☠️⚰️💀GARLAND’S STAR CHAMBERS — “SLOW VIOLENCE” ON PEOPLE OF COLOR!🥵— Bias, Bad Law, Bungling Bureaucracy! — “Where Due Process Goes To Die!” 🤮 — Upcoming Book Will Expose Garland’s Lawless, Cruel, Inhumane “Court” System!

 

Slow Injustice @ EOIR
Garland’s approach to immigrant justice in his courts harkens back to “the bad old days.” Yet he remains impervious — and unaccountable!
The Wasp 1882-01-06 cover Slow but sure.jpg
Slow, but Sure. Cartoon depicts Lady Justice riding a tortoise, about to hang a man.
George Frederick Keller
Public domain

Dean Kevin Johnson @ ImmigrationProf Blog previews upcoming book by Professor Maya Pagni Barack:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/10/from-the-bookshelves-the-slow-violence-of-immigration-court-procedural-justice-on-trial-by-maya-pagn.html

Friday, October 21, 2022

From the Bookshelves: The Slow Violence of Immigration Court Procedural Justice on Trial by Maya Pagni Barak

By Immigration Prof

The Slow Violence of Immigration Court Procedural Justice on Trial by Maya Pagni Barak (forthcominng March 2023, NYU Press)

The publisher’s description of the book reads as follows:

“Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants are moved through immigration court. With a national backlog surpassing one million cases, court hearings take years and most migrants will eventually be ordered deported. The Slow Violence of Immigration Court sheds light on the experiences of migrants from the “Northern Triangle” (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) as they navigate legal processes, deportation proceedings, immigration court, and the immigration system writ large.

Grounded in the illuminating stories of people facing deportation, the family members who support them, and the attorneys who defend them, The Slow Violence of Immigration Court invites readers to question matters of fairness and justice and the fear of living with the threat of deportation. Although the spectacle of violence created by family separation and deportation is perceived as extreme and unprecedented, these long legal proceedings are masked in the mundane and are often overlooked, ignored, and excused. In an urgent call to action, Maya Pagni Barak deftly demonstrates that deportation and family separation are not abhorrent anomalies, but are a routine, slow form of violence at the heart of the U.S. immigration system.”

KJ

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The ongoing national disgrace called “EOIR” continues to mete out injustice and inane bureaucratic nonsense under a DEMOCRATIC Administration that pledged to return the rule of law and humanity to our broken Immigration Court system! 

That system is “headed and controlled” by a DEMOCRATIC AG, Merrick Garland. He is a former Federal Appellate Judge who certainly knows that what passes for “justice” in his broken “court” system is nothing of the sort! Also this ongoing debacle doesn’t say much good about Garland’s “lieutenants:” Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, Associate AG Vanita Gupta, Assistant AG for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, and Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

They have all “looked the other way,” defended, or failed to condemn this travesty undermining our entire justice system, unfolding under their collective noses at EOIR every day! At some point in the future, all these guys will be “making the rounds” of major law firms, NGOs, universities, mainstream media, and corporations — seeking to “cash in” on their DOJ “experience.” Then, folks should remember how they ACTUALLY PERFORMED (or didn’t) when they had a chance to fix “America’s worst courts” — hotbeds of racial and ethnic injustice, purveyors of bad law, and a haven for ridiculously dysfunctional procedures!

Perhaps a suitable future for these willfully blind “public servants” would be to require them to spend the balance of their careers practicing on a pro bono basis before the “star chambers” they inflicted on others! See how they like being “scheduled,” with no or inadequate notice, to do 15 or 20 asylum cases per month; appearing before too many ill-qualified “judges” who have already decided to deny regardless of the law and facts; appealing to a captive “appellate court” dominated by individuals, working for the Executive, whose main “judicial qualification” was that they denied close to 100% of the asylum claims that came before them in Immigration Court and were known for their rude and dismissive treatment of asylum applicants and their lawyers! See, e.g., “Confronting The American Star Chamber . . .,” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-4Vm.,

Here’s Professor Barak’s bio from the U of Michigan-Dearborn website:

Maya Barak, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Studies

Maya P. Barak
Maya P. Barak, PhD
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies
U. of Michigan -Dearborn
PHOTO: UM-D Websitew

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College-Wide Programs

mbarak@umich.edu

1070 Social Sciences Building | 4901 Evergreen Road | Dearborn, MI 48128

Personal Website

Teaching Areas: Arab American Studies, Criminology & Criminal Justice Studies, Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Women’s & Gender Studies

Research Areas: Capital Punishment, Criminal Justice, Criminology, Gangs, Immigrants / Crimmigration, Legal Sociology, Procedural Justice, State-Corporate Crime

Biography and Education

I am an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. I hold a PhD in Justice, Law and Criminology from American University (2016), an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Eastern Michigan University (2011), and a BA in Social Anthropology and Peace and Social Justice from the University of Michigan (2009). My research brings together the areas of law, deviance, immigration, and power, utilizing interdisciplinary approaches that span the fields of criminology, law and society, and anthropology.

Education

Ph.D. in Justice, Law and Criminology

Teaching and Research

Courses Taught

Selected Publications

Books

Gould, Jon B. and Maya Barak. 2019. Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America’s Death Penalty Lawyers. New York: NYU Press.

Selected Articles

Barak, Maya. 2021. “Can You Hear Me Now? Attorney Perceptions of Interpretation, Technology, and Power in Immigration Court.” Journal on Migration and Human Security (https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024211034740).

Barak, Maya. 2021. “A Hollow Hope? The Empty Promise of Rights in the U.S. Immigration System”/ “¿Una promesa vacía? La ilusión de “los derechos” en el sistema migratorio de los Estados Unidos.” Las Cadenas Que Amamos: Una panorámica sobre el retroceso de Occidente a todos los niveles.

Barak, Maya. 2021. “Family Separation as State-Corporate Crime.” Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime Vol. 2(2), 2021, pp. 109-121 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2631309X20982299). (2021 Outstanding Article or Book Chapter Award, Division of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, American Society of Criminology)

Barak, Maya, Leon, K., and Maguire, Edward. 2020. “Conceptual and Empirical Obstacles in Defining MS-13: Law-Enforcement Perspectives.” Criminology and Public Policy (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9133.12493).

Barak, Maya. 2017. “Motherhood and Immigration Policy: How Immigration Law Shapes Central Americans’ Experience of Family.” In Forced Out and Fenced In: Immigration Tales from the Field, edited by Tanya Golash-Boza. New York: Oxford University Press.

Advocates and all Americans committed to racial justice and equal justice under law need to keep raising hell — and supporting progressive candidates — until this horrible system is replaced by a real court system, with subject matter expert judges, totally focused on delivering due process, fundamental fairness, and best judicial practices to all!

What’s happening to individuals (fellow humans, “persons” under our Constitution) and their lawyers at EOIR is NOT OK, nor is it acceptable from a DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION!

Yeah, “there’s trouble, right here in River City!” And, it begins with “E,” ends with “R,” and rhymes with “EYORE!”

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-22-22

🛡⚔️⚖️🗽 ROUND TABLE ASSISTS FIGHT AGAINST “AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS” — Here’s Our Amicus Brief In Las Americas v. Trump! — With Thanks To Our Pro Bono Friends STOLL STOLL BERNE LOKTING & SHLACHTER P.C. in Portland, OR!

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

Excerpt:

The immigration court system lacks independence. An agency within the Department of Justice, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) houses the immigration court system, which consists of trial-level immigration courts and a single appellate tribunal known as the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Immigration judges, including appellate immigration judges, are viewed by EOIR “management” not as judges, but as Department of Justice attorneys who serve at the pleasure and direction of the Nation’s prosecutor-in-chief, the Attorney General.

As former immigration judges, we offer the Court our experience and urge that corrective action is necessary to ensure that immigration judges are permitted to function as impartial adjudicators, as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The INA and its implementing regulations set forth procedures for the “timely, impartial, and consistent” resolution of immigration proceedings. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1103, 1230; 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(1) (charging the Board with appellate review authority to “resolve the questions before it in a manner that is timely, impartial, and consistent with the [INA] and regulations”) (emphasis added); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.10(b) (similarly requiring “immigration judges . . . to resolve the questions before them in a timely and impartial manner”) (emphasis added).

Although housed inside an enforcement agency and led by the Nation’s chief prosecutor, immigration judges must act neutrally to protect and adjudicate the important rights at stake in immigration cases and check executive overreach in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Applying a detached and learned interpretation of those laws, judges must correct overzealous bureaucrats and policy makers when they overstep the bounds of reasonable interpretation and the requirements of due process.

Here’s the full brief:

Las Americas Amicus (full case)

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

As I often say, it’s an honor to be a part of this group with so many of my wonderful colleagues. It’s also an honor to be able to assist so many wonderful “divisions and brigades” of the New Due Process Army, like the SPLC and Immigration Law Lab.

Here’s another thought I often express: What if all of this talent, creativity, teamwork, expertise, and energy were devoted to fixing our broken Immigration Court System rather than constantly fighting to end gross abuses that should not be happening? There is a “systemic cost” to “maliciously incompetent” administration and the White Nationalist agenda promoted by the Trump kakistocracy!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-04-20

🛡⚔️👍🗽⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️FIGHTING THE STAR CHAMBER! — US District Judge Holds That Constitutional Challenge To Weaponized Immigration “Courts” Can Proceed! — “Both policies change the way immigration judges run their dockets and their courtrooms. Accordingly, Plaintiffs have at least sufficiently alleged that such docket management has practical consequence for parties or their attorneys.”

Melissa Crow
Melissa Crow
Senior Supervising Attorney
Southern Poverty Law Center
Tess Hellgren
Tess Hellgren, Staff Attorney and Justice Catalyst Legal Fellow

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

August 3, 2020

Contact: 

Marion Steinfels, marionsteinfels@gmail.com / 202-557-0430
Ramon Valdez, ramon@innovationlawlab.org / 971-238-1804

Federal Court Denies Government’s Motion to Dismiss in Immigration Court Case
Advocates’ challenge to immigration courts as “deportation machines”
moves forward; constitutionality of immigration court system at issue  

 

PORTLAND, OR – Immigrant rights advocates challenging the weaponization of the U.S. immigration courts applaud Friday’s late-afternoon ruling by the U.S. District Court of Oregon that their lawsuit, Las Americas v Trump, will move forward. The legal services providers, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Innovation Law Lab, and Santa Fe Dreamers Project (SFDP), working with Perkins Coie LLP for pro bono support, allege that the Administration has failed to establish an impartial immigration court as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Take Care Clause of the U.S. Constitution – weaponizing them into deportation machines against asylum seekers and other noncitizens – and asks the court to end the unlawful use of the courts to effectuate mass deportations instead of fair decisions.

 

In Friday’s order, the Honorable Karin Immergut denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case.   The district court rejected the government’s arguments, holding that all of the organizations’ claims could proceed, including their claim that the Attorney General has grossly mismanaged the immigration court system and weaponized the system against asylum seekers.

“This is a clear victory for everyone who has sought a fair hearing in immigration court, only to face a system plagued by rampant dysfunction and policies designed to subvert justice,” said Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “For asylum seekers and those who represent them, the current process is like playing Russian roulette. Despite the life-or-death stakes in these cases, there is little rhyme or reason to the court’s workings apart from prioritizing deportation at all costs.”

 

“Friday’s decision is an important milestone in our fight for a truly fair, transparent, and independent immigration court,” said Tess Hellgren, staff attorney with Innovation Law Lab. “Whether an asylum seeker wins or loses should not depend on the political whims of the President or Attorney General. ”

 

Not only does the Court’s decision confirm that the gross mismanagement of the immigration court system is subject to judicial review, it also recognizes that there may be important constitutional checks and balances on the power of presidential administrations to manipulate the immigration courts to achieve mass deportation.

“This win is incredibly validating. We often operate under the guise that the work we are doing is impossible,” said Linda Corchado, Managing Attorney of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. “We feel uplifted as we can take the giant step forward to tackle the system now, with everything we’ve got.”

 

“ASAP works with families across the United States and at the border who fled persecution and now face countless obstacles to seeking asylum in the U.S. immigration court system,” said Conchita Cruz, Co-Executive Director of ASAP. “This decision gets us one step closer to showing that the injustices of the U.S. immigration court system are not only wrong, but illegal. We stand with asylum seekers and immigrants’ rights advocates in bringing these abuses to light and demanding better from our government.”

 

The lawsuit, which was filed in December 2019, alleges President Trump, Attorney General Barr, and other members of the executive branch have failed to establish a fair immigration court system in which the plaintiff organizations can provide meaningful legal assistance to their asylum-seeking clients. The complaint outlines pervasive dysfunction and bias within the immigration court system, including:

  • The Enforcement Metrics Policy, , which requires immigration judges to decide cases quickly, at the expense of a fair process, in exchange for favorable performance reviews.
  • The “family unit” court docket, which stigmatizes the cases of recently arrived families and rushes their court dates, often giving families inadequate time to find an attorney and prepare for their hearings.
  • Areas that have become known as “asylum-free zones,” where virtually no asylum claims have been granted for the past several years.
  • The nationwide backlog of pending immigration cases, which has now surpassed 1 million — meaning that thousands of asylum seekers must wait three or four years for a court date.

In June 2019, Innovation Law Lab and SPLC also released a report, based on over two years of research and focus group interviews with attorneys and former immigration judges from around the country, documenting the failure of the immigration court system to fulfill the constitutional and statutory promise of fair and impartial case-by-case adjudication. The report can be accessed here: The Attorney General’s Judges: How the U.S. Immigration Courts Became a Deportation Tool.

 

The court’s opinion is HERE.

###

 

The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, see www.splcenter.org and follow us on social media: Southern Poverty Law Center on Facebook and @splcenter on Twitter.  

 

Innovation Law Lab, based in Portland, Oregon with projects around the country and in Mexico, is a nonprofit organization that harnesses technology, lawyers, and activists to advance immigrant justice. For more information, visit www.innovationlawlab.org.

 

The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) provides community support and emergency legal aid to asylum seekers, regardless of where they are located. ASAP’s model has three components: online community support, emergency legal aid, and nationwide systemic reform. For more information, see www.asylumadvocacy.org and follow us on social media at @asylumadvocacy on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

 

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

So, finally, the clear unconstitutionality of  “Star Chambers” run by a biased prosecutor who basically views himself as the personal lawyer for a racist xenophobic President is going to get some scrutiny, along with the beyond grotesque mismanagement of EOIR that has created a “backlog” that in all likelihood now exceeds 2 million cases. But, of course we don’t know, and may never know, the exact extent of the backlog because of 1) the notoriously defective record keeping at EOIR; and 2) the manipulation of and sometimes outright misrepresentation of data by the Trump Administration.

Thanks to SPLC and Innovation Law Lab for undertaking this long-overdue effort. And, special appreciation to my friends and New Due Process Army superstars Melissa and Tess.

Due Process Forever!🗽⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️

PWS

08-03-20

THE DAILY BEAST: “Trump Administration Has Turned Immigration Court Into ‘Public Health Hazard’” — As Federal Judges Dither & Wobble, Trump Regime Endangers Public Health! ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

Sam Brodey
Sam Brodey
Congressional Reporter
The Daily Beast
Scott Bixby
Scott Bixby
National Reporter
The Daily Beast

Sam Brodey & Scott Bixby report in The Daily Beast:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-has-turned-immigration-court-into-public-health-hazard

In a country ground to a standstill by the coronavirus pandemic, there is one place normalcy reigns: immigration courts.

Overburdened judges oversee packed proceedings; attorneys shuttle clients and paperwork from room to room, often with interpreters in tow; aspiring legal citizens, or at least residents, follow closely, sitting through hearings famously described as death-penalty cases held in a traffic court.

The courts, along with visa applications, detention hearings and other immigration related bureaucracy, are seemingly the lone part of the federal government still expected to function as if a global pandemic hasn’t upended nearly every facet of American life. But those tasked with keeping the machine running say that they have received little guidance about how to keep the system running in the era of social isolation, and even less protection despite fears that immigration proceedings put some of the most vulnerable people in the country in the impossible position of choosing between their health or their home.

The Trump administration has refused to allow immigration courts and visa hearings to comply with the same social isolation standards followed by nearly every other civil aspect of government, and has not allowed for previously scheduled hearings to be postponed. The administration has also issued little in the way of guidance for judges, immigration attorneys or immigrants, whose hearings—which often take years to schedule—directly conflict with stay-at-home orders across the county.

“The immigration court’s refusal to adopt policies that protect the health of respondents, lawyers, judges and immigration court staff during the current pandemic forces immigrant families and their lawyers to make an impossible decision: endanger public health or risk being deported,” said Nadia Dahab, senior litigation attorney at Innovation Law Lab, one of half a dozen immigrants-rights groups that on Friday filed an emergency order challenging the operation of immigration courts despite the crisis.

“We are in the middle of a global pandemic, but the immigration court system is continuing to operate as if it’s business as usual,” said Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “The government has turned the court system into a public health hazard.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link. 

With very few exceptions, deportations are hardly “essential” during a worldwide pandemic. Indeed, given that even asymptomatic individuals can and have spread the disease, deportation will certainly spread the risk to other countries that likely won’t be able to control it. 

There is currently no cure, no vaccine, and no known way of controlling the coronavirus other than staying home. While this well-known information might have gone over the heads of EOIR and Article III Judges, you really wouldn’t need a law degree of even be very smart to figure out that Immigration Courts and the DHS Gulag need to be shut down. Now! No Article III Judge would actually want to trust his or her life to operating under the messed up “guidelines” issued by EOIR! So why is it OK for others?

Statistics show that the longer we wait to keep everyone home, the more individuals who will die! Why is that such a hard concept for EOIR officials and Article III Judges to grasp? 

This is a time for “radical prudence” not “criminal recklessness.” The Government should have to demonstrate “clear and convincing” reasons and “best health practices” to go forward with any individual removal case during the pandemic.

Because so many Federal Judges have little understanding of what it means to appear in the Immigration “Courts” (which are not “courts” in any sense of the word) and because they use exceptionally  poor judgement in believing regime bureaucrats who have no credibility on issues of public health or anything else, over experts in the field, individuals will unnecessarily suffer and die.

At some point in the future, there will have to be an accounting for the whole mess that has been allowed to unfold as a result of Trump’s biased and irrational immigration policies. Examination of the unconscionably poor response by the Article III Judiciary must be part of that process. They are a key part of unnecessarily “endangering public health” as described in this article.

The Article III Judges we have now are what we have — they have life tenure. But, going forward we can do better — much better. And, our lives and the future of humanity will depend on it.

Due Process Forever! Better Judges For A Better Future! Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

PWS

04-02-20

 

CONFRONTING THE “AMERICAN STAR CHAMBER” — Innovation Law Lab, SPLC, CLINIC, & Others Force Article III Courts To Face Their Judicial Complicity In Allowing EOIR’s “Asylum Free Zones” & Other Human Rights Atrocities To Operate Under Their Noses

Tess Hellgren
Tress Hellgren
Staff Attorney/Fellow
Innovation Law Lab

My friend Tess Hellgren, Staff Attorney/Justice Catalyst Legal Fellow @ Innovation Law Lab reports:

 

Hi all,

 

As some of you are already aware, I am very pleased to share that Innovation Law Lab and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit this morning challenging the weaponization of the nation’s immigration court system to serve the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.  More information is available below and at http://innovationlawlab.org/faircourts/.

 

I would like to thank all of you again for participating in our IJ roundtable and sharing your experiences for our report on the immigration court system (you will see a reference to it in our press release below). The insights we gained over the course of that report were vital in helping us identify and understand the problems in the immigration courts under the current administration.

 

Sincerely,

 

Tess

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 18, 2019

 

Contact:
Marion Steinfels, marionsteinfels@gmail.com / 202-557-0430

Ramon Valdez, ramon@innovationlawlab.org / 971-238-1804
Immigration Advocates File Major Lawsuit Challenging

Weaponization of the Nation’s Immigration Court System

Advocates Launch Immigration Court Watch App to Ensure

Greater Accountability, Transparency in Courts

 

WASHINGTON, DC – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Innovation Law Lab (Law Lab),  Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) and Santa Fe Dreamers Project (SFDP) have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the weaponization of the nation’s immigration court system to serve the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

 

“Under the leadership of President Trump and the attorney general, the immigration court system has become fixated on the goal of producing deportations, not adjudications,” said Stephen Manning, executive director of Innovation Law Lab. “The system is riddled with policies that undermine the work of legal service providers and set asylum seekers up to lose without a fair hearing of their case.”

 

The complaint outlines pervasive dysfunction and bias within the immigration court system, including:

 

  • Areas that have become known as “asylum-free zones,” where virtually no asylum claims have been granted for the past several years.
  • The nationwide backlog of pending immigration cases, which has now surpassed 1 million — meaning that thousands of asylum seekers must wait three or four years for a court date.
  • The Enforcement Metrics Policy, implemented last year, which gives judges a personal financial stake in every case they decide and pushes them to deny more cases more quickly.
  • The “family unit” court docket, which stigmatizes the cases of recently arrived families and rushes their court dates, often giving families inadequate time to find an attorney and prepare for their hearings.

 

“The immigration courts make life-and-death decisions every day for vulnerable people seeking asylum – people who depend on a functioning court system to protect them from persecution, torture, and death,” said Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “While prior administrations have turned a blind eye to the dysfunction, the Trump administration has actively weaponized the courts, with devastating results for asylum seekers and the organizations that represent them.”

 

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of six legal service providers whose work for asylum seekers has been badly impaired as a result of the unjust immigration court system.

 

“As the political rhetoric surrounding immigrants has become sharper, we’ve noticed a decline in the treatment our clients receive in immigration court,” said Linda Corchado, Director of Legal Services, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. “While asylum seekers are entitled to a full and fair hearing, their proceedings are too often rushed, and judges deny our requests for time to properly prepare their cases and collect and translate crucial evidence from across the world.”

 

In addition to filing on behalf of their own organizations, plaintiffs include Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) and Santa Fe Dreamers Project (SFDP).

 

The complaint can be viewed here and here: http://innovationlawlab.org/faircourts.

 

In an effort to ensure greater transparency and accountability in the nation’s immigration courts, Innovation Law Lab also announced the full launch of an Immigration CourtWatch app, which enables court observers to record and upload information on the conduct of immigration judges.

 

The new tool allows data on immigration judge conduct to be gathered and stored in both individual and aggregate forms. This will provide advocates with valuable information to fight systemic bias and other unlawful court practices. This data can be used to bolster policy recommendations, along with advocacy and legal strategies.

 

Advocates, attorneys and other court watchers are encouraged to download and access the app available here: http://innovationlawlab.org/courtwatch.

In June, Law Lab and SPLC released a report, based on over two years of research and focus group interviews with attorneys and former immigration judges from around the country, on the failure of the immigration court system to fulfill the constitutional and statutory promise of fair and impartial case-by-case review. The report can be accessed here: The Attorney General’s Judges:  How the U.S. Immigration Courts Became a Deportation Tool.

###

 

The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, see www.splcenter.org and follow us on social media: Southern Poverty Law Center on Facebook and @splcenter on Twitter.  

 

Innovation Law Lab, based in Portland, Oregon with projects around the country and in Mexico, is a nonprofit organization that harnesses technology, lawyers, and activists to advance immigrant justice. For more information, visit www.innovationlawlab.org.

 

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

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Director, Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.

 

And, here’s a statement in support of this much-needed litigation action from my distinguished Round Table colleague Judge (Ret.) Ilyce Shugall:

 

These were my remarks during the press conference:

 

I am Ilyce Shugall, a former immigration judge.  I became an IJ in 9/2017 and resigned in 3/2019.  I was sworn in by then-Chief IJ Mary Beth Keller.  She has also resigned.  I swore to uphold the constitution at my investiture.  When the administration made it impossible to continue to do so, I resigned.

 

I defended immigrants in immigration court for 18 years before I became an immigration judge, so I understood the inherent problems and limitations on judicial independence in a court system housed inside the Department of Justice, a prosecuting arm of the executive branch.  However, as Melissa said, this administration’s policies have entirely eroded what independence and legitimacy remained in the immigration court system.

 

As an immigration judge, I watched independence being stripped from the judge corps on a regular basis.  The attorney general ended administrative closure, taking away a vital docketing tool from the judges, while simultaneously contributing to the court’s ever-growing backlog.  The attorney general also significantly limited the judges’ ability to grant continuances.  Then, the attorney general and EOIR director implemented performance metrics which required judges complete 700 cases per year and created time limits on the adjudication of cases.  And this was only the beginning.  These policies have had a drastic impact on those appearing in immigration court, particularly those fleeing horrific violence who have been preventing from effectively presenting their cases.

 

New policies, memoranda, and regulations are being published regularly by this administration. Each one, an attack on the system, and each one with the goal to eliminate due process and expedite deportations.  I hope this lawsuit will eventually lead to a truly independent immigration court system, where judges can uphold their oaths and therefore immigrants receive the due process they are entitled and deserve.

 

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

 

Every one of us in America is entitled to Due Process; every day, vulnerable asylum applicants and other migrants are being dehumanized and denied their Due Process rights by an ridiculously unconstitutional Immigration “Court” system operating with the complicity of life tenured Federal Judges, all the way up to the Supremes, who are failing to live up to their oaths of office.

 

The grotesque, constant, open abuse of the legal and constitutional rights of the most vulnerable among us threatens the rights of each of us, including those individuals responsible for putting the Trump regime in power, maintaining it, and the Article III judges who are failing to stand up to the regime’s unconstitutional cruelty and mocking of our the rule of law. Enough! It’s long past time for the Article IIIs to live up to their responsibilities and stand up for the victims of tyranny!

The case is

LAS AMERICAS IMMIGRANT ADVOCACY CENTER, et. al v. TRUMP  (D OR)

Due Process Forever; Complicit Courts Never!

 

PWS

 

12-18-19