over. But, then again, maybe not.

PWS

08-03-18

TAL @ CNN: ADMINISTRATION PLANNING END RUN AROUND FLORES SETTLEMENT BY ISSUING NEW REGULATION!

White House reviewing plan to end court settlement on immigrant child detention

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The White House is reviewing a plan that could nullify a settlement that immigrant children that arrive with their families be released from custody within 20 days, a rule they have blamed for their separation of thousands of families at the border.

The action to finalize regulations on the topic, revealed in a government database, comes after repeated attempts to change the Flores Settlement Agreement have been resoundingly rejected by a federal judge and amid continuing fallout over the Trump administration’s related decision to separate families at the border.

The Trump administration has made the Flores settlement a frequent target of its ire — blaming the agreement for its decision to implement a policy at the border that resulted in thousands of families being separated. It has also repeatedly said only Congress can act to overrule the settlement. But lawmakers have shown little appetite to do so and have so far failed to pass any immigration legislation under this administration.

Key provisions of the agreement dictate minimum standards of care of immigrants in detention, as well as requiring that children who arrive with their families be released from custody within 20 days unless their parent agrees to them being held longer. But three weeks is faster than their immigration court cases can be processed, leading the Trump administration to complain the agreement forces them to either release the families together or separate them.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/02/politics/trump-administration-flores-settlement/index.html

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Sounds pretty scofflaw! Can they get with it?

Flores doesn’t purport to create Constitutional rights for the class members. Congress clearly could, and should, merely enact the Flores protections for children into statute. But, realistically, that’s not going to happen under Trump, and even if it did, Trump would undoubtedly veto it.

Conversely, perhaps Congress could overrule Flores by statute. But, if Flores turns out to be setting forth Constitutional minimum requirements, then the statute would be held unconstitutional. On the other hand, if no Constitutional issues are involved, Congress would be free to act. However, Congress hasn’t shown any enthusiasm for immigration legislation, particularly something as sensitive and potentially controversial as Flores.

Additionally, just because Congress could change the law doesn’t necessarily mean that the Administration could do so by regulation. Indeed, if the Administration could void a court-approved settlement simply by publishing a regulation, settlements with the Government would cease to have any meaning or enforceability.

Also, at the time of the original Flores settlement it seems to me that both parties and the court wisely wanted to avoid protracted litigation on the Constitutional question of long-term detention of children which had risks for both parties.

At a minimum, an attempt to “undo” Flores by regulation would allow the plaintiffs to raise the Constitutional issue in court. It’s seems to me that there must be some Constitutional limits on child detention. So, the Government could well end up enjoined to follow Flores while the litigation on the Constitutional question works its way up the system — a process likely to take until beyond 2020. I’d also say that the Administration’s stupidity and lawlessness on separating children from parents tends to make the “litigating context” very favorable for plaintiffs.

So, to me, it looks like another dumb, counterproductive, “in your face” move by the Trumpsters. But, that doesn’t mean they won’t try it. In fact, most of their so-called “litigating strategy” seems to fit this mold. It’s an Administration that has made immorality, lies, fraud, waste, and abuse of public resources the norm. However this issue comes out, that couldn’t bode well for the future of our country.

PWS

08-03-18

U.S. JUDGE BLASTS SESSIONS AGAIN FOR LAWLESS AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL ATTACKS ON “SANCTUARY CITIES,” As Reported By Tal @ CNN!

Judge strikes down law underpinning Sessions’ anti-sanctuary city push

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration were handed another stark defeat in their effort to punish sanctuary cities, with a judge declaring a law the administration had been relying on unconstitutional.

In a terse 58-page opinion, a Reagan-nominated district court judge thoroughly rebuked Sessions’ efforts to penalize sanctuary cities, saying efforts he has taken to impose immigration-related conditions on federal law enforcement grants are unconstitutional. The judge also called the underlying law that the administration has pointed to as justifying its efforts unconstitutional.

The ruling will only apply to the city of Chicago for now — but the judge said he intends for his ruling to apply nationwide.

Judge Harry Leinenweber had also previously temporarily blocked the grant conditions, which the appellate court upheld.

But now Leinenweber has gone even further — making his initial ruling permanent and going beyond it to strike down the underlying law, referred to as Section 1373.

The administration has pointed to the obscure law in all of its sanctuary city lawsuits, the vast majority of which it has lost. The law mandates that local governments share immigration status of individuals with the federal government.

The Justice Department has argued that law should be interpreted broadly to mandate cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. But citing a recent Supreme Court ruling, Leinenweber did the opposite — striking down the law itself as unconstitutional.

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/politics/trump-sessions-defeat-sanctuary-cities/index.html

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Not only is Sessions’s attack on “sanctuary cities” illegal, it’s also just plain bad law enforcement policy. Sessions is “poisoning the well” for needed cooperation between the Feds and locals on real law enforcement initiatives for many years to come.

PWS

07-27-18

TAL @ CNN: WHILE GOVERNMENT CLAIMS TO COURT THAT FAMILY REUNIFICATION HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL, IN FACT, THE SITUATION REMAINS A SELF-CREATED MESS, RIFE WITH UNNECESSARY CRUELTY, HEARTBREAK, UNFATHOMABLE CHOICES – The Ugliness Of What Trump & Sessions Have Done & How They Have Done It Will Haunt Our Country For Decades!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/separated-parents-facing-deportation/index.html

TAL REPORTS ON CNN:

Washington (CNN)What strikes Lauren Kostes is the silence.

“It’s just depressed silence. It’s a heartbreaking kind of silence,” she said.

It’s the moment when she tells an immigrant parent they are set to be deported and must choose whether to take their child with them.

Judge ahead of family reunifications deadline: Progress ‘remarkable’ but still ‘deeply troubling’

“They know that with this, their relationship with their child will be forever changed. And you can clearly see them going through every consequence in their head,” said Kostes, an immigration attorney with legal assistance foundation Florence Project.

Thursday marks a court-ordered deadline for the government to reunite families it separated at the border. Of the nearly 2,600 children the government identified as separated from their parents, more than 460 have parents who are likely to already have been deported without them, something the government says was done with the parents’ consent.

Of the ones still in the US, 900 are facing final orders of removal that could result in them being deported as soon as the federal judge in the reunions lawsuit lifts a temporary hold he put on deporting separated families.

Even before the Trump administration deployed a policy that separated those thousands of immigrant families at the US border, immigration attorneys have at times had to inform clients that their children may have stronger claims to stay in the US than they do as a family. For some families, leaving the child behind is the only way they see to save that child’s life.

Migrant women remain in legal limbo while waiting to see their children

Under normal circumstances, that’s a difficult decision. So the American Civil Liberties Union is asking the judge to give parents seven days after reunification to make the decision, given the added trauma and confusion caused by the separation in the first place, as a part of the lawsuit it brought over the separations.

Audio obtained exclusively by CNN of mothers appearing in immigration court while separated from their children gives voice to the anguish they face. “I cannot continue with this anymore. What I want is to be with my son,” one woman pleads with the judge as he tries to conduct a hearing on whether she can pursue asylum in the US.

Those mothers were ordered deported by the judge but remain in the country, CNN confirmed. They have since been reunited with their children.

But for the parents facing deportation, in that moment, they are “thinking, ‘What does this mean? What does this mean for me, what does this mean for my child, what is the best decision?’ ” Kostes said. “It’s a silence of processing and working through every possibility.”

Separations lead to complicated court cases

When the administration began separating migrant families who had crossed the border without permission as part of its “zero tolerance” prosecution initiative, it split their immigration cases as well. Parents remained in detention near the border for the most part, moving rapidly through court dockets historically unfriendly to immigrants’ claims that found hundreds of them eligible for deportation. That process was only compounded by a reinterpretation of asylum law by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that made it nearly impossible for victims of gang and domestic violence to qualify for asylum in the US. Experts say that reversal has especially affected the Central American migrants who try to cross the southern border, thousands of whom cross each month.

Trump’s immigration policies were supposed to make the border safer. Experts say the opposite is happening.

The separated children were put into Health and Human Services custody and given their own court proceedings. Court settlements and anti-human-trafficking laws in the US also give children a different set of protections than families and adults have in the immigration system, generally meaning their court cases proceed much more slowly than their parents’ and giving them a better chance of qualifying for protections in the US.

Once the parent is given an order of deportation, they are presented with a form by the government, offering them to either be deported with their child or without.

The separation process is difficult for lawyers as well.

The ACLU has also argued that the separation has made offering legal advice to those families more complicated. Asylum claims require detailed evidence and testimony, and in some cases, the parent or child may have access to evidence the other does not. Parents are under extreme emotional distress during the separation, their attorneys say. Children, meanwhile, are given caseworkers, who may have worked with the child to determine possible claims they have in the US.

When they are reunited, there are other barriers to giving adequate legal advice. In a Wednesday court filing, the ACLU included an affidavit from Manoj Govindaiah of the nonprofit Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. He described reunited families being inseparable and deeply suspicious of anyone, even those purporting to help.

“In one case, we had been discussing the complicated procedural posture of the father’s and his son’s cases, that he had received a negative expedited removal order and was facing deportation, while his son could still apply for asylum. When he asked for clarification of what that meant, I explained that it could result in his son remaining in the United States without him. We could not complete our meeting because his crying prevented us from effectively discussing his legal case,” Govindaiah wrote.

As key deadline looms, court filings suggest the family separation crisis isn’t over

Kostes said she and her colleagues will often have to counsel the parents over multiple visits regarding their options. The weight of the decision is often too much for one meeting, she said.

With separated parents in particular, she said, many have been asked to make this decision before they have seen their child and with little communication — at best.

“What we are seeing is the parents accept that for the child it’s best for them to stay here, but we’re hearing things like, ‘If they deport me, I just want to say goodbye to my child. I’ll accept deportation but I just want a chance to say goodbye,’ and that’s just really heartbreaking,” Kostes said.

A harrowing choice

Many thus far have opted to be deported alone.

Trump administration officials have portrayed the decision as an easy one. Asked by reporters about the potentially hundreds of parents deported without their children over the course of the zero tolerance policy, officials reiterated the parents had consented.

“Those individuals, as has always been our policy, were provided the opportunity to take their child with them pursuant to their removal. Those individuals declined to do so,” said Matthew Albence, chief of Enforcement and Removal Operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “They are not going to generally take that child back with them after they’ve accomplished their smuggling.”

“Why we’ve seen many of these parents who have been removed decline to take their child is because they completed the smuggling act,” he said in a different call. “That was the intended goal of their illegal entry in the first place.”

The parents for the most part have been charged only with misdemeanor illegal entry to the US, if anything, and not with smuggling.

Attorneys like Kostes, who works with the nonprofit immigrant assistance program the Florence Project, say the reality for these parents is much starker and more difficult.

Impact of Sessions’ asylum move already felt at border

For many Central Americans, the journey north is spurred by gang threats, according to experts and immigration advocates. In one example, Lenni Benson, a New York Law School professor who’s executive director of the legal assistance program Safe Passage Project, had a recent client on the border who was facing deportation and had to decide whether to take her 17-year-old daughter with her. CNN has agreed to withhold her identity for safety considerations.

The Central American migrant ran a small business back home with her daughter. As the business grew, the blocked-number calls started.

The gangs began to threaten and try to extort her. She changed her number. They found her again and kept calling. Then the gangs began telling the mom, a survivor of assault herself, what her daughter looked like and what time the girl would leave home in the morning.

The mother told Benson the gangs “said that ‘she would pay the price. And I know what they do to people,’ ” Benson recounted the woman telling her.

The mother did not tell her daughter about the threats, but they packed up and sneaked into the US. The two were held together in family detention, but Benson had to tell the mother that if she failed to convince the government to re-hear her plea for asylum, her daughter may have an independent claim because of the nature of the threats.

“It was horrible to say, as a lawyer, as a law professor, as a mother, as a human being,” Benson said. “I said to myself, ‘What would I do?’ I would do what parents have always done and said, ‘My child comes first.’ “

Most of the children whose parents opt to leave them in the US are older, usually 11 and up, Kostes said. They are also likely to have family in the US who can care for them.

CNN spoke with one woman, Jennifer, who was in detention awaiting reunification with her 6-year-old daughter. She has not yet been ordered deported, but said that if she had to make the choice, she would take her child. CNN agreed to identify her only by her first name.

The options parents facing deportation have after they’ve been separated from their kids

“It was a really hard decision to make. I was going to decide to take my child because I didn’t know what else to do,” Jennifer said of her decision to flee to the US, as translated by CNN. “Of course I would take her (if deported). I can’t leave her. … Thank God I didn’t have to make the decision.”

But Jennifer says she cannot go home to Honduras, where the gangs are threatening her family even after she tried to move to the mountains away from them. “The gangs are everywhere,” she added.

“For those who were going to leave their kids behind … they would do it for a better future for the child,” Jennifer said. “In Honduras, for real, there’s nothing there for them.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Lenni Benson is a professor at New York Law School.

CNN’s Nick Valencia and Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.

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And, as stories elsewhere have shown, these cruel, unnecessary, and downright idiotic policies are far from promoting effective law enforcement. In fact, Sessions has actually abused his power by making the border and the country less safe in almost every conceivable way!

I go back to Eugene Robinson’s key question: why are the wrong individuals in jail here? Why aren’t those in this Administration, like Sessions, who knowingly and intentionally created this mess being held accountable?

PWS

07-27-18

SESSIONS & TRUMP: MS-13’S BEST FRIENDS! – Tal Kopan @ CNN Confirms What I Have Been Saying All Along! – Administration’s “Gonzo” Immigration Enforcement Strengthens, Empowers, Emboldens Gangs While Harming Victims!

Trump admin was warned a policy change could strengthen MS-13. They did it anyway.

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration was warned that ending US protections for more than 300,000 Central Americans would strengthen and grow MS-13 and gangs that President Donald Trump has called “animals,” according to an internal report obtained by CNN.

But the administration went on to end the protections for citizens of El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua regardless.

The warnings came from experts at the State Department in October 2017, and were attached to a letter from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke.

The State Department also warned that ending the “temporary protected status” program could also hurt US national security and economic interests, including by driving up illegal immigration.

The program covers migrants in the US of countries that have been hit by dire conditions, such as an epidemics, civil war or natural disasters. Previous administrations spanning party had all opted to extend the protections for Central America every roughly two years.

“Many of the deportees would be accompanied by their US-born children, many of whom would be vulnerable to recruitment by gangs,” warned the section on Honduras.

“The lack of legitimate employment opportunities is likely to push some repatriated TPS holders, or their children, into the gangs or other illicit employment,” warned the section on El Salvador.

“With no employment and few ties, options for those returning to El Salvador and those overwhelmed by the additional competition will likely drive increased illegal migration to the United States and the growth of MS-13 and similar gangs,” the report added.

Trump has called MS-13 “animals.” “We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in. … You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals,” he said in May, later explaining he was speaking about the vicious gang.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/07/25/politics/trump-gangs-temporary-protected-status/index.html

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Once again, ignorant and biased Administration political officials ignore the advice of the Government’s own experts!

This article doesn’t even focus on another major way in which Trump & Sessions empower MS-13. By unnecessarily sowing terror in ethnic communities in the U.S., they are precluding cooperation with local police against gangs, making young people in the community “easy marks” for gangs, and by dehumanizing all migrants they are sending a strong message that a young person can only be empowered and respected by joining a gang. Not only that, but the perception of “Old Anglo White Guys” like Trump & Sessions in charge of the Administration’s anti-gang initiatives makes them totally ineffective.

Combatting gangs in a difficult problem that requires well-considered, nuanced solutions involving local police, educators, social workers, positive role models, and local communities, including both documented and undocumented community members.

We’ve proven over and over again that “deportation only” approaches not only don’t solve gang problems, but make them much worse. When policies are driven by racism, bias, and White Nationalism, the result is almost certain to be stupidity and futility.

PWS

07-25-18

TAL & CNN: LISTEN AS TRAUMATIZED MIGRANT MOMS BEG FOR THEIR LIVES AND THEIR CHILDREN IN IMMIGRATION COURT – BUT THERE IS NO MERCY, LAW, OR DUE PROCESS IN THE AGE OF SCOFFLAW CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS!

Exclusive: Listen to separated moms beg for their kids in court

By Tal Kopan and Nick Valencia, CNN

Washington (CNN)Newly obtained audio reveals the anguish of parents separated from their children, as it pours from them in immigration court while a judge finds them ineligible to stay in the United States.

In recordings of two court proceedings obtained by CNN, two women who have been separated from their children plead with an immigration judge to reunite them, as he asks them if they have any evidence to back up their asylum claims.

Their attorneys also ask the judge to give them another chance to make their cases, citing their mental health after the prolonged separation from their children.

In both cases, however, the judge denies the requests, and orders the women deported from the country. CNN has received permission from the women to share the audio of their hearings, but is not identifying them for their protection.

While the hearings are just two of thousands of similar proceedings regularly held across the country, they are an indication of the struggles of parents who have been separated from their children for weeks or longer in their quest to stay in the United States. Thousands of parents were separated from their children at the border under the Trump administration’s now-reversed “zero tolerance” policy that prosecuted all adults caught crossing the border illegally, including parents with their children.

Advocates for the immigrants broadly say the parents are being rejected for pursuing asylum at record numbers, in part because they are so distraught.

The hearings were conducted before Judge Robert Powell at the immigration court at the Port Isabel Detention Center on two separate days in July. During one of the hearings, the woman is audibly sniffling and distraught, telling the judge she feels too ill to continue. Neither lasts as long as 10 minutes.

“Well I’ll tell you what, ma’am, what I can do, I’ll put you on the back side of the calendar today, give you time to compose yourself,” Judge Powell tells her. “If you think you need to go to the medical unit, you can go to the medical unit. What do you want to do?”

“What I want is to be with my son,” the woman replies, via an interpreter.

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/exclusive-audio-separated-parents-in-court/index.html

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Obviously, no Due Process here!

No excuse for proceeding with a hearing of any type under these conditions! Is this how we want to be remembered? If not, what have you done today to promote “regime change” and to force both Congress and the Article III Courts to live up to their responsibilities and stop this abuse of our laws and our Constitution? This is a charade of a “court” system, in prisons, run by scofflaw child abuser Jeff Sessions and featuring some “judges” unwilling to stand up to his abuses and enforce Due Process (not to mention common sense, respect, and human decency).

These folks are entitled to fair access to counsel, a reasonable chance to prepare and document a case, and a fair and impartial judge. That’s not happening right now.

PWS

07-25-18

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