"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Welcome back, friends. To celebrate the end of the week and the start of the weekend, I am sending you my personal list of Five Things You Might Have Missed. For this issue, I draw from my bucket of many (many) things that I read or saw during the week and share them with you.
Justice Department Silences Immigration Judges
Biden Refers to Immigrants as “Illegals”
How Does Asylum Work Right Now?
The Migrant’s Journey by Adam Isacson
Talking About Immigration in an Election Year
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Thanks, my friend! 🙏 Read Austin’s complete rundown at the above link!
My favorite quote is from John Washington’s article, #3 on Austin’s list:
In fiscal year 2023, 99.5 percent of all people whose asylum cases were decided by immigration judges showed up to court for their hearings, according to data compiled by Human Rights First. Unlike citizens, people seeking asylum are not entitled to attorneys at government expense. That means that people either pay out of pocket, find willing attorneys to help them pro-bono, or represent themselves in court. According to a January report, only 30% of people in removal proceedings — which means the government is trying to deport them — are represented by attorneys. A 2023 study from Migration Policy Institute shows that having representation improves efficiency, lowers the costs of public resources expended and, for the migrants in court, decreases their chances of being deported.
“The immigration system has been pretty broken— backlogged and needing reform — for 20 years,” [Yael] Schacher [Director of Americas and Europe for Refugees International] said.
Though there are major delays, the overwhelming majority of asylum-seekers follow the system as it is currently functioning, Schacher said.
Yael Schacher Historian Director of Americas & Europe for Refugees International
Not only does this cogently refute the restrictionist myth of asylum seekers “gaming” the system, peddled by politicos of both parties yet primarily a GOP talking point, but it points to what should be the real target of reform! Obviously, what’s actually needed here is professionalization, quality control, innovation, increased staffing, and, perhaps most of all, dynamic, expert, due-process focused leadership in the USG’s asylum adjudication and resettlement programs, with a focus on dramatically increasing representation and orientation resources!
Instead, politicos and pundits focus on eliminating the system, rather than fixing it! It’s basically a cowardly attempt to “destroy evidence” of USG misfeasance and incompetence! At the same time, it would unfairly punish the victims of our Government’s systemic failures.
The political response by both parties is totally irresponsible (not to mention immoral) as well as demonstrably unworkable. Yet, so-called “mainstream media” figures are so ill-informed and disinterested in the human trauma and realities of asylum, migration, and the border, that they present the one-sided, nativist nonsense spouted by both parties as a “debate.” It isn’t! Neither party is interested in actually fixing the problems at the border — just in finger-pointing, posturing, and shifting blame for perceived political gain!
When we entered the garden, Tomás’s face relaxed. We were at the Casa de la Misericordia de Todas las Naciones in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, where he had resided for six months with his wife, Cristina, and three children. Before we entered the garden, Cristina and Tomás told me that a criminal group had abducted their 20-year-old son, Carlos, in the small rural community where they lived in the mountains of the Mexican state of Guerrero. Carlos returned to the family, but they knew he was under threat, that the whole family was in danger. As we spoke under the shade of a large tree, children raced around and played on a swing set in front of a yellow building that housed primarily mothers with young children. About 120 people, including entire families, were staying at this shelter, which was designed for people seeking asylum. Cristina did most of the talking, but at the end Tomás asked me if I wanted to see the garden. Cristina had to return to the kitchen, which was her responsibility this week. For his part, Tomás had been the encargado of the garden, in charge of it, he told me, since they arrived.
He showed me the radishes, the calabazas, the zanahoria. He showed me what remained of the tomatoes and chiles that got blasted by the cold. He showed me the lombrices, earthworms burrowing in the composting soil topped with banana peels. As he showed me all the plants, Tomás talked about how much he loved farming, how much he loved planting seeds, how much he liked caring for these plants and watching them grow. In Guerrero he had tended his milpa (small parcel of land) of squash, beans, and corn every day. As he spoke, I tried to envision his rural mountain community; over the years I have met many campesinos, small farmers, across southern Mexico, in his state of Guerrero, in Oaxaca, in Chiapas. Having knelt in the soil of the milpas before, I understood how this small garden in Nogales was like a sanctuary, especially in the face of a scary situation, as Cristina and Tomás had told me, away from home, away from your roots, your child’s life in danger, wondering if you would get asylum. When they arrived six months earlier, they applied for asylum on the glitchy, confusing, and difficult-to-use CBP One app with the help of staff at the Casa, a service they offer to all people staying in the shelter. Tomás told me that when things got stressful, “I come here to the garden. And the stress goes away.” He made a motion with his hand. His hand then touched the soil, searching for the plants. He looked up, and his face was serene.
From where we talked in the garden, we had a sweeping view of Nogales. The Casa is perched on a hill above a working-class neighborhood called Bella Vista, where the bustle often starts in the early morning as maquila workers head to the factories. For line workers making Samsonite suitcases, General Electric lightbulbs, or Masterlocks, the wages are a pittance—giving Nogales a feel of a city in constant strain and struggle.
Also, from the Casa you can look north toward the border with Arizona. Last Thursday, President Joe Biden and Donald Trump came to the border in “dueling visits,” but in faraway Brownsville and Eagle Pass, Texas. People like Tomás and Cristina and family were in the news again, not as their full human selves but as flat numbers and statistics. The “narrative of overwhelm,” as Erika Pinheiro put to The Border Chronicle in an audio interview, was full steam ahead. Alarmist rhetoric filled the airwaves, including the omnipresent “record numbers” of people crossing in every report. In Brownsville, in a proposal that might have seemed like fiction if we went back in time to the 2020 campaign, Biden challenged Trump to “show a little spine” and help him tighten the border by supporting the enforcement-heavy border bill shot down by the Senate in early February. For Trump’s part, he referred to people crossing the border as the “Joe Biden invasion”and as a “vicious violation to our country.” At this point in a heating-up U.S. presidential campaign, the age-old depiction of migrants as either dangerous or a mass of faceless numbers arriving to the benevolent U.S. doorstep was in full effect. More enforcement, both sides were clearly stating, was the solution.
Tomás knelt down to the soil. He showed me the garlic and onions he had planted as an experiment. “Do you want to try a radish?” he asked me in Spanish. “Yes,” I said, “please.” He plucked a radish out of the soil. I wiped off the soil and took a bite. I don’t know if it was because I was hungry (I was), or if it was the force of the stories Tomás and Cristina had shared (probably that too), or just watching Tomás work the soil, tenderly touch the plants, his face soft and concentrated, the perils of asylum-seeker limbo temporarily forgotten, that I knew that this type of care would render something delicious. The radish was so succulent that I finished it too quickly, but I was too bashful to ask for another, even though I wanted one. We could still hear the voices of playing kids coming up from below; there were people from all over Mexico, from Central America, from Peru, Colombia, and from across the world like China, Iran, and Senegal. Before talking with Tomás and Cristina, I visited the tortillería, where three young men worked making tortillas. I visited a workshop where people made weavings and other art projects.
I visited a gigantic bread oven—where people from different countries baked bread in their own traditions, and I visited the kitchen and dining room where banners celebrating the Chinese New Year hung from the walls. One new year celebratory sign read in English, “Be patient, Be light, Be love, Be you!” Another read in Spanish, “La amabilidad es la llave de todas las fortunas” (Friendliness is the key to all fortune).
The shelter is run by its director, Alma Angélica Macías, but the effort was a community one, and a binational one. I was there with a small group of people from the Good Shepherd UCC church in Arizona who bring food to the Casa every Thursday. And given that the shelter allows people to stay as long as the asylum process takes, the Casa had a feel of a multinational hub where people of different nationalities had formed deep bonds, and as I stood there with Tomás, I was moved by this beautiful, alternative view of the border that rarely sees the light of day in the media.
Right as I was about to leave the garden, Tomás’s 20-year-old son came to ask him a question. Tomás introduced me to Carlos, and as I looked into his young face, I remembered the threats to his life that had led them there. As I stood waiting, they talked among themselves, and I thought again about the presidential race, the constant push for more border enforcement, the rightward drift of that debate, the talk that the U.S. government was going to clamp down even harder on asylum seekers—all while watching the father and son talk in calm, sweet tones in that lovely garden. When they were finished, there was a pause. One last moment to take in the garden and the sweeping view around us. I used the pause to thank Tomás for showing me the garden, for showing me his gift with the land. I didn’t know what to say except that I thought it was beautiful and that I felt inspired. And then—after a quick, tender, and vulnerable look to young Carlos, who was still by his side—Tomás told me, as if he didn’t want to have to say it, “I hope they give us asylum.”
*For the story, I altered the names of the family from Guerrero at the request of the shelter.
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Click the above link for the original article with Todd’s wonderful border photography!
As I often say, we can diminish ourselves as a nation, (as both Trump and Biden are doing with their “misleading dehumanizing rhetoric” and spineless “scapegoating”), but it won’t stop human migration. Dehumanization and victimization in the end highlight the humanity of the victims while diminishing the dehumanizers.
Notably, this family has spent months trying “to do things the right way” by scheduling an appointment through the woefully inadequate “CBP One App” and appointment system. Yet, it appears that they have not even been given the interview to which they are entitled by law, nor have they been given a date for the fair merits adjudication they deserve!
The immense backlogs that everyone complains about (and which actually hurt legitimate asylum seekers like Tomás and his family) are largely self-created by years of USG over-investment in ridiculously expensive and ultimately ineffective enforcement accompanied by grotesque “under-investment” in timely, professional, and humane screening and adjudication of claims.
Both Biden and Trump know or should know that “the app” and the system it engenders are hopelessly defective. Yet, rather than moving to fix it (Biden) or urging supporters to invest in fixing it (Trump), both candidates shamelessly dump on the victims of their joint misfeasance and urge “further punishment” of those victims, apparently to “CTAs” for their own legal and moral failures.
Such is the “bogus border debate” — actually not a “debate” but rather a “one-sided nationalistic lie-fest” highlighted by obscene finger-pointing and journalistic malpractice on a catastrophic scale. All this happens with human lives and the very future of our democratic republic hanging in the balance!
Eventually, the judgement history on this disingenuous “bipartisan exercise in neofascism” will fall on the shameless politicos, the complicit media, and those who fail to call them out for their lies and misdeeds. Whether that judgement will come in time to save Tomás, Cristina, Carlos, and others like them seeking only justice and humanity from our nation is a different question. Like Tomás, one can only hope!
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A 53-year-old union of immigration judges has been ordered to get supervisor approval to speak publicly to anyone outside the Justice Department, potentially quieting a frequent critic of heavily backlogged immigration courts in an election year.
The National Association of Immigration Judges has spoken regularly at public forums, in interviews with reporters and with congressional staff, often to criticize how courts are run. It has advocated for more independence and free legal representation. The National Press Club invited its leaders to a news conference about “the pressures of the migrant crisis on the federal immigration court system.”
The Feb. 15 order requires Justice Department approval “to participate in writing engagements (e.g., articles; blogs) and speaking engagements (e.g., speeches; panel discussions; interviews).” Sheila McNulty, the chief immigration judge, referred to a 2020 decision by the Federal Labor Relations Authority to strip the union of collective bargaining power and said its earlier rights were “not valid at present.”
The order prohibits speaking to Congress, news media and professional forums without approval, said Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, an umbrella organization that includes the judges’ union. He said the order contradicted President Joe Biden’s “union-friendly” position and vowed to fight it.
“It’s outrageous, it’s un-American,” said Biggs. “Why are they trying to silence these judges?”
. . . .
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Read the complete article at the above link.
Ukase Public Domain
Courtesy of my friend Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis, here’s the text of what is being called the “McNulty Ukase:”
From: Chief Immigration Judge, OCIJ (EOIR) Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2024 11:53 AM To: Tsankov, Mimi (EOIR) ; Cole, Samuel B. (EOIR) Cc: Weiss, Daniel H (EOIR) ; Luis, Lisa (EOIR) ; Young, Elizabeth L. (EOIR) ; Anderson, Jill (EOIR) <
Subject: Public Engagements and Speaking Requests
Dear Judges Cole and Tsankov:
From recent awareness of your public engagements, I understand you are of the impression that your positions in the group known as the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) permit you to participate in writing engagements (e.g., articles; blogs) and speaking engagements (e.g., speeches; panel discussions; interviews) without supervisory approval and any Speaking Engagement Team review your supervisor believes necessary. The agency understands this is a point of contention for you, but any bargaining agreement related to that point that may have existed previously is not valid at present. Please consider this email formal notice that you are subject to the same policies as every EOIR employee. To ensure consistency of application of agency policies—and prevent confusion among our staff—please review the SET policy and work with your supervisor to ensure your compliance with it, effective immediately.
Thank you,
Sheila McNulty
Chief Immigration Judge
Executive Office for Immigration Review • Department of Justice
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It’s perhaps no surprise. EOIR is a badly failing agency with an incredible ever-growing backlog of over 3 million cases, no plan for reducing it, antiquated procedures, a disturbing number of questionably-qualified judges (many holdovers from the Trump era), grotesque decisional inconsistencies, poor leadership, a tragic record of ignoring experts’ recommendations for improvements, and that produces a steady stream of sloppy, poorly-reasoned, or clearly erroneous decisions on the “nuts and bolts” of asylum and immigration law that are regularly “roasted” by Circuit Judges across the political spectrum.
In this context, their desire to strangle criticism from those actually trying to provide justice and due process, against the odds — the sitting Immigration Judges who see the management and systemic problems on a daily basis — is perhaps understandable, if not defensible.
At least where immigration is involved, the Biden Administration’s rhetoric and promises on being “labor friendly” and supportive of Federal workers is unfortunately reminiscent of its pledge to treat asylum seekers and immigrants fairly and humanely and to distance themselves from the racially-driven xenophobic policies of the Trump Administration.
While the NAIJ may be “gagged,” the fight about working conditions and the unrelenting dysfunction at EOIR is far from over!
Sources close to the NAIJ’s parent union, the IFPTE, tell me that the “campaign to call out this atrocity” is “just getting started.”
In statement issued yesterday, IFPTE President Matt Biggs expressed outrage and raised the possibility that the Administration could face tough Congressional questioning on the gag order, which also applies to communications with legislators and legislative staff:
“Just because a highly partisan decision by the FLRA’s board, that is likely to be reversed, limited NAIJ’s ability to collectively bargain, doesn’t mean that NAIJ and its national union IFPTE can’t meet and confer with the DOJ, provide legal services to our members, have officers serve on professional committees, speak to the media, offer training and other services a union provides,” says Biggs. “In fact, for the past four years, NAIJ, with assistance from IFPTE, has provided all of that. We give judges a voice. Judge Tsankov regularly speaks to reporters and recently testified before Congress. This is an attempt to limit what the press and public know by placing a gag over the mouths of the judges on the front lines. The only thing that has changed in the past four years is an overreach by a federal bureaucrat.”
NAIJ has repeatedly sounded the alarm on the size of the backlog, the need for translators, raised courtroom security concerns and other issues related to immigration adjudication. It has been a strong advocate for judicial independence and questioned why the immigration courts are attached to the Department of Justice, rather than being placed in an independent agency. The National Press Club recently invited both Tsankov and Cole to speak at a news conference on “the pressures of the migrant crisis on the federal immigration court system.”
“We believe that this order and un-American, anti-union act of censorship by McNulty will lead to Congressional hearings,” said Biggs. “Until this matter is resolved, the judges’ national union, IFPTE, will act as the voice for the immigration judges. McNulty may try, but the nation’s immigration judges won’t be silenced.”
As noted by Biggs, over the years, NAIJ leadership has frequently been asked to testify before Congress and meet with staff as an independent counterpoint to the “party line, everything is under control” nonsense that has become a staple of DOJ politicos and EOIR bureaucrats in administrations of both parties in dealing with the Hill as the backlog continued to explode in plain view!
Although the Biden Administration has curiously shown little hesitation in throwing asylum seekers, human rights, and advocates who were a key support group in 2020 “under the bus” in an ill-advised attempt to “out-Trump-Trump” on stupidity and inhumanity at the border, the IFPTE could be a different animal. Representing more than 80,000 government professionals, the union endorsedBiden/Harris in 2020.
With a hotly-contested, close election underway, Biden can ill-afford to alienate more key support groups, particularly among organized labor. Why the “geniuses” in the White House and the Biden/HarrisCampaign think that going to war with your base is a great, “winning” strategy, is beyond me! Even Donald Trump recognizes the benefit of energizing behind him a loyal and committed (although horribly misguided) “base!”
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Tellingly, and illustrating this issue’s cosmic importance, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance just released its blockbuster report documenting systemic racism at EOIR entitled “The System Works As Designed: Immigration Law, Courts, & Consequences” —
This report is based on the experiences of immigrants, lawyers, and immigration court observers, as well as external research. “The System Works as Designed” reveals how U.S. immigration laws, and the courts themselves, were planted on a foundation of white supremacy, power imbalance, and coercive control. For those reasons, they fail to protect human dignity and lives on a daily basis.
While the operations of the immigration courts have frequently been ignored, their outcomes could not be more consequential to immigrants and their loved ones. This report lifts the curtain.
Racism in Immigration Law and Policies
It is clear from the congressional record, and laws themselves, that the Chinese Exclusion Act, Undesirable Aliens Act, Immigration and Nationality Acts of 1924 and 1952, and other laws played on racial and ethnic stereotypes to limit mobility and long-term settlement of non-white immigrants.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 attempted to address some imbalances, but the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act basically broke the already contradictory set of laws, making them a landmine for immigrants attempting to seek safety or build new lives here. The REAL ID Act and other post-9/11 laws and policies tightened the vise.
Policy choices made by presidents from every modern administration have attempted to coerce, repress, and reject migration, a basic human survival act, instead of building safe paths people can use.
Death Penalty Consequences, Traffic Court Rules
The U.S. immigration courts were designed to offer the illusion of justice, while failing the people they purport to protect. Dysfunctional elements include:
A quasi-judicial structure that answers to the U.S. Attorney General in the Executive Branch and is not an independent judiciary; is blatantly influenced by ideology; and promotes quantity over quality decision making.
Power imbalances, such as the fact that the government is represented by attorneys 100% of the time, while immigrants often argue their cases without a legal guide. Detained immigrants are forced to “attend” their hearings via grainy video feed, while judges and counsel are together in courtrooms miles away. Yet immigration judges frequently deny requests for expert witnesses to appear remotely, citing challenges with communication and credibility. The deck is stacked.
4
Also, by detaining someone in jail for the duration of their civil immigration case, the government makes it harder for them to get a lawyer to help. The government is also using the psychological, financial, and physical toll of detention to try to break someone’s spirits and get them to give up.
Subjective “credibility determinations,” rife for bias and abuse. A case can be denied based on a judge’s feeling about the immigrant’s testimony, not facts. This is the barn door through which all manner of ignorance, bias, and ideology storm in.
Legal landmines make it harder for people who qualify for asylum to receive it, such as the one-year filing deadline; illogical definition of material support to terrorism; and the Biden asylum ban.
Differing standards of accuracy. Immigrants may be furnished interpreters who speak the wrong dialect. Judges and DHS attorneys may make inaccurate statements about an individual’s evidence or the political conditions of their country. The hearing transcripts can be riddled with gaps instead of key facts. Yet life-altering decisions are made based on this record, and an immigrant has little to no opportunity to object, correct, or explain.
Consider the experience of M.D. a Black Mauritanian man seeking asylum in the U.S. after the late 1980s/early 1990s genocide. An immigration judge questioned his credibility because M.D. did not provide “evidence” that he is Black and Fulani, a persecuted group in Mauritania. M.D. addressed the court, speaking in Fulani, and said, “I am the evidence. I speak Fulani and I am Black.”
The English transcript of M.D.’s hearing is riddled with “(unintelligible)” in place of the names of relatives and locations where important events, such as the murder of his father, took place. There was an interpreter in the room who could have spelled the words out to make the record more accurate and credible. Instead, the record shows big holes in place of material facts, while M.D. was accused of not providing “proof” that he is Black, deemed not credible, denied asylum.
In another case, a Black man seeking asylum was found “not credible” because his interpreter first used the word “canoe” when describing his method of escape, and later said “little boat.” But in his language and, one can argue, in common English, they are the same thing.
Situations like these, memorialized in the case record, are carried into the appeals process where rehearings typically do not take place, compounding the injustices of these mistakes.
Many of the report’s observations echo some aspects my own writings and public speeches over the years since I retired from the bench in June 2016. For example, here’s my speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW“ from from an FBA Conference in Austin, Texas in May 2019:
While I was speaking during the Trump Administration, sadly, many of my observations remain equally true today, as the Biden Administration and AG Garland have quite inexcusably failed to rise to the occasion by instituting long-overdue due process and quality control reforms at EOIR. Yet, I am struck by how even then, as today, I found reasons to continue to be proud of the accomplishments of the “New Due Process Army” (“NDPA”) and to urge others to continue tobelieve that the “light of due process will eventually be relit” at EOIR and that history will deal harshly with the xenophobic urges and anti-asylum attitudes that too often drive policy in administrations of both parties:
Today, the Immigration Courts have become an openly hostile environment for asylum seekers and their representatives. Sadly, the Article III Courts aren’t much better, having largely “swallowed the whistle” on a system that every day blatantly mocks due process, the rule of law, and fair and unbiased treatment of asylum seekers. Many Article IIIs continue to “defer” to decisions produced not by “expert tribunals,” but by a fraudulent court system that has replaced due process with expediency and enforcement.
But, all is not lost. Even in this toxic environment, there are pockets of judges at both the administrative and Article III level who still care about their oaths of office and are continuing to grant asylum to battered women and other refugees from the Northern Triangle. Indeed, I have been told that more than 60 gender-based cases from Northern Triangle countries have been granted by Immigration Judges across the country even after Sessions’s blatant attempt to snuff out protection for battered women in Matter of A-B-. Along with dependent family members, that means hundreds of human lives of refugees saved, even in the current age.
Also significantly, by continuing to insist that asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle be treated fairly in accordance with due process and the applicable laws, we are making a record of the current legal and constitutional travesty for future generations. We are building a case for an independent Article I Immigration Court, for resisting nativist calls for further legislative restrictions on the rights of asylum seekers, and for eventually holding the modern day “Jim Crows” who have abused the rule of law and human values, at all levels of our system, accountable, before the “court of history” if nothing else!
Eventually, we will return to the evolving protection of asylum seekers in the pre-2014 era and eradicate the damage to our fundamental values and the rule of law being done by this Administration’s nativist, White Nationalist policies. That’s what the “New Due Process Army” is all about.
That brings me back to two of my “key takeaways” from the Ohio Immigrant Alliance Report.
First: “Withholding is a true limbo status, though better than being sent back to certain death.” Skillfully and aggressively using the system to save lives, in any way possible, is job one. A life saved is always a victory!
Second, as the report concludes:
Solutions exist, but they require policymakers and legislators to listen to the people with direct, personal experience. Ramata, cited earlier in this report, suggests quicker approval of cases found credible at the outset. Aliou wants judges to put more stock in migrants’ testimony, understanding that persecuting governments are not credible sources about their own abuse. Jennifer, one of the immigration lawyers we interviewed, suggested that Black immigrant organizations and the American Immigration Lawyers Association be involved in crafting a new direction, citing their extensive expertise with how the system works—and fails people.
Bill, another immigration lawyer interviewed for this report, suggests taking a page from the refugee resettlement program when it comes to verifying facts about a case. “Social workers and private investigators [could] interview people and research documents and try to … verify whether [they’re] telling the truth or not,” he said. Bill suggests employment counselors, ESL teachers, and others with specialized expertise could also assist in the processing of cases.
Most importantly, the asylum and immigration system must be reoriented toward prioritizing safety and resettlement, rather than deportation as the default outcome. The forthcoming report, “Behind Closed Doors: Black Migrants and the Hidden Injustices of US Immigration Courts,” will explore these and other solutions.
As I have observed many times, despite the “national BS” on asylum and immigration being traded by Trump and Biden, and the legislative gridlock, there are still plenty of readily available, non-legislative solutions out there that would dramatically improve due process, justice, and the life-saving capacity of the EOIR system. While no single one of them is a “silver bullet” that would solve all problems overnight, each is an important step in the right direction. Taken together, they would substantially improve the quality and quality of justice overall in our U.S. legal system and, perhaps, in the process, save our republic from demise.
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!
PWS
03-06-24
This article has been revised to include an excerpt from the IFPTE press release.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a proud retired member of the NAIJ.
Piper French reports for Intelligencer via Apple News:
Nilu Chadwick recognizes some of the children’s names right away. Chadwick, a lawyer for Kids in Need of Defense, has spent the past five years poring over lists of families separated under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy whose cases have yet to be resolved. Some of the children’s names stand out because she crossed paths with them back in 2018, when she represented them at their immigration hearings after they were torn from their parents’ side at the southern border. Those names always remind her of what she witnessed that year. The eerie silence of the children’s shelters. The kids so young that they couldn’t even explain who they were or where they came from. The hearing she had to pause in order to soothe a client with a nursery rhyme. Then there are the names that have simply grown familiar through repetition: the children whose cases appeared on the lists years ago and remain open.
The process of reunifying families separated under “zero tolerance” began in June 2018, two months after the policy was officially implemented. The ACLU had filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of separated families, Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and during the litigation, a federal judge halted Trump’s policy and ordered its victims reunified within 30 days. Some of these reunifications were relatively straightforward. The government had records of around 2,800 separated families, and most of those parents and children were still in the U.S. — maybe they’d been sent to separate ICE facilities or the parents were in detention while their children had been placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. But for about 470 families, the parents had already been deported. When the Trump administration declined to track them down, Lee Gelernt, the head lawyer for the plaintiffs, stood up in court and said the ACLU would do it. A steering committee was put together comprising a team from the New York law firm Paul, Weiss and representatives from three NGOs, including Kids in Need of Defense and the organization Justice in Motion. “Little did I know what we were taking responsibility for,” Gelernt told me.
The first hurdle the committee faced was the total disorganization with which “zero tolerance” had been implemented. “There was no intention of reuniting families, and so they didn’t design the system to be able to keep track,” Nan Schivone, Justice in Motion’s legal director, told me. The agencies involved — Customs and Border Protection, which took families into custody; ICE, which oversaw their detainment; the ORR, which was responsible for the separated children — didn’t have a comprehensive system to share data with one another, nor did they always keep records linking parents with their children. If children were released from ORR custody into the care of family or friends, the government did limited follow-up. “We give you a luggage tag for your luggage,” said Gisela Voss, a former board member of Together & Free, which supports families seeking asylum. “We separated parents from their kids and didn’t give them, like, a number.”
It took two months, until August 2018, for the administration to provide the steering committee with the phone numbers of the deported parents; a quarter of the numbers were missing. The committee began its search, making calls and performing social-media investigations. Then, in January 2019, the HHS Office of Inspector General revealed that more families had been separated than the Trump administration had previously disclosed. Nine months later, the Justice Department finally produced those names. There were 1,500 of them, and the vast majority of the parents had been deported.
. . . .
But the more that people who have dedicated their lives to this task continue to search, the more it becomes apparent that there will never be a clean resolution. There will always be another family. They know, too, that reunification solves only one problem. Families may be together again, but whether they will ever be whole is another question entirely.
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Read the complete article at the link.
No accountability whatsoever for Trump, Miller, Sessions and the other “human rights criminals” responsible for this. As is all too common in immigration and human rights “fails” by our immigration bureaucracy, the private, pro bono and NGO sectors are left to pick up the pieces after having to fight to uphold the rule of law.
The real story here is the blatant failure of our Government to uphold the rule of law for those seeking legal refugee and the irreparable effects of that failure. Somehow we have allowed politicos and the media to reverse that story line!
Multiple news sources report that President Biden is considering implementing executive action to try to close the U.S.-Mexico border, including to asylum seekers. It would be an extreme move, and a violation of the Refugee Act of 1980 and the country’s international obligation to protect those fleeing persecution. Only one other president — Donald Trump — has blatantly breached that obligation before. With the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext, Trump invoked Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which allowed him to curb migration in the name of public health.
Biden, who came into office harshly criticizing his predecessor’s anti-immigrant policies, now seems poised to resurrect them. Administration sources concede that the president’s border plans are driven by politics, the belief that the immigration situation is “an election liability.”
This view is no surprise. We’ve been fed a narrative that the border is in crisis, overwhelmed by an unprecedented number of immigrants who pose a grave danger to the health and safety of the nation. But that narrative is false: The border is manageable, and rather than being a danger to Americans, immigrants are a net positive economically and socially.
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Read the full op-ed at the link. Thanks for speaking out, Karen!
If only Biden & Harris would listen to migration experts rather than those who erroneously claim that violating asylum laws and stomping on human and civil rights is a “winning political strategy!”
This month, in case you missed it, there were several news headlines that once again proved that immigration is not just good for the U.S. economy, but freaking amazing. I’m not exaggerating – just take a look at the glorious reports revealed in February:
A Congressional Budget Office report found that, “The labor force in 2033 is larger by 5.2 million people, mostly because of higher net immigration. As a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise.”
The most powerful economic rebound post-pandemic in the world is thanks to immigration in the U.S. The Washington Post reported, “About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data.” Impressively, the surge in hires of immigrant workers filled “unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.”
Even The New York Times piled on: “A resumption in visa processing in 2021 and 2022 jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some holes in the labor force that persisted across industries and locations after the pandemic shutdowns. Immigrants also address a longer-term need: replenishing the work force, a key to meeting labor demands as birthrates decline and older people retire.” The report also features a City Council president and member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters union in Indiana who says he would welcome migrants with open arms as his union is in desperate need of members.
Despite so many economists, industry and business leaders, and fellow Americans clamoring for immigrants to come to America and live and work in a small town in the middle of nowhere or somewhere, our politicians are stuck in the quicksand of deterrence, slowly sinking into policy and politics that muddle speeches and don’t make anyone want to save them.
Don’t get me wrong– I do want to save President Biden but, buddy, we need to work on those talking points. While I agree border communities and immigration officials are in dire need of resources and should be provided the proper funding and manpower, President Biden’s continual push for the Senate bipartisan bill was half futile. I get the political jab; use it, in fact, as it works against Republicans. But for the love of God stop trying to push the bill forward. It’s dead. Start planting the messaging seeds for better, more galvanizing solutions that address the border, resource welcoming communities, and deliver legal pathways. And above all center the economic and cultural contributions of Dreamers and immigrant families that Trump is eager to deport.
Humanizing the narrative is always a winning strategy. Recognizing the rewards of immigration and the hard work of immigrants, both in policies and messaging, speaks to those persuadable voters that Biden and Democrats must win over.
Where have you gone, John Fetterman? I roll my lonely eyes at you.
Now here’s someone who’s actually sinking. Yesterday, Senator John Fetterman (PA), on an apparent quest to prove he’s a tough border security hawk, said he would support H.R. 2 except for its aim to terminate DACA. He claims to have analyzed the bill, and if he did, then I am stupid for having ever thought he was a decent guy who understood the importance of immigration in America.
As a reminder, H.R. 2 is basically a Stephen Miller wet dream (I apologize for the imagery): it would (1) end legal representation for unaccompanied children and deport them faster, (2) shut down the asylum system, (3) give any DHS secretary the authority to deny every single migrant the right to seek asylum (in other words, permanent Title 42), (4) jail and detain immigrant families, (5) eliminate humanitarian parole, (6) punish and defund faith-based organizations and NGOs for supporting newly-arrived migrants, and (7) jail and penalize immigrants who overstay their visa. (Imagine if that last one were in place when Fetterman’s wife and mother-in-law had arrived in the U.S.)
Neither H.R. 2 nor the Senate bipartisan bill are “grand bargains” unless it’s a deal scored by a used car salesman hiding the 20% annual interest rate. When immigration is decidedly incredible for the economy, when immigrants are proudly working and thriving alongside their fellow American, when those seeking freedom and opportunity are willing to risk their lives for a leg up to work – work! – when businesses and communities are desperate for immigrants to fuel their future, our leaders should be grand-standing with a 21st century plan that embraces immigration and immigrants for all that they can do for America.
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Thanks for speaking truth to power, Beatriz!
While Trump and Biden trade barbs and disgracefully try to ”one up” each other as to who can be the most cruel, cowardly, and dumb on “bogus border security,” the real humanitarian and asylum processing crises go unaddressed; the most vulnerable continue to suffer at the hands of a country they want to help while saving their own lives. This is a potential “win-win” that our politicians refuse to embrace!
Texas will appeal to the too-often-lawless Fifth Circuit, so this saga is only beginning. But, at least this time the “good guys” struck first and won the opening round.
This is the “reward” that both parties have in mind for migrants who have helped our economy thrive through difficult times. Doesn’t seem right, smart, or rational! PHOTO: Public Realm
Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country’s economicrebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world.
That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Immigrant workers also recovered much faster than native-born workers from the pandemic’s disruptions, and many saw some of the largest wage gains in industries eager to hire. Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.
“Immigration has not slowed. It has just been absolutely astronomical,” said Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “And that’s been instrumental. You can’t grow like this with just the native workforce. It’s not possible.”
Yet immigration remains an intensely polarizing issue in American politics. Fresh survey data from Gallup showed Americans now cite immigration as the country’s top problem, surpassing inflation, the economy and issues with government. A record number of migrants have crossed the southern border since President Biden took office, with apprehensions topping 2 million for the second straight year in fiscal 2023, among the highest in U.S. history. Cities like New York, Chicago and Denver have struggled to keep up with busloads of immigrants sent from Texas who are overwhelming local shelters.
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
There are also lots of practical ideas out here for fixing the asylum processing system and other helpful, humane border initiatives that don’t invest exclusively in expensive, cruel, and proven to ultimately fail “uber-enforcement only!” See, e.g.,https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/solutions-humane-border-policy.
Still, politicos of both parties and most media are on a completely different page, unhappily!
William Samuel is an accomplished citizen writer publishing with a specific focus on current affairs and military history.
De Spretter writes on Linkedin:
When asked in 1922 what his priorities would be if elected chancellor of Germany, then up-and-coming National Socialist leader, Adolf Hitler, answered candidly:
“Once I’m really in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.”
Proclaiming with vitriolic zeal, they’d be “hanged indiscriminately… until all of Germany has been completely cleansed of Jewry”, German Jews, understandably, had no desire to remain when he assumed the chancellorship in 1933…
In desperate hopes of securing safe passage to their ancestral homeland – Eretz Israel – tens of thousands flocked to the British embassy; only to be told on arrival there, “strict limits” had been imposed on the quota of Jews who’d be granted entry.
Although, sadly, the fate of most was thus sealed, countless more would have suffered the same had it not been for the defiant courage of Britain’s Vice-Consul, then-Captain Francis “Frank” Foley.
As a man who, in reality, was using his position as a cover for his long-serving role as an MI6 spymaster, Frank’s intelligence gathering had long confirmed that Hitler’s threats against the Jewish people were far from “empty rhetoric”.
For that reason, Frank was “quite unwilling to toe the line with London…”
Instead, he didn’t just “tear up the rulebook” that dictated whom he could issue lifesaving visas to but, when the “Kristallnacht” pogrom of 1938 was unleashed, he even transformed his place of residence into a safe haven for Jewish families.
From the “Night of Broken Glass” onwards, the number of Jews filing for immigration visas increased dramatically; but still, Frank’s superiors refused to ease the stringent requirements that prevented him from granting them.
Once again, therefore, he not only decided to “bend the rules” by easing them himself but, when he then received an official reprimand for his brave “contravention”, Frank doubled down on his rescue efforts by forging passports for Germany’s beleaguered Jewish citizens.
Despite being fully aware that no level of diplomatic immunity would protect him if the Gestapo had uncovered his clandestine activities, Frank persevered regardless, with no fear or concern for his personal safety.
In so doing, he enabled no fewer than 10,000 Jews to flee Hitler’s Reich; and yet, humble man that he was, Frank never spoke of his selfless deeds during his lifetime…
Incredibly, it was only after his passing, in May 1958, that his heroic exploits were revealed by his beloved wife, Katherine; and, it wasn’t until over four decades later, on this day in 1999, that he was deservedly recognized for having saved so many Jewish lives.
Honored as a posthumous Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, the latter paid tribute to Frank – “the British Schindler” – by describing him as “a man of great faith and conviction…”
Indeed, “as a deeply devout Christian, Frank did nothing more than act upon his sense of justice and compassion.”
#WeRemember
Captain Francis “Frank” Foley SOURCE: Linkedin
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Inspiring and timely piece of history. Thanks to Samuel for posting this on LinkedIn!
What if 600 bureaucrats had each made it their business to save 10,000 lives? The course of history would have been changed.
This is worth keeping in mind as our leaders of both parties and the immigration bureaucracy make “bullying the most vulnerable” and dehumanizing asylum seekers their daily mission. And, they brag about their cruelty and intention to violate laws in even more deadly ways! What if the same amount of effort were devoted to addressing humanitarian crises and saving lives?
“I went through dozens of reports, scores of articles, on the discussion of this migration bill, and the reporters talked to zero migrants and zero migrant rights groups.”
In recent weeks, longtime media analyst Adam Johnson has been looking through scores of articles and analyzing Democrats’ rhetoric to see how the border was being framed. One of the texts he looked at was the emergency national security supplemental bill that emerged for a vote on the Senate floor. This bipartisan border bill had been at the negotiation table for months, and it included provisions for military aid for Ukraine and Israel. The bill was ultimately voted down, after Donald Trump rejected it and the Republican Party followed suit. In our conversation, Johnson talks about his deep dive into the coverage surrounding the deal, and he speculates on what that means in this election year: that Democrats have entered new political terrain around the border and immigration enforcement. This interview is based on articles Johnson wrote for The Real News (“Media ‘Border Deal’ Coverage Erases Actual Human Stakes”) and The Nation (“The Democrats’ Hard-Right Turn on Immigration Is a Disaster In Every Way”), both places that he contributes to regularly. He also wrote “Top 10 Media Euphemisms for Violent Bipartisan Anti-immigrant Policies,” at his Substack, The Column. Johnson cohosts the popular podcast Citations Needed, where they discussed the border on their February 21 edition. Johnson’s media analysis spans back nearly a decade, much of it for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
Adam Johnson
Let’s start with the “border deal.” In The Real News you write that it dehumanizes migrants. Can you tell us a little bit about what the border deal is, and some key points about the coverage?
It’s a Republican border deal by framing and admission. Senators Chris Murphy, Tina Smith, and Mark Warner have framed it as a Republican border deal. Almost entirely. It is a 90 to 95 percent Republican deal in nature. They’ve repeatedly said that Republicans demanded XYZ and they gave them XYZ. This is how they’re framing it, because otherwise the hypocrisy gotcha doesn’t really work.
Can you clarify what you mean by “hypocrisy gotcha”?
If it’s not an overwhelming Republican bill, then the idea that they’re abandoning their won bill in service of Trump—which has been their primary gotcha—doesn’t make sense.
But let’s look at the substance of what the bill is.
Among other things, it has $8 billion in emergency funding for ICE, which more than doubles ICE’s enforcement budget. Do you remember “abolish ICE,” back five years ago or so?
It includes $3 billion in increased detention, a mechanism to shut down the border, and $7 billion to Customs and Border Protection, including the continuation of Trump’s wall. And so this is both objectively and how the Democrats describe a far-right Republican bill. That’s the appeal of it.
And the clever idea behind this is that a typical triangulation, that is, if you take a right-wing policy and adopt it as your own, you therefore take away that issue a little quicker come election time. It is for those who view politics as merely a game to be won rather than a moral terrain to advance the greatest good of all people. If you were to take this logic to its extreme, Democrats could also support an abortion ban or decertify the 2020 election. I mean, where does it end? President Biden could get that face-off surgery and become Trump himself.
. . . .
All this is laundered through euphemism, which I wrote about on my Substack and in The Real News, where I talk about the various ways in which the human costs are obscured. According to the International Organization for Migration, the U.S.-Mexico border is the deadliest land crossing in the world. And so if you double the enforcement, and triple the broader security apparatus, bring in more surveillance drones, more weapons, invariably more people will die. There is a real human cost to this type of militarization.
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Keep in mind, too, that Biden in 2020 mobilized a lot of the immigration activists who opposed Trump’s policies. He rode that wave to pick up a lot of young votes, a lot of progressive voters, a lot of people who are sympathetic to or adjacent to immigrant communities. And this cruel policy shift has really moved them to the right. In the days after Democrats embrace this hard-right bill, Trump began to double down on things like internment camps, shipping off immigrants, because he has to differentiate himself from the Democrats, at least rhetorically.
We’re gonna have this fortress America mentality. No one wants to deal with any of the underlying issues. And we have to deal with global inequality. No one wants to deal with climate change. That’s too egg heady and academic and difficult. We’re just going to do what we always do, which is cops and cages. And cops and cages are the solution to every social ill, whether it’s homelessness, crime, or whatever. That’s the order of the day. The bipartisan consensus. Democrats and Republicans both want it. The worst place for a vulnerable group to be is on the business end of a bipartisan consensus.
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Many Border Chronicle readers are interested in shifting the narrative. But how do you shift the narrative? Is it just too entrenched?
Some members of Congress have pushed back on this. But I think they’ve been pretty quiet. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushed back in an interview, but I don’t think she’s really tweeted about it. Once you have this “we have to defeat Trump in 2024 above all else,” then everybody shuts up and goes along with it.
And I think that’s absolutely wrong. I think now is the time to stand up to this demagoguery. Adopting a Republican bill is not the solution. And, hopefully, if enough people stand up to this, then it can become politically costly for Democrats to continue doing this.
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Read the full report at the link.
The worst place for a vulnerable group to be is on the business end of a bipartisan consensus.
These days, on immigration issues the term “bipartisan consensus” is actually a euphemism for “Dem giveaway of others’ rights to GOP nativists.” And, of course, even after the giveaway, the GOP shows absolutely no interest is such one-sided “bipartisanship” because Der Fuhrer tells them they must vote it down.
Yet, the disingenuous media and pundits keep misusing the term “bipartisanship” as if it had real meaning! And, although holding power in two of the three political branches, while the GOP struggles mightily to cling to its narrow margin in one, Biden and the Dems “wimp out” time after time on immigration, human rights, and racial justice.
The GOP proudly advertises that it has no values beyond whatever Trump wants on any particular day.
By contrast, Dems claim to have values. But a campaign being run against those professed values and their own core voters suggests that they too have become a “transactional party of no enduring values.”
Does America really need two political parties that stand for nothing beyond gratuitous cruelty to others and getting elected?
“Go along to get along.” Unhappily, that’s what today’s Dems appear to stand for.
Frankly, that has been at the heart of many of the problems at EOIR, particularly in Dem Administrations that were afraid of taking the bold and sometimes controversial actions necessary to change culture, institutionalize due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices. Current AG Merrick Garland is a classic example of this failed Dem model. As a result, EOIR is a dramatically dysfunctional and unjust agency.
Will the Democratic Party keep mindlessly following in EOIR’s footsteps? What’s it going to take for the next generation of Democrats to halt the slide into moral vapidity and political irrelevance?
Beatriz Lopez Deputy Director Immigration Hub PHOTO: Immigration Hub
From The Narrative Intervention on Substack:
Last week, I listened to Ezra Klein ruffle feathers with his provocative, “strategic” advice to Democrats to choose a different presidential nominee that isn’t President Biden. I found his reasoning to be redundant and just another taunt in the vein of what Jon Stewart and other pundits are saying about Biden. What did perk my ears was his short crescendo into the qualities of Vice President Kamala Harris before he lazily landed on his novel advice:
She’s enormously magnetic and compelling. Her challenge will be translating that into her public persona, which is, let’s be blunt about this. A hard thing to do when you’ve grown up in a world that has always been quick to find your faults. A world that is afraid of women being angry of black people being angry. A world where for most of your life it was demanded of you that you be cautious and careful and measured and never make a mistake. And then you get on the public stage and people say, oh, you’re too cautious and too careful and too measured. It’s a very, very, very hard bind to get out of. But maybe she can do it still. It is a party’s job to organize victory.
Klein ends this wonderful reflection with a careless – and let’s be frank – a typical white man move, “If Harris cannot convince delegates that she’s the best shot at victory, she should not and probably would not be chosen.” He later continues his monologue by mentioning a series of other Democrats with résumés that pale in comparison to the VP’s long list of career achievements and experiences.
Oh Ezra. What could’ve been. Progressive white man allyship is like puppy love – it ends when they become dogs.
It’s nothing new for us women of color to deal with men who think they know better and who often fail to recognize the merits and the knowledge that comes from years of diligently doing the work, putting triple the effort, ensuring near perfection, meeting goals, and delivering beyond the standard metrics. It’s a frustration I know all too well.
And look, I’m not saying all white men fall into the Ezra Klein category. There are a few good men – those that stick out their neck for you, who vouch for you and take a step back, who are true friends in the battle. To them, I’m grateful.
But for the most part, we have to deal with the Ezras. Today, I want to focus on three grievances so that I may elevate three women who are telling Democrats how we can win in 2024.
1. Vice President Harris. This spectacular woman who has probably the most thankless job in the country has persevered despite the sexist and racist punditry. She took on the most difficult portfolio of dealing with forced migration and investing in the region. And let me tell you, as a Nicaraguan-American, Central and South American politics is ridiculously complicated, tough and heartbreaking, and still the VP has managed to get millions upon millions of dollars in philanthropy and big business to invest in the region. She spearheaded all kinds of programs in the region to elevate women in business and young people in service. But you don’t hear any of that – or what she’s done and meant to Dreamers, youth, and the LBGTQI+ and Black communities.
While white Democratic operatives warn about losing the Black and Latino men vote, the VP has been working on actually addressing the matter. Not until this Sunday did you probably hear about the VP’s “quiet” meetings with a diverse set of electeds and experts. With her seasoned and smart campaign staff (including Sergio Gonzales) and Julie Rodriguez Chavez, she’s doing the work, strategizing and devising solutions.
This is what women of color do best – ignore the naysayers and get shit done. Every Democratic operative should be lifting the VP and her efforts up, instilling confidence in Democrats and pundits that the VP is strengthening the campaign and showing the public that our VP is the best veep we’ve had in over a century.
It’s with the VP we all rise.
2. Julie Chávez Rodriguez. I have long admired Julie from afar and up close. She embodies the characteristics of the few Latinas in Washington politics – smart, hard-working, strategic, persistent and authentic. She’s not defined by her grandfather’s legacy; she’s defined her own present and future with a committed love to our country and civil service. And yet, you get the sense through beltway rumors, leaks and hot takes that a class of establishment operatives and government officials from yesteryears are either gunning for her failure or humoring the token Latina. Unacceptable.
This mountain-mover has a long history of hustling and delivering on promises. From leading campaigns to working in two administrations, Julie has ensured Democrats invest in the Latino vote and immigrant communities when no one was willing, while strategizing and organizing to advance progressive measures empowering American working families. As Biden’s campaign manager, she has raised more funds than Trump and any candidate in any race.
Despite the comms person in me wanting her to lean into the spotlight, Julie doesn’t seek the James Carville limelight or approach this job as a lucrative ticket to cable punditry or podcasting. She’s doing the job because she believes in civic duty and good governance, she knows what it takes, and she has a strategy to win.
In Julie I trust, and so should you.
3. This last spot is a bit uncomfortable, but – screw it – I’m going to talk about me. Yes, me! For the past seven years, I’ve been telling Democrats that they can’t ignore immigration as a political galvanizer. I’ve led polling, focus groups, message and ad testing, and advertising campaigns in battleground states, and I’m not talking about one and done – nope, I’ve run all of the aforementioned countless times.
And because of my research and what I’ve learned from other partner organizations’ findings, I developed a messaging formula: acknowledge the system is broken, socialize a balanced approach to fixing it (i.e. don’t go Trump-lite; stress humane and orderly border security + pathway to citizenship), relate to voters with shared American values and center the economic contributions of immigrants, and counterattack Republicans, highlighting their extreme rhetoric and record.
Sound familiar? Does it sound like something Senator Chris Murphy may have recently written about or Tom Suozzi may have employed in his campaign? Yup. I guess, I should be glad that white men have validated my strategy to win.
But like I often tell my team – deep breaths and keep your eyes on the prize. Here’s the thing, the most important aspect of my messaging formula is saturation. Going on offense means repeating and delivering the message wherever a persuadable may roam. They need to see Trump and Republicans as foils to Biden and Democrats, and that means employing immigration to make the contrast that Democrats have advanced and pushed for popular solutions that don’t separate families and instead restore order and create opportunities for hard-working immigrants to stay and work in the country they proudly call home.
See? It’s not hard to implement the formula or write such an ad. If most Democratic campaigns targeted immigration ads to persuadable voters with as much gusto as they do on economy-focused ads, I’d bet money they’d see a shift in the polls. I know, I’ve done it before (even written numerous memos on how it can work).
To win in 2024, President Biden and Democrats have to start listening to women of color.
And on this critical issue of immigration, I’m telling you that neither the VP, Julie or I would ever ignore the power of the American dream. So yes, do what Congress failed to do: take action to manage migration at the border with grit and radical empathy AND widen the path to citizenship through administrative action so that Dreamers and other immigrants can continue to thrive without the fear of deportation or Trump. Then, deliver the message to Americans – on repeat.
In case you’re still here… check out how I explain the messaging strategy to win on immigration:
I highly encourage you to hit the “share button” above and listen to Beatriz’s inspiring and “spot on” 3-minute video in which she succinctly and cogently sets forth her “4-S messaging strategy” on immigration in 2024: Sequence, Sooth, Saturate, and Sway! Needless to say, Beatriz packs more useful information and values-inspired messaging into 3 minutes that most politicos do in a 30-minute “speech.” That’s one of many problems in today’s often-dehumanizing and intentionally off-point political “debate.”
Dems must pay attention to what Beatriz is saying! You can’t “run away” from immigration in a nation of immigrants, nor should you!
You also can’t just point fingers at Trump and the GOP. You need realistic, humane, practical solutions (the delusional Miller Lite “close the border tomorrow” is not one of them). Folks will embrace immigration and asylum seekers, but they also want to see “order at the border” and in the resettlement process. To date, sadly, the Biden Administration has failed to lay out concrete, realistic plans for doing that — other than bombastic promises to to “out-Trump Trump” with a “Miller Lite” agenda of unrealistic promises and soft-pedaled cruelty!
You can subscribe to Beatriz’s The Narrative Intervention on Substack.
Also, Beatriz is the Chief Political and Communications Officer of TheImmigration Hub.
If you are inspired by her message and commitment, they are looking for a Manager of Federal Advocacy to join their stellar Leg/Policy Team.Sounds like a great NDPA opportunity with a great team that “walks the walk” when it comes to due process and equal justice for all persons in America!
Here’s the application information:
The Immigration Hub is seeking a stellar candidate to join our Leg/Policy team as the Manager of Federal Advocacy. We’re a smart and strategic organization that loves to empower young leaders who see themselves working in the halls of Congress or driving change in our movement. If you or someone you know is interested, please apply via https://lnkd.in/ezcaFrdZ.
The Immigration Hub Team
Become part of the solution, rather than just hand-wringing about the problem and blaming and threatening the victims! It’s NOT asylum seekers who have failed over decades to invest in and establish a robust, expert, timely, due-process-compliant, fundamentally fair process for adjudicating asylum claims and resettling asylees in an orderly and helpful manner!
1)Hi all: Our Cornell asylum appeals clinic recently won a difficult withholding/CAT case at the BIA.On remand, the IJ granted CAT.And the client won release through habeas.
Pasted in below is a summary of the case.
Kudos go to Eva Charles and Isaac Belenkiy, the two Cornell law students who worked on the case.Even by the high standards of our clinic, they both went above and beyond for the client.And as you will see from the summary, pro bono attorneys from Morrison Foerster and the public defender’s office also worked hard to get our client CAT protection and release from detention.It takes a village to win immigration relief!
The habeas decision is at 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173280.The BIA decision is too big to attach.If anyone wants it, please email me offline.
Thanks, Steve Yale-Loehr
2023 Mexico Withholding and CAT Case Summary [IES]
Stephen Yale-Loehr, Evangeline Charles, Isaac Belenkiy
IES is a 41-year-old man from Mexico who first came to the U.S. when he was 18 years old. As a youth, IES joined a gang. He was arrested in 2005 for possessing a small quantity of drugs and was sentenced to four years in prison for “transporting drugs.” While in prison, IES defected from the gang and, following his release, was removed to Mexico in 2008. There, his tattooed physical appearance caught the attention of gangs and cartels like the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, who attacked him and his family, prompting him to relocate eight times within Mexico. Unable to find safety in Mexico, IES fled back to the United States in 2010.
In 2022, IES was detained by ICE and held at the Golden State Annex (“GSA”), a private for-profit prison, in McFarland, CA. IES applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied all forms of relief, finding that IES’s 2005 conviction was a “particularly serious crime” (“PSC”) that rendered him ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal.
At this point, the Cornell asylum appeals clinic took on IES’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). Our brief addressed two main issues: 1) IES warranted relief under withholding of removal because his 2005 conviction was not a PSC; and 2) the IJ erred in analyzing IES’s eligibility for CAT relief.
For the PSC argument, we argued that the IJ improperly analyzed IES’s offense, ignored credible evidence that the drugs were for personal use, and instead relied on boilerplate sentencing documents. As a result, the IJ failed to analyze IES’s motivation and intent at the time of the offense.
For the CAT argument, we focused on 6 errors: 1) the IJ failed to consider that IES’s prolonged mental pain would cause future torture; 2) the IJ did not consider future torture from gangs and cartels despite an expert saying this risk was at 80%; 3) the IJ failed to admit 400 pages of country conditions reports into evidence; 4) the IJ mischaracterized IES’s attempts to flee cartels 8 times as “relocation;” 5) the IJ did not think there was police acquiescence even though the police, the local Attorney General, and the judicial police ignored IES’s complaints; and 6) the IJ did not aggregate IES’s risk of torture.
On June 16, 2023, the BIA sustained our appeal in IES’s favor and remanded the case back to the IJ. Notably, the BIA agreed with our PSC argument, the IJ’s failure to consider all evidence, and the IJ’s failure to aggregate IES’s risk of torture.
After this, IES’s case was transferred to a public defender, who represented him on remand. The clinic team worked closely with the public defender’s office to transfer all files and get them up to speed on the case.
Parallel to our BIA filing, we participated in other advocacy efforts. While at GSA, IES participated in a labor strike in 2022 and a hunger strike in 2023. The aims of these protests were to draw attention to the abysmal conditions at private immigration detention facilities like GSA, to call for a minimum wage for detainee labor, and to demand safe and sanitary living conditions for detained migrants. The 2023 hunger strike was a coordinated effort by detainees and activists, supported by lawyers working for immigration justice. This protest resulted in a class action lawsuit on behalf of the detainees and the submission of release requests on behalf of individual detainees.
During the protests at GSA, our team filed a release request for IES. Our request explained that IES should be released because he was neither a flight risk nor a danger to society. ICE denied the request. IES continued to participate in the hunger strike and was mistreated by ICE personnel and medical officers. This prompted our clinic to file complaints to ICE and DHS about this mistreatment, which violated ICE’s own regulations.At the same time, we filed FOIA requests asking for IES’s detention, removal, and medical records. We decided to build a record of release requests to show administrative exhaustion so that IES can get a bond hearing. We also found a law firm (Morrison Foerster) to represent IES pro bono for a habeas corpus petition.
On September 27, 2023, the U.S. district court for the Northern District of California granted IES’s habeas petition on the grounds that “his prolonged detention without an individualized hearing violates his procedural due process rights.” A bond hearing was granted to IES. The government appealed this ruling, but their appeal was dismissed.
In fall 2023, IES was released on bond. A week later, the IJ granted him protection under CAT. IES is now back home with his wife and children. He can now get a work permit and cannot be deported to Mexico.
In the triumph of IES’s journey from detention to liberation, our team found a beacon of hope and resilience. The hunger strikes, the legal battles, and the relentless pursuit of freedom for IES were not in vain. As our clinic celebrates his freedom, we are grateful to our partners—advocacy groups in California and lawyers and public defenders who provided advice and guidance on appeal and zealously advocated for IES on remand—and to IES’s family, who never stopped providing support and information despite their own personal struggles.
The clinic’s fight for immigration justice is far from over, but IES’s triumph serves as inspiration to press onward and advocate for other clients who are plagued by inequities in our immigration system.
2) Asylum granted!
Beginning in spring 2023, a group of thirteen 1L and advanced Immigration Law & Advocacy Clinic students worked tirelessly to file individual asylum applications for a family from Afghanistan. The clients had their interviews in April, and the clinic just received the good news that the requests were approved. Congratulations to the team!
Part of the legal team is pictured here (from left): Katie Rahmlow ’23, client, client, Don Izekor, Esq. ’23, Alisa Whitfield, interpreter Hamid Rezaee (CIS ’26), Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, client, Amy Godshall ’23.
Not pictured: Deborah Morales ’25, Oscar F. Ruiz ’25, Nathaniel Squires ’25, Rodrigo Tojo Garcia ’25, Aaliyah Channer ’25, Yubin “Lucy” Oh ’25, Arina Gorokhovska ’25, Miriam Mars ’24, Tori Staley ’23, Jared Flanery ’23.
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Congrats to the “next wave” of the relentless NDPA!
These are outstanding examples of why claims that unrepresented individuals receive constitutionally-required due process in Immigration Court are absolute poppycock! They also illustrate why responsible legislators and policy makers should be investing in representation rather than just spending wildly and fruitlessly on “gonzo” immigration enforcement.
No single nation, no matter how rich and powerful, can unilaterally change 21st century worldwide patterns of forced migration, which is what is generating the humanitarian situation at our Southern Border. But, we can more effectively address due process issues in our Immigration Courts, the “retail level” of the U.S. justice system!
Greetings & invitation to my father’s celebration of life
Dear Honorable Judge Schmidt,
I am so glad that Laura provided me with your contact – and hope all is well with you!
Laura likely mentioned this to you already; you were my father’s (Bing Li) judge in 2013 when he was placed behind bars at Rappahannock. Time truly flies – it is hard to believe that a decade has already gone by. But the impact that you’ve made – the decision to give our family a fighting chance to stay together in this country – will always be of life-changing significance. In the ten years since, I graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Chemistry and am now a junior engagement management at McKinsey driving energy transition work in Houston. All of this is possible thanks to the faith and fairness you’ve given my father during his most critical time.
Sadly, my father passed away to Stage IV Colon Cancer during the height of COVID-19. Long overdue, we’re finally able to plan a celebration of life at the National Club Press this Friday, Feb. 16th, and I would like to cordially invite you as my guest. It would be an enormous privilege to have you there, and I sincerely look forward to the opportunity of conveying to you, in-person, the consequential difference you made for our family. On that note, before my father passed away, he was able to compile his diaries from Rappahannock in which your name had come up a number of times. I will be reading some of his excerpts during the event.
Bing Li
In either case, truly, truly appreciate your time and consideration, Judge Schmidt! If Friday evening does not end up working out for you, I would love it if you have time for me to pay you a visit sometime in the near future when I’m next in DC!
Please take great care and look forward to your thoughts!
Best,
Jessica Li
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The “little things” we do make a big difference.
Thanks so much for your kind words and allowing me to share this Jessica. Condolences to you and your family. And, congratulations on your family’s stellar contributions to America. I know your father must have been so proud of your accomplishments. It’s an honor to have played a role in making it possible!
Asylum seekers walk along the border wall near Sasabe in 34-degree weather after snowfall on February 10. (Photo credit: David Damian Figueroa)Todd Miller Border Correspondent The Border Chronicle PHOTO: Coder Chron
During the week, the term “border crisis” was featured prominently in the national airwaves in both political rhetoric and media coverage. Perhaps the term would be appropriate and accurate if it referred to people freezing in the snow and rain, or dying crossing the desert in the summer. Yet, even though thousands have died crossing the world’s most dangerous land border—including record numbers in the past two years—this is almost never mentioned in media reports on the “border crisis.” Instead, the most prominent “crisis” is the right wing narrative of an overrun, open border. Everything else follows. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed. The enforcement apparatus is overwhelmed. Washington is overwhelmed. An NBC headline alarmingly suggested that ICE and CBP might have budget shortfalls, or entirely run out of money (spoiler: that’s not going to happen). “Border crisis” has been used so frequently that it has become both abstract and mind numbing, a term deployed either to gain political points or to justify more funding for border and immigration enforcement, which has received more than a hefty $400 billion since DHS opened its doors in 2003. “Border crisis” rarely refers to people like the injured, sick, wet, and shivering asylum seekers at the border, who on Saturday included children and pregnant women.
Perhaps instead of portraying the border as in crisis, we should say that the border, by its very design, creates crisis. I thought about this on Monday when I went down with a group of Green Valley Samaritan volunteers to where the asylum seekers had crossed. The snow was gone, but the mud puddles were not. The makeshift camp where many of the 400 people had stayed was empty. I kneeled by a tent made of aluminum blankets where a single kid’s sandal was on the ground. I meditated on that sandal and wondered how many times I’d seen this same scenario over the decades in Arizona—a kid’s Mickey Mouse suitcase, a stuffed animal, a small pair of pants or a shirt—in places where people had camped. How many times had I seen the electrolyte bottles, black bottles, empty tin cans in desolate places of the desert where people couldn’t possibly carry enough water to get where they were going?
A child’s sandal left behind at the makeshift camp along the border near Sasabe on February 12. (Photo credit: Todd Miller)
The border is designed to create crisis; that is the deterrence strategy. Right next to the camp were two idly parked Caterpillar excavators, presumably used to construct the border wall. Staring at them over the tents and makeshift shelters, I assumed that it was machinery from Spencer Construction—a company that received more than $600 million in contracts from CBP in the summer—for “border maintenance.” Now Spencer construction crews cruise up and down the border road, “filling in the gaps” of the border wall, as the Biden administration puts it. They filled in one such gap much closer to Sasabe several months ago, and now people crossed much farther away. With its focus on enforcement, the now-rejected border bill would have injected $14.4 billion into CBP and ICE (on top of a 2024 budget that was already more than $28 billion), including more funds for wall construction. Also included in the bill was money dedicated to surveillance technology, such as more autonomous towers (in addition to the nearly 400 such towers already installed), and the further digitization of the border, including systems for taking DNA samples from border crossers, and ground and maritime drone systems (yes, boat drones). Detention Watch Network describes the bill’s proposed expansion of ICE’s detention and deportation apparatus as the “largest appropriation of funds for immigration detention custody and surveillance operations in ICE’s history,” which included a daily capacity for detainment rising from 34,000 people to 50,000. Mind you, many of ICE’s detention facilities are run by private companies, so, as with surveillance, the profit motive is always lurking behind the scenes.
In short, the bill was what GOP lawmakers wanted, yet they rejected it. Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Kyrsten Sinema (or excuse me ex-Democrat, now independent) lamented that Republicans weren’t taking the border seriously—an accurate critique, since the bill was only offering more fortification, including an unprecedented provision that gave Washington the authority to shut down the border (though it was unclear what closing the border meant exactly). Even more confusing was that Donald Trump opposed ramping up enforcement. It all makes sense, however, when the election is considered: Trump wants to run against Biden on this issue, but he can hardly do that if Biden is pounding the iron fist. As ABC News reported, “Trump probably still does benefit politically from a protracted [and manufactured!] border crisis.” However, Senator Chris Murphy, who was the chief Democratic negotiator for the bill, wrote: “Republicans can’t claim that the border is in crisis and then vote against the bipartisan bill, written by their own leadership, that would fix the problem.” He concluded, “Quite simply, we risk losing the 2024 election if we do not seize this opportunity to go on offense on the issue of the border and turn the tables on Republicans on a key fall voting issue.” The Senate Democrats took Murphy’s challenge and went on the offensive with a slick video on Twitter showing Democrats as hardline border enforcers. For his part, Biden stated, “Every day between now and November the American people are going to know the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.” In other words, the so-called border crisis has become a race to see which candidate can better fortify the border.
As for the people freezing and in various states of medical distress, this border cold war (and the proposed border bill) only makes matters worse. On top of that, according to a press release by No More Deaths on Saturday, Border Patrol agents told the humanitarian aid organization that they were “informed of the situation,” of people stranded in potentially life-threatening conditions, “but did not plan to drive out to address it.” Volunteers began to transport people from the border wall to the Border Patrol substation, also known as its processing center, so refugees could turn themselves in. Volunteers reported that Border Patrol agents in Sasabe detained and threatened them, and took pictures of their driver’s licenses. At one point there was a “rolling roadblock” of Border Patrol trucks. One volunteer reported a situation in which two agents spoke to them at “yelling volume” that seemed to be “backed with a bunch of anger.” The agents told the volunteers that they were “breaking the law” and threatened to arrest them and impound vehicles. But the volunteers persisted, driving the 15 miles or so back to retrieve more people. More and more asylum seekers assembled in front of the Border Patrol processing center. Eventually, the school in Sasabe was opened as a temporary shelter for the night. By the end of the day, the humanitarian aid organizations evacuated every person from the border. On Sunday morning all migrants were in Border Patrol custody. And as Arizona Public Media reported, “Seemingly at odds with the aid workers’ account, Customs and Border Protection says they prioritized the humanitarian response to the migrants abandoned in the cold.”
By the time I arrived on Monday, the real crisis had come and gone. There was the shoe, the blankets now drying on the mesquite trees, the construction workers driving up and down the road in their vehicles, and a 30-foot border wall meant to push people further into the desert. No More Deaths and Samaritans volunteers cleaned up the mess in the aftermath. What played out was not just a battle between humanitarian aid and the Border Patrol. It was a battle over what the crisis really was.
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Read the complete article at the link.
Sigh! 😮💨
So, our brave nation and our courageous leaders are “existentially threatened” by a bunch of desperate unarmed people patiently waiting in misery to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol for asylum screening because our Government can’t process them in a fair and timely manner through legal ports of entry as required by law! That’s despite the relative predictability of flows of forced migrants and their slow progress toward the border.
If our “intelligence” services can’t foresee very public flows of forced migrants northward, and our nation can’t prepare to fulfill our legal and moral obligations to our fellow humans, Lord help us!
$600 million for annual “border maintenance,” but not enough trained Asylum Officers to screen asylum seekers at ports of entry? $28 billion for ineffective “deterrence,” but they can’t run resettlement programs that get asylum seekers and those granted asylum to the many places in the U.S. that need their skills? Gimmie a break!
This is the human face 😢 of our shameful and preventable bipartisan failure to meet our legal, humanitarian, and moral obligations to forced migrants at the border and elsewhere! No wonder cowardly politicos and complicit media don’t have the guts to “look their victims in the eye!”👁️ 🐥
And, the failed bogus bipartisan Senate bill that the Administration and many Dems tout and the media fawn over, would have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to solve this real humanitarian crisis at the border. Indeed, as almost all real border experts agree, it would have made the suffering and dereliction of duty by our Government immeasurably worse for these our fellow humans in need!
Thanks to folks like Todd Miller and Melissa del Bosque for bearing witness, speaking truth, and refusing to let our nation’s grotesque abuses of, and intentional misrepresentations about, forced migrants be swept under the carpet.
As the economy has improved and consumers have begun recognizing that improvement, Republicans have pivoted to attacking President Biden on a different policy weakness: immigration. After all, virtually everyone — Democrats included — seems to agree the issue is a serious problem.
But what if that premise is wrong? Voters and political strategists have treated our country’s ability to draw immigrants from around the world as a curse; it could be a blessing, if only we could get out of our own way.
Consider a few numbers: Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released updated 10-year economic and budget forecasts. The numbers look significantly better than they did a year earlier, and immigration is a key reason.
The CBO has now factored in a previously unexpected surge in immigration that began in 2022, which the agency assumes will persist for several years. These immigrants are more likely to work than their native-born counterparts, largely because immigrants skew younger. This infusion of working-age immigrants will more than offset the expected retirement of the aging, native-born population.
. . . .
Instead, GOP lawmakers scaremonger about the foreign-born, characterizing immigration as an invasion. As Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) dog-whistled last week, “Import the 3rd world. Become the 3rd world.”
America has historically drawn hard-working immigrants from around the world precisely because its people and economy have more often been shielded from such “Third World”-like instability, which Republican politicians now invite in.
Ronald Reagan, the erstwhile leader of the conservative movement, often spoke poignantly of this phenomenon. In one of his last speeches as president, he described the riches that draw immigrants to our shores and how immigrants in turn redouble those riches:
Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.
Reagan’s words reflected the poetry of immigration. Since then, the prose — as we’ve seen in the economic numbers, among other metrics — has been pretty compelling, too.
Already the media are “at it again,” most attributing Democrat Tom Souzzi’s easy win over his GOP opponent for the House seat vacated by George Santos to his “move right” on immigration. But, as Catherine suggests above, “what if that premise is wrong?”
There is certainly support for a more nuanced view, both anecdotally and in polls.“Suozzi, [a voter]said, would ‘protect us but also be fair to those who are seeking asylum.’” https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/02/13/new-york-district-3-special-election-george-santos/. Sadly, and outrageously, the so-called Senate “compromise” border bill that Souzzi touted and which has become the “darling” of the tone-deaf mainstream media does neither. Not even close!
Yet, supposedly responsible journalists are falling all over themselves touting the benefits to Dems of a horrible “Miller-Lite” bill that essentially would have destroyed the right to asylum while turning the border over to cartels and smugglers to exploit some of the world’s most vulnerable who are victims of our own failings. Today’s wrong-headed WashPost editorial is a particularly egregious piece of such media sophistry. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/14/immigration-border-suozzi-mayorkas-special/.
So, here’s a more intellectually honest “rewrite” of today’s lead editorial:
POST EDITORIAL BOARD: Death, Murder, Rape, Torture, Assault, Robbery, Extortion, Kidnapping of Hispanics, Blacks, Other Forced Migrants A Small Price To Pay For Bipartisan Deal To Outsource Migration To Gangs, Cartels, and Traffickers!
We Must Not Only “Turn Away The St. Louis,” But Torpedo It So Every Man, Woman, & Child Goes To The Bottom Where They Will Be Effectively Deterred From Ever Again Invoking Our Laws & Moral Obligations!
Nowhere, and I repeat nowhere, are the voices of those with decades of actual hands on experience working with migrants at the border, and the voices of those migrants themselves, being heard and heeded in this “non-debate” that resulted not in a “compromise” but in a “human rights giveaway.” What gives us the right to arrogantly and immorally give away rights and human lives that are NOT ours in the first place as if they were “table favors at a political fundraiser?“
As Beatriz so pointedly said:
Hanging above our heads like a Florida cockroach threatening to fly into our faces was the fact that the Biden administration, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Chris Murphy, and Democrats who voted for the bill had officially moved the goalpost on immigration.
Thanks to the moral vapidity of Dem politicos and the Administration the “game” for the lives, rights, future, and human dignity of asylum seekers is now being “played” between the “Good Guys’”goal line and their ten yard line! We are being offered a “choice” between “cruel and stupid” and “crueler and dumber!” Certainly, the Dems and our nation could and should do better!
Supporting fairness, orderly processing, and actions that protect asylum and the community would be a far more prudent choice for Dems than the virulent “death to asylum craze” (the unstated part of which is that it also means “death to asylum seekers”) that currently seems to be “in vogue” with both parties and mindlessly hyped by the media.
It’s quite possible that Souzzi won not because of his extreme position on asylum, but because his position was “less extreme” that that of his GOP opponent and her openly xenophobic party. This conclusion is actually supported by polls that show that while most voters understandably want “order at the border,” they also want to protect the right to claim asylum and a fair process for doing so. See, e.g., https://wp.me/p8eeJm-9hU.
There is opportunity here for Dems to change minds and create a stronger coalition for asylum seekers and other immigrants. NGO experts like Beatriz Lopez need to partner with Congressional Dems who understand asylum and the border (like Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX)) to reach out and meet with Rep. Souzzi and others like him to explain practical solutions and useful changes at the border that would create order while maintaining and enhancing fair and timely asylum processing.
Beyond that, advocates must explain and model how migrants themselves can help resolve the problems facing Rep. Souzzi’s district and improve the quality of life for all. They must show how migrants are “part of the solution,” perhaps, for example, by establishing public-private partnerships that would involve migrant communities in constructing high-quality, attractive affordable housing that would help the entire community. Working on various civic improvement projects might also be a mutually beneficial option.
Advocates, NGOs, and political supporters of migrants must do more than just point to graphs and cite statistics about the long-term economic and societal benefits of immigration. They must actually model and create practical joint projects and expand opportunities for the benefit of migrants and the communities to which they have been relocated.
Problem-solving needs to be brought into the “here and now” rather than just being presented to U.S. communities as a vague promise of future benefits. My experience is that most people react to what’s before them today rather than than relying on a constructed view of tomorrow, now matter how attractive and statistically supported that future vision might be.
In addition to the misguided “Miller Lite nonsense” from the editorial board and, disappointingly, even the usually responsible and insightful Karen Tumulty, today’s WashPost contained useful observations from Eduardo Porter about the need to get migrants to places in the U.S. where they, their job skills, and their work ethic would be welcomed, appreciated, and useful.
But, both the Biden Administration and Congress have shamefully failed to convert this “low-hanging fruit” into reality. Even worse, that has allowed White Nationalist demagogues like Abbott and DeSantis to waste and divert millions in public funds to make the situation worse and to convert those who want to help America succeed and prosper into hapless “political footballs” being tossed back and forth between GOP nativists and wimpy Dem politicos who long-ago lost their moral bearings. Although NGOs and advocates are weary and overburdened, if they don’t take the initiative to make this happen, on at least some scale, the opportunity will be lost and the nativist myth-makers will prevail.
Only by modeling actual results in real time will we be able to demonstrate the fallacy and counterproductivity of the GOP’s nativist “burden myths.” There’s no time like the present to start!
To no one’s surprise, this past week the bipartisan border bill, creatively named “The National Security Act, 2024” and introduced by an all white cast of Senators, failed to pass the chamber. Many Democratic Senators who once stood beside immigration advocates at rallies to push back against the proposal fell in line with their president and voted in favor of a flawed and dangerous bill that would fall short of mitigating migration. None but the beltway nerds and press were paying attention to C-SPAN as the proposal died, triggering Democratic political operatives to salivate over the “gotcha” vote that’ll be used against Republicans on the campaign trail.
Beatriz Lopez Deputy Director Immigration Hub PHOTO: Immigration Hub
For many of us battle-tested, seasoned advocates, there was no true satisfaction at seeing Republicans implode or an undesirable proposal fall apart. Hanging above our heads like a Florida cockroach threatening to fly into our faces was the fact that the Biden administration, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Chris Murphy, and Democrats who voted for the bill had officially moved the goalpost on immigration.
‘Tis a slippery slope to empower the nation’s president to shut the border down to block asylum seekers and codify measures to make it nearly impossible to claim asylum and easier and faster to deport people back to dangerous conditions while hoping a developing nation with its own set of serious problems cracks down on vulnerable children and families seeking safety and refuge. To be okay with all of this means you’ve – as Isabel Wilkerson so aptly wrote – gone through a “process, a programming” to dehumanize both the issue and those at our doors, begging for shelter and freedom.
And look I get it. I’ve heard the rhetorical, exasperated questions: what else are Democrats supposed to do when migrants keep coming to the border? When Republicans keep hammering us on the border? And Chicago and New York are struggling to manage those bussed into the cities? And in a pivotal election year, these questions carry an extra ounce of GTFO.
And to them I say – I hear you. I’m listening. I’m worried, too. But I’m not concerned about the tenacity and brilliance of local leaders and NGOs on the ground working to help newly-arrived immigrants to settle in this powerful and abundant country. Or least of all anxious over visionary funders and creative mayors and governors seeking ways to welcome new settlers into regions eager for consumers and workers. I’m not even worried about Trump and Republicans relentlessly attacking Democrats on the campaign trail – it’s nothing new.
What I am truly troubled by is Democrats choosing flight over fight.
The current conundrum that President Biden and Democrats find themselves in goes beyond the challenges of global migration. Since 2017, Democratic messaging has been devoid of pro-immigrant messaging. Were it not because of the loud cries of a toddler separated from her mother and the incredible journalistic accounting that shook the soul of America did it spring even moderate Democrats into action. But, when it came to political advertising and a constant drumbeat of both values-based immigration messaging and Republican accountability on the issue, you had to search far and wide to find solid examples. Thanks to the David Shor’s of the political class, most Democrats chose to avoid the issue, leaving a vacuum gladly filled by Stephen Miller types.
The Democratic choice to neither proudly display their position on immigration or celebrate the immigration wins has left the American people believing they’re for “open borders” or wondering where they stand on the issue and have they done anything on it? What’s worse, they consistently fail to counter their opponent’s radical, Trumpian rhetoric and anti-immigrant ideas. While racist and radical media and online influencers, such as Tucker Carlson, yell anti-immigrant obscenities and the GOP spend millions upon millions trying to convince Americans that immigrants are bad people who are trying to replace them, infiltrate their communities with drugs and crime, and steal their jobs and social security, Democrats have responded by pivoting to other kitchen table issues.
The gradual damage of this messaging to America’s psyche and perception of the other – immigrants – has created the current moment. Now, even reporters from major news outlets are asking me why and how Trump dismantled our immigration system and what actions President Biden had taken to restore the system. The first question often leaves me baffled, for how quick we forget the heinous wrongs of the past, and the second is no surprise, just sad.
It’s really disappointing that not many people, reporters included, don’t know that the Biden administration has taken over 500 actions that have had such a positive impact on women, families, children and workers in the U.S.
No Democrat should be afraid of their immigration shadow. It’s time to stop running away or running to the right of the issue. You can be sensible without spite. Until Republicans can treat the cancer that is Trump, Democrats have to go to bat for the issue with gutsy resolve, bold solutions and radical empathy. They have to be in it for the short and long game. Like investing in an index fund or supporting reproductive rights or gay marriage, it’ll pay off to tell Americans and Republicans that Democrats stand for an immigration system that lives up to our values and meets our nation’s economic demands, that we’ll secure our border with smart and humane solutions – not band-aids that create chaos and jeopardize lives – that we’ll do whatever it takes to deliver a path to citizenship for Dreamers and hard-working immigrants who have waited too long for our government to act, and that we’ll fight like hell against Trump and anyone who threatens to separate families, deport our neighbors en masse, and divide our communities.
No one is immune to mistakes or bad votes. For Democrats, this is a moment to reflect and admit you fucked up. Now do better. Yes, use the vote to hold Trump and Republicans accountable – but don’t you dare use that bill as a model for legislation or campaign rhetoric.
You can’t out-Trump Trump.
Humanize the issue. Show courage and compassion. Talk solutions. Remind voters what and who you stand for and what’s at stake if Trump and anti-immigrant Republicans have it their way. Be disciplined and keep repeating. Throw some money behind that messaging. And I promise you, you’ll win.
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Thanks, Beatriz!
This should be required reading for every Dem politico!
Case in point: A very recent Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) study reaffirmed what those who work with migrants have always known: Directly contrary to the GOP and media myths, migrants of all types — regardless of status — are a huge source of economic growth for America. They will help fuel a $7 trillion boost in the U.S. economy over the next decade!See, e.g., https://time.com/6692645/immigration-economy-us-gdp-growth-cbo-report/.
But, you sure wouldn’t know this from the one-sided “debate” about migration going on today. The GOP spreads (and the media promotes, largely without critical analysis) blatant lies and myths about the largely fabricated and often self-created “burdens” of migration (see, Abbott, DeSantis). Yet rather than rebutting them and embracing truth, Dems basically look the other way and try to change the conversation.
This has caused them to “run away from” and “downplay” one of the Biden Administration’s most important positive achievements — functioning parole programs that move migrant flows from the “irregular” to the “regular!” Moreover, that processing takes place in advance, outside the United States, rather than adding to the border pressure or becoming part of the overhyped asylum backlog resulting from poor performance by Administrations of both parties and Congress over decades (but hugely aggravated by the Trump kakistocracy). Even the immediate work authorization problem is solved by the advance parole programs.
Are these programs perfect? No, they are far too limited both in terms of numbers and scope of eligible nationalities. They also don’t answer questions about the long-term fate of those paroled. But, they are certainly a step in the right direction that could be built upon and “model” the case for more durable long-term legislative expansions of visa programs.
The GOP’s irrational attacks on what is working and helps our country and the world shows just how little they care about solving problems or the long-term prosperity, stability, and strength of our nation. Yet, the largely indisputable benefits of parole and the willingness of the Administration to engage in creative and successful problem-solving gets scant mention from either the Biden campaign or Congressional Dems.
And, the media is no better. Given the current high-profile of immigration on the national scene, one might reasonably have expected “front page coverage” of the CBO report and findings, particularly since it directly contradicts many of the false claims raised by both parties during the recent failed “Senate compromise” proposal. Instead, even I had to do some “digging” to come up with articles featuring the CBO report.
Curiously, the GOP plays to the most extreme, dangerous, and unreasonable elements of its far right base.
Conversely, Dems run against the values and views of some of the most reasonable, dedicated, and energizing elements of their progressive base.
