LIVE IN DC ON FEB 24! — SEE “ROCK STAR” 🎸 IMMIGRATION EXPERT PROFESSOR STEPHEN YALE-LOEHR & HIS “RAMBLIN’ BAND OF EXPERTS” TAKE ON IMMIGRATION POLICY @ THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB! — ONLY DC Area Performance* — Free, In Person or Online! — Just As Administration Rolls Out Idea Steve Has Championed: Private Refuges Sponsorship!

* In Feb. 2023

Immigration Rocks — Immigration law rocks with “Professor Stevie & His Ramblin’ Band of Experts!”
Public Realm

Immigration Reform: Lessons Learned and a Path Forward

Congress has been unable to enact comprehensive immigration reform for over 30 years.

Employers face an unprecedented shortage of workers.
The Dreamers, long-contributing members of our society, face uncertainty due to litigation questioning the legality of the DACA program.
And border security concerns everyone.

Polls suggest Americans want immigration reform. But the conventional wisdom is that “comprehensive immigration reform” is impossible in a divided Congress.

This conference will explore targeted legislation and other policy changes that could be enacted in 2023, focusing on work visa changes to help alleviate our labor shortages, border security and asylum reforms, and a permanent path forward for Dreamers, farmworkers.

Sponsored by the Cornell Law School Immigration Law and Policy Research Program and cosponsored by the Cornell Migrations Initiative.

While we encourage in-person attendance, the conference will be webcast live from the National Press Club. Mark your calendars now for this important event!

Panelists from the following organizations:

American Action Forum, American Business Immigration Coalition, AmericanHort, Bipartisan Policy Center, Compete America, Cornell Law School, Migration Policy Institute, National Association of Evangelicals, National Immigration Forum, Niskanen Center, Service Employees International Union,

Texas Association of Business, TheDream.US, UnidosUS,

United Farm Workers of America, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

A special thanks to the Charles Koch Foundation for sponsoring this event.

DATE

February 24th, 2023

TIME

8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

*Reception to follow

LOCATION

National Press Club

529 14th St NW,

Washington, DC

20045

REGISTRATION LINK

MORE INFO

Michelle LoParco at:

k.loparco@cornell.edu

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

The U.S. State Department has just announced an initiative promoted by Steve, his colleague Dr. Janine Prantl, and other experts. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/10/17/🗽prantl-yale-loehr-ny-daily-news-private-refugee-sponsorship-an-idea-whose-time-has-come-but-the-biden-administration-has-turned-its-back-on-the-legal-human-rig/

Read the information sheet on the “Welcome Corps” here: https://welcomecorps.org/resources/faqs/.

This is a promising idea. Hope it works! I have to wonder, however, why a coordinated effort like this wasn’t implemented for asylum seekers arriving at the Southern Border?

You can register (free) for the Cornell Conference, where this and other timely topics will be discussed by the experts!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-20-23

👍🏼 ⚖️🗽“CHANGE COMES FROM THE GROUND UP” — Expert Yale-Loehr Reinforces Schmidt & Friends! — EOIR Judgeships 👩🏻‍⚖️👨🏽‍⚖️ Are A Great Place To Start “Grass Roots Due Process Improvements!”

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/expert-change-happens-from-the-ground-up

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

Expert: “Change Happens From The Ground Up”

Victor Reklaitis, MarketWatch, Dec. 22, 2022

“Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell showed last week that he’s thinking about how recent lower immigration has factored into the ongoing U.S. labor shortage, but he said it’s not appropriate for the Fed to call for increased legal immigration to help alleviate the shortage. Could his remarks, careful as they were, somehow move the needle on immigration policy? His comments came as one new bipartisan proposal for immigration reform flopped in Congress, and some analysts say they aren’t optimistic about progress on immigration next year in a divided Washington. Still, others see Powell’s remarks having a small effect. … Powell’s answer could be seen as part of a slow process that eventually results in long-awaited fixes to the U.S. immigration system, according to Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School. “To me, it’s like water dripping on a rock,” Yale-Loehr told MarketWatch in an interview. “A single drop of water, whether it’s from Fed Chairman Powell or somebody else, won’t make a difference by itself. But if enough drips of water from other people and other studies consistently show that immigration can help our labor shortages and improve our economy, then I hope that will move the needle so that Congress will seriously take up immigration reform in 2023.” … The Cornell professor also suggested that grassroots efforts eventually might end up spurring U.S. lawmakers to do more. “A lot of change happens from the ground up, rather than the top down — if you think about civil-rights legislation in the 60s, the Environmental Protection Act of 1970, the antiwar efforts,” he said. “It was because people really protested the existing framework that they forced Congress to make changes in those areas. And so too, I think that if more Americans stood up and said, ‘We need immigration reform,’ I think that that would help persuade Congress to actually put pen to paper and make some significant changes.””

Compare with my recent post on the need and opportunity to get more NDPA experts on the immigration bench @ EOIR. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/12/21/%f0%9f%91%a9%f0%9f%8f%bb%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%91%a8%f0%9f%8f%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f-five-attorneys-with-recent-experience-representing-individuals-in-immigration-court-among-garland/

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

What better place to start forcing some long overdue changes than by getting more NDPA “practical scholar/experts” onto the EOIR bench where lives are on the line every minute of every working day? There are lots of ways to do justice at the “retail level” despite, or perhaps because of, the indifference of those in charge!

Folks, approximately a decade ago, the asylum grant rate at EOIR exceeded 50%! When grants of withholding (many the result of the 1-year-bar on asylum) and CAT were added in, almost 2/3 of asylum applicants who got a merits determination received some form of legal protection!

The vast majority of these cases were not appealed to the BIA. Slowly, but steadily, the EOIR system “at the retail level” was committing to expertise, sound scholarship, due process, fundamental fairness, faithful application of the generous legal principles established in Cardoza, Mogharrabi, and the regulatory presumption of future future persecution based on past persecution.

For years, those precedents and that regulation were resisted by many EOIR judges who continued, in practice, to apply the higher “more likely than not” standard rejected in Cardoza. But, following a series of savagely critical reversals of EOIR asylum denials by the Courts of Appeals the ground started to shift toward a more generous, proper, and correct interpretation of asylum law. Notably, those Court of Appeals “roastings” came after AG John Ashcroft “purged” the BIA in 2003 of appellate judges who spoke out for a better legal interpretation of asylum laws — one that faithfully followed Cardoza, Mogharrabi, and international standards!

As I used to tell my Georgetown Law students, a quarter century after the Supremes’ landmark decision in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, establishing the generous “well-founded fear” standard for asylum (reasonable likelihood = 10% chance) and the BIA’s implementation of that standard in Matter of Mogharrabi (asylum can be granted even where it is significantly unlikely that persecution will occur) the more generous standard was actually achieving “traction” at EOIR!

The law hasn’t changed very much since 2012. But, the progress toward a “Cardoza/Mogharrabi compliant” interpretation and application of asylum law halted and regressed substantially during the last part of the Obama Administration and during the Trump era.

What did change, for the worse, was the attitude of politicos, who have seen the Immigration Courts as captive “tools” to deter asylum seekers and “send negative messages” rather than insuring that they function as due-process-oriented, independent, subject matter expert, courts of law. The qualifications of those selected as Immigration Judges were “watered down” to favor high-volume government prosecutorial experience over demonstrated expertise in immigration and asylum laws and “hands on” experience representing individuals before EOIR.

Not surprisingly, asylum grant rates dropped precipitously during the Trump years. Although they have rebounded some under Biden, they still remain below the 2012 levels. It’s certainly not that conditions have substantially “improved” in major “sending countries.” If anything, conditions are worse in most of those countries than in the years preceding 2012.

So, if the law hasn’t changed substantially and conditions haven’t improved, what has caused regression in asylum grant rates at EOIR? It comes down to poor judging, accompanied by inadequate training, too much emphasis on “churning the numbers over quality and correctness,” and a BIA that really doesn’t believe much in asylum law and lacks the expertise and commitment to consistently set and apply favorable precedents and end disgraceful inconsistencies and “asylum free zones” that continue to exist.

Some of the most disgraceful, intentional asylum misinterpretations by Sessions and Barr now have been reversed by Garland. Unfortunately, he failed to follow-up to insure that the correct standards are actually applied, particularly to recurring circumstances. It’s one of many reasons that the Biden Administration struggles to re-establish a fair and efficient legal asylum system at the Southern Border — notwithstanding having two years to address the problems!

But, it doesn’t have to be this way! Recently, a number of notable “practical scholar experts” have been appointed to the Immigration Judiciary. When such well-qualified jurists reach a “critical mass” in the expanding EOIR, systemic changes and improvements in practices and results will happen.

The “dialogue” among Immigration Judges from government backgrounds and those from the private/NGO sector will improve. Lives will be saved. Life-threatening inconsistencies and wasteful litigation to correct basic mistakes at all levels of EOIR will diminish. The EOIR system will resume movement toward the former noble, but now long abandoned, vision of “through teamwork and innovation, being the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!”

So, warriors ⚔️🛡of the NDPA, make those applications for EOIR judgeships! Storm the tower from below! Make a difference in the lives of others and help save our democracy! If not YOU, then who?👩🏻‍⚖️👨🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-23-22

⚖️ YOU’VE READ ABOUT HIM IN “ROLL CALL,” NOW’S YOUR CHANCE TO “CATCH HIM IN ACTION!” — Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr (Cornell Law) & Fellow Experts Charles Kamasaki (scholar/author) & Michelle Hackman (WSJ) Will Discuss Prospects For Immigration Reform in Free Webinar on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022 @ 1 PM EST!

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

Charles Kamasaki
Distinguished Visiting Immigration Scholar
Cornell Law

Michelle Hackman
Immigration Reporter
Wall Street Journal

Immigration Reform: Might Past Be Prologue?

Tuesday, December 06, 2022, 1pm EST

Register now at https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K120622/

It’s been over 30 years since Congress enacted the most recent set of comprehensive immigration reforms: the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and the Immigration Act of 1990. These bipartisan yet hotly contested bills passed only after a debate spanning five presidential administrations, eight congressional sessions, and painful compromises by all parties. Even then, both bills died on the House floor before being resurrected at the 11th hour.

Can lessons learned during the last round of reform be applied to future debates? Charles Kamasaki, author of “Immigration Reform: The Corpse That Will Not Die” (Mandel Vilar Press, 2019), thinks so. The book provides a history of how the 1980s-era reforms were enacted, along with a summary of developments since then. It concludes with seven lessons that advocates and lawmakers should consider in advancing future immigration reform.

Join us for a discussion with Mr. Kamasaki, Cornell Law School professor Steve Yale-Loehr, and Wall Street Journal immigration reporter Michelle Hackman about the prospects for immigration reform legislation in 2023.

If you can’t attend the webinar itself, you should still register at https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K120622/ so that you can get the recording afterward.

This webinar is cosponsored by the Cornell Migrations Initiative, the Cornell Law School Immigration Law and Policy Research Program, and Catholic Charities of Tompkins and Tioga Counties.

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

Don’t miss this great opportunity!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-04-22

🗽PRANTL & YALE-LOEHR @ NY DAILY NEWS: Private Refugee Sponsorship — An Idea Whose Time Has Come! — But, The Biden Administration Has Turned Its Back On The Legal & Human Rights Refugees!🏴‍☠️

Dr. Janine Prantl
Immigration Postdoctoral Associate
Cornell Law
PHOTO: Cornell Law

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-let-private-citizens-sponsor-refugees-20221015-dtepnanthfegnpf6anjirwt3by-story.html

Let private citizens sponsor refugees

By Janine Prantl and Stephen Yale-Loehr

New York Daily News

Oct 15, 2022

Every fall, the U.S. president sets a refugee ceiling — the maximum number of refugees that may be resettled annually to the United States. For the new fiscal year that started Oct. 1, President Biden plans to resettle up to 125,000 refugees. Because of dramatic cuts to the refugee program during the prior administration, that goal will be hard to meet. A year ago, Biden set the same target, but more than 100,000 refugee slots went unused.

Historically, only the U.S. government, working with international refugee agencies and nonprofits, has determined which refugees will be admitted to the United States. That’s a mistake. To meet its goal of admitting 125,000 refugees this fiscal year, the United States should also promptly allow private sponsorships of refugees.

In February 2021, Biden issued an executive order to rebuild our refugee program, including through private refugee sponsorships. Subsequently, the State Department announced plans to start a pilot program, but the launch has been delayed. Over a year after the first announcement, and close to the end of 2022, the State Department has not decided on the funding of prospective partners or issued guidelines on the pilot. The clock is ticking.

Several countries, including Canada, Australia, Argentina, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Spain, already allow private sponsorships of refugees. Under private sponsorships, individuals and community groups collaborate to provide financial, emotional, and practical support for refugees. Some countries also empower sponsors to nominate specific refugees to enter and stay in their country.

Canada’s experience shows that private sponsorships can work. A 2020 study confirmed that privately-sponsored refugees are more likely than government-sponsored refugees to be working within the first year after entering Canada, with an employment rate at 90% for men and 71% for women. Findings from Canada also suggest that privately-sponsored refugees are more likely to stay at their initial destinations and private sponsorships could contribute to geographic dispersal of resettled refugees.

Americans are already engaged in private sponsorships for Afghans and Ukrainians through the Sponsor Circles initiative. This initiative supports Americans who decide to become sponsors by assisting them in the application process, offering temporary housing credits through Airbnb.org, as well as ongoing expert guidance and other sponsor tools and resources. More than 123,000 Americans have applied to financially sponsor Ukrainians, and over 87,000 Ukrainians have been granted permission to travel to the United States. The number of arrivals will likely exceed 100,000 by the end of 2022.

While technically most Ukrainians and Afghans have not entered the United States as refugees, lessons learned from the Sponsor Circles initiative could help establish a formal private refugee sponsorship model. Because most Ukrainians enter the United States under parole power, they can be authorized for travel in as little as two weeks. However, prospective sponsors have recently reported longer processing times.

To transform private sponsorships from an emergency one-time program to a formalized program where beneficiaries enter as refugees, with access to long-term residence and citizenship, the backlog issue becomes even more concerning. Current tests of 30-day streamlined visa processing for Afghans in Doha could be expanded and serve as a role model for both parolees and refugees. Moreover, to mobilize private refugee sponsors and enable them to prepare, the U.S. government needs to move forward quickly and specify a program design for private refugee sponsors, including financial requirements, sponsorship time commitments, and concrete sponsor responsibilities.

Once a private refugee sponsorship program gets launched, sponsors will have to accomplish challenging tasks. They will have to deal with language barriers, find affordable housing and help new refugees apply for public benefits. For such a process to work, it is important to set up communication streams between private refugee sponsors and existing refugee resettlement agencies.

Public-private partnerships work in other areas. For example, they have become an increasingly popular way to upgrade infrastructure and address the challenges of climate change. By incorporating a private refugee sponsorship model, the U.S. government can supplement its own efforts to admit 125,000 refugees this fiscal year.

More importantly, private refugee sponsorships would allow Americans to participate directly in welcoming refugees and facilitating their successful integration. Experience in the United Kingdom shows that private sponsorship can be a powerful tool in expanding communities’ understanding and capacity for welcoming newcomers. It can reduce fears about others more generally, change working practices to make them more inclusive for diverse populations, and bring new perspectives into relatively homogeneous communities. Involving U.S. citizens in the immigration process could thus be a way to dampen the current heated debate about immigration and allow Americans to see the mutual benefits of immigration.

Janine Prantl is an immigration postdoctoral associate in the Cornell Law School Immigration Law and Policy Research Program. Stephen Yale-Loehr is professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School.

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

Lots of creative ideas out here on how to improve our broken refugee and asylum systems! But, from those in charge of migration policy in the Biden Administration, not so much!😢

No, they are stuck in reverse. A small-time “overseas” refugee program for Venezuelans (24k “slots” for a refugee crisis that has generated more than 6 million refugees)🤯; a heavy dose of cruel and discredited “Stephen Miller Lite” Title 42 for those who exercise their legal right to apply for asylum at or near the border 🤮; more “due process free” illegal returns to abusive conditions in Mexico☠️.

Perhaps inadvertently, a recent NBC Nightly News report on the border mentioned a widely ignored fact. It pictured and described desperate Venezuelans patiently waiting in line to turn themselves in to CPB to exercise their legal rights to apply for asylum and other protections in the U.S. That’s right — “turn themselves in!”

This is NOT real law enforcement, nor does it present a security crisis! Nor are the oft repeated “record numbers” of border “apprehensions” legitimate!

Since individuals are often returned to Mexico with neither proper processing nor due process, many of these “apprehensions” are inflated — representing repeated “apprehensions” of the same individual merely seeking to apply for asylum — a legal right denied to them by both the Trump and Biden Administrations!

One might also ask whether an individual turning him or herself in and requesting legal asylum is “apprehended” at all? That’s why CBP has started using the more ambiguous term “encounter” to disguise what’s really happening at the border.

Under the Biden Administration’s latest discriminatory and brain dead application of Title 42, those Venezuelans who voluntarily turn themselves in at ports of entry or near the border will be illegally returned to Mexico to rot — as a “reward” for attempting to follow the law. Does this make sense? Of course not. And the consequences of this horrible “policy” are dire for both the refugees and our nation. In many ways, the Biden Administration inexplicably has gone even beyond the cruel stunts of DeSantis and Abbott in making “political footballs” 🏈out of vulnerable Venezuelan refugees! It’s an ongoing national disgrace, masquerading as “policy!”

The only avenue for legal refugee for these Venezuelans fleeing a repressive left-wing dictatorship is to hire a smuggler to get them past the border where they can lose themselves in the interior of the U.S. That is, under the Biden policy, “do it yourself, black market refuge” substitutes for a variable legal system and adds to the unscreened and often unknown underground population of undocumented migrants. in the U.S.

A robust, realistic refugee program for Venezuela, operating both in Mexico and in or near Venezuela, might well reduce the incentives for extralegal migration. It could also take some pressure off of other “receiving” countries in the Hemisphere. But, the “token” — unduly limited — program proposed by the Biden Administration will do nothing of the sort!

Extralegal entries and underground populations are not good. Robust, realistic, timely, refugee and asylum programs — properly focused on using existing laws for protection, not rejection — would reduce the incentive for extralegal migration while reaping the many potential benefits and strengths that refugees and asylees “bring to the table.”

Such a beneficial program is achievable — under current law. But, not without a radical shakeup in both the leadership and substance of the Biden Administration’s so-called human rights bureaucracy!

Casey Stengel

“Can’t anybody here play this game,” wonders Casey Stengel about the cruel, clueless crew in charge of human rights and immigration (non)policy in the Biden-Harris Administration.
PHOTO: Rudi Reit
Creative Commons

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-17-22

🗽⚖️ NDPA NEWS: CORNELL LAW MAKES STATEMENT BY ADDING FOUR EXCEPTIONAL PRACTICAL SCHOLARS! — “Cornell Law School already had a strong immigration scholar base. Adding these four new people will make us even more preeminent in this important area,” says Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr!

https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/news/cornell-law-school-welcomes-new-immigration-postdocs-and-scholars/

Cornell Law School Welcomes New Immigration Postdocs and Scholars

By Law School staff

September 26, 2022

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In 2021, Cornell Law School received a grant of $1.6 million from the Charles Koch Foundation for a two-year project to study ways to improve immigration law and policy. Thanks to that generous funding, the Law School has hired two postdoctoral research associates and two distinguished visiting scholars to expand upon its research capabilities in this area.

According to Stephen Yale-Loehr, faculty director of the Immigration law and policy research program, “Cornell Law School already had a strong immigration scholar base. Adding these four new people will make us even more preeminent in this important area.”

Information about the new hires is below.

Janine Prantl

Janine Prantl recently received her Ph.D. from the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Her thesis focused on the legal framework for refugee resettlement in the European Union. Prantl was awarded a postgraduate fellowship from Columbia Law School, where she received an LL.M. in 2021. Under this fellowship, she helped establish a global strategic litigation council for refugee rights. Prantl is collaborating with Professor Yale-Loehr on a report on why and how the United States should allow individuals to sponsor refugees, just as other countries already allow. If adopted, such a policy would permit more refugees to come to the United States.

Jacob Hamburger

Jacob Hamburger has a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he focused on immigration law and policy issues. Before law school he was an independent journalist covering European and U.S. politics, including the politics of migration and activist movements led by immigrants. Hamburger is collaborating with Professor Yale-Loehr in researching ways local and state governments can help undocumented immigrants work legally.

Distinguished Immigration Scholars

Cornell Law School is bringing prominent immigration scholars, policymakers, and public figures to the law school based on their demonstrated ability to participate in public and policy discourse. Distinguished immigration scholars work for either a semester or a full academic year. Two distinguished scholars are starting now; two others will start in the spring:

Charles Kamasaki is former executive vice president at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), the nation’s largest Latino civil rights organization. He also is a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and has written a book about immigration policy called Immigration Reform: The Corpse That Will Not Die.

Randel Johnson

Randel Johnson has worked on employment and immigration law and policy issues for over twenty-five years, bringing a broad perspective from working in the executive agencies, on Capitol Hill, and in the private sector. Deeply involved in past efforts on comprehensive immigration reform, including testifying in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, his experience includes working as the senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, labor counsel to the House Education and Labor Committee, and special assistant to the solicitor of labor at the U.S. Department of Labor. He was also a partner at the law firm of Seyfarth Shaw and most recently a judge on the Administrative Review Board at the Labor Department.

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

Many congrats to all involved! The power and prowess of the NDPA continues to grow even as the government sector continues to falter and fail!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-27-22

☠️🤮⚰️🏴‍☠️ MERCHANTS OF CHAOS & CORRUPTION: GOP HACKS, BAD RIGHTY JUDGES FORCE ILLEGAL CONTINUATION OF BOGUS TITLE 42 ABOMINATION! — Ending Title 42 Will Restore Order To The Border, Says Expert, Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr Of Cornell Law @ The Hill! — But, Wait, There’s Much More Needed, Say I!

Four Horsemen — GOP political hacks and their enabling bad righty Federal Judges have combined to wreak havoc on humanity and trample the Constitution, rule of law, common sense, and simple human decency at our Southern border!
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/3575601-ending-title-42-wont-cause-immigration-mayhem-it-will-restore-order/

In 2015, a Ghanaian man who goes by the initials M.A. and his gay friend were brutally assaulted by a vigilante group in Accra, Ghana. In Ghana, homosexuality is illegal and carries a prison sentence of up to three years. M.A. was beaten with sticks before escaping through a window. His friend was killed. Fearing the group would find and kill him, he fled to Ecuador and made his way to the U.S. border, where he requested asylum. After being detained for nine months, he was released on bond and lived with a childhood friend in New York while he waited for his case to make it through the legal system.

M.A. clearly faced persecution, but an immigration judge denied his claim. I took M.A.’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2016 as part of the Cornell Law School’s asylum appeals clinic. It took M.A. four years to win asylum in America, but at least he was given the chance to apply in the first place.

Since March 2020, approximately 900,000 people — including over 215,000 parents and children — have been denied the ability to request asylum at all. They’re casualties of Title 42, a pandemic-related policy that paused nearly all asylum proceedings at the border. Some people argue the policy is preventing an influx of migrants. In fact, numbers are up despite the policy, and our refusal to process most of them has led to chaotic and dangerous conditions.

The United States has successfully managed ebbs and flows of asylum seekers for decades. There’s a system in place to manage an influx — and regardless of how hard immigration lawyers like me fight for them to stay, many will lose their case and be deported. Even so, we must let people try. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also guaranteed under international and domestic law. We signed a 1967 protocol to the U.N. Refugee Convention to protect the rights of refugees, and we have adopted it and codified it into U.S. asylum law. Right now, we’re violating those obligations. The longer we do, the weaker American rule of law looks to our global partners.

We must immediately reinstate due process for asylum seekers. And once this happens, we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.

. . . .

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

Read Steve’s complete op-ed in The Hill at the link.

I agree that “we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.” But, the answer can’t be just to hire more Immigration Judges in Garland’s dysfunctional, broken, and anti-asylum-biased “court” system. That would just speed the “deportation assembly line” and lead to even more injustice and grotesque inconsistencies.

According to TRAC, Immigration Judge “asylum denial rates” currently “range” from 5% to 100%. That’s a ridiculous, indefensible variation and a total perversion of the generous standard for granting asylum set forth by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca and adopted by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi, but seldom enforced or followed, particularly these days. Why this very obvious, totally solvable problem is still festering going on two years into a Democratic Administration that pledged to solve it is beyond me!

Enough of this nonsense, biased, “amateur night at the Bijou” mal-administration of the Immigration Courts at EOIR by Garland’s DOJ! No wonder folks are still complaining about “Refugee Roulette” more than a decade after it was written by my Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Phil Schrag, Andy Schoenholtz, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales (now an Associate Dean at Temple Law). Why not put one of THEM, or for that matter, Professor Yale-Loehr, in charge of kicking tail and cleaning out the deadwood at EOIR?

At a minimum Garland must:

Remove the holdover “Asylum Deniers Club” from the BIA and replace them with a real judge as Chair and new Appellate Immigration Judges who are widely recognized as “practical experts” with careers that have demonstrated superior scholarship in immigraton and human rights, an unswerving commitment to due process for individuals, and a passion for racial justice in our legal system;
Have the “New BIA” issue useful precedential guidance on how to document and grant valid asylum cases at both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Court, implement best practices, and identify and remove from future asylum adjudication those unqualified Immigration Judges who basically “make up” reasons to deny and can’t or won’t treat applicants fairly; and
Immediately replace with qualified expert judges those Immigration Judges on the “Southern Border docket” who can’t fairly adjudicate asylum cases.

Steve is totally correct about the need for Title 42 to go! But, Garland’s EOIR, particularly the BIA, is just as broken, counterproductive, and out of control as Title 42! In many ways, the illegal abrogation of the rule of law at the Southern Border has somewhat ”hidden” the larger problem that a dysfunctional and incapable EOIR poses for those who do manage to get a hearing!

Without a legitimate, totally reformed and significantly “re-populated” EOIR operating at the “retail level” of our justice system, there will be no rule of law and equal justice under law in America — for anyone!

Tell Garland you have had enough! The deadly and disorderly “EOIR Clown Show” has got to go! Now!

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

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-28-22

🗽CORNELL IMMIGRATION CLINIC PROVES “THE ASYLUMIST’S” POINT: Lots Of Potential “Winners” Out There Lost In Garland’s Backlogged, Dysfunctional, Unfair EOIR!

Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer
Assistant Clinical Professor
Cornell Law

Professor Steve Yale-Loehr @ Cornell Law writes:

Paul: My colleague Jakki Kelley-Widmer, who runs a 1L immigration clinic at Cornell Law, just won a difficult asylum case before an IJ in Buffalo.This article summarizes the case and mentions all the students who worked on the case over the last few years: https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/news/1l-immigration-law-clinic-wins-high-stakes-case/?fbclid=IwAR05sriR0Z4lII65_xNMBtGE40f_JOudKSI78qvcIiLQxR3JmbyscmYz9Hc

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News

1L Immigration Law Clinic Wins High-Stakes Case

By Law School staff

April 27, 2022

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Paul: My colleague Jakki Kelley-Widmer, who runs a 1L immigration clinic at Cornell Law, just won a difficult asylum case before an IJ in Buffalo. This article summarizes the case and mentions all the students who worked on the case over the last few years: https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/news/1l-immigration-law-clinic-wins-high-stakes-case/?fbclid=IwAR05sriR0Z4lII65_xNMBtGE40f_JOudKSI78qvcIiLQxR3JmbyscmYz9Hc

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1L Immigration Law Clinic Wins High-Stakes Case

By Law School staff

April 27, 2022
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On March 31, The Cornell Law School’s 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic won a long-fought, difficult case in the Buffalo Immigration Court for a mother and her young children living on a farm in upstate New York, ensuring that the family will be able to live safely in the United States.
The client had arrived in 2019 from Mexico with three children under ten, including a baby. She was fleeing an abusive husband, to whom she had been forcibly married as a teenager, as well as direct threats of gang violence in her home country, whose government offered her no protection.
Immigration authorities detained her for several weeks in the winter of 2019 before releasing her with a notice to appear in court. She went to her first two court dates unrepresented, because few attorneys in upstate New York take this kind of case. Another nonprofit had already declined to represent her when she contacted Cornell Law’s Immigration Clinic.
“Asylum cases are incredibly difficult to win,” says clinic director Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer. “The process is onerous and takes tremendous resources. My students estimate that, across all the law students involved in the case, interpreters we used, law professors who contributed, volunteers who helped care for the client’s children, and administrative staff who assisted with filing and other logistics, this case took us about 1,000 collective hours over 14 months.”
She adds that the clinic was also partially basing its case on a novel argument related to the client’s marriage, which occurred while she was still a child. “The law students came up with this creative solution and found a path forward to make the claim, including by seeking multiple expert witnesses and researching country conditions to contextualize the client’s story.”
The core team of Jared Flanery ’23 and Tori Staley ’23 (who started as 1Ls) and Gaby Pico ’22 and Rachel Skene ’22 (who started as 2Ls) stayed with it for three semesters. They worked closely with the client, completely in Spanish and almost entirely remotely due to the pandemic and the client’s rural location.
The students conducted extensive research, drafted witness declarations, and wrote the briefing, involving three separate legal arguments. They also took on the trial, including direct examination of multiple witnesses, presentation of evidence, and closing arguments.
“Most importantly, the client herself has been her own best advocate,” says Kelley-Widmer. “We’ve laughed with her, we’ve cried with her, and together we celebrated this win for her long-term safety.”

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Folks, these are “first year law students” in the NDPA who, with inspiration and guidance from some of the “best and brightest in American law,” (like Professor Jakki Kelly-Widmer) are running circles around Garland’s “stuck in reverse” DOJ and Mayorkas’s DHS.

I recently featured commentary from Jason “The Asylumist” Dzubow about the egregiously horrible effects of EOIR’s “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”) that continues unabated under Garland.
https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/05/04/%f0%9f%91%8e%f0%9f%8f%bd%f0%9f%a4%aeaimless-docket-reshuffling-adr-garlands-eoir-screws-%f0%9f%94%a9asylum-seekers-with-long-pending-slam-dunk/

One of Jason’s many salient points was that there are lots of potentially “winnable” cases mired in Garland’s backlog that should be granted if they could only get a merits hearing before a fair judge.

As I have said repeatedly, the things necessary to transform EOIR into a “hotbed of due process” rather than it’s current state of “dysfunctional disaster” are NOT rocket 🚀 science:

More and better representation;
Fair, expert judges with practical experience;
Uniform, nationwide guidance on how to properly grant asylum and other relief in many worthy cases from a BIA of true experts and “practical scholars” in immigration and human rights;
Dockets that prioritize, expedite, and reward well-prepared, well-documented, grantable cases for asylum and other relief.

Those are the items that should have been “day one” priorities at DOJ and EOIR for Garland and his team. (Just what, if anything, has he accomplished in his time in office in ANY significant area of the law or policy?)

Instead, Garland has responded with:

Arbitrary and capricious, deterrence-driven “expedited dockets” that lead to more “ADR” and bigger backlogs;
“User unfriendly,” unilateral actions that have cost him support from the pro bono bar and experts would could have helped straighten out EOIR;
Maintaining a judiciary and “management” structure largely “designed and staffed” to “deny and deport” by his overtly nativist predecessors;
Wasting time, resources, and squandering goodwill by defending Title 42 and other indefensible policies left behind by the Trump-Miller regime.

These mistakes are NOT “small potatoes” 🥔 as Garland and some other misguided Dems seem to think. They have cost the Dems “big time” in the one overarching area where they had complete control and could have made necessary progressive changes for the common good without “60 votes” in the Senate. How many immigration bills did the Trump regime pass on their way to obliterating the law and human rights?

They have also cost the Dems a nearly unprecedented chance to show how sound legal and constitutional policies, equal justice, racial equity, and enlightened progressive humanitarianism can work to reaffirm and re-energize the essential contribution of immigration to America’s greatness and to disprove the racist, nativist, false myths about immigrants and people of color that have become a staple of modern day Republicanism.

Enlightened immigration policies could have materially helped solve or prevent some of the economic woes facing American today. They could have “beefed up” everything from the supply chain to essential workers to needed investments in rural America to the housing shortage.

Some of the “reddest” states in American are among those that could benefit most from immigrants — many of whom have faced and overcome in their lives some of the same problems frustrating rural America. But, migrants who are being illegally rejected at the border, unlawfully imprisoned, and/or then orbited to death or oblivion in failed countries can’t help themselves or anyone else. What a waste of human potential and opportunities to show what immigrants can achieve in and for America!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-07-22

⚖️NYDN OP-ED: Ending Abortion Will Hurt Refugee Women!☹️

Eliana Weinstein
research assistant in the department of anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine
PHOTO: Cornell

By ELIANA WEINSTEIN and STEPHEN YALE-LOEHR, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |

APR 20, 2022 AT 5:00 AM

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-supreme-court-refugee-abortion-20220420-iyjrkcorjndk5gpxads5qzi4z4-story.html

. . . .

Abortion bans have far-reaching consequences. Within the first 30 days of the enactment of the Texas abortion ban last September, the state saw a 60% decline in abortions. Refugees — who are disproportionately represented in southern states along the U.S. border — are among the most endangered groups. These individuals face imminent danger, violence or persecution in their home country.

Due to inherent instability, refugees are especially vulnerable to sex trafficking along the migration journey. The fear of deportation, lack of immigration status, lower educational attainment, inability to speak English and unfamiliarity with U.S. employment protections mark them as targets. Immigrant women make up 80% of sex-trafficked individuals in the United States.

The glaring omission of exceptions for rape or incest under the Texas law is disturbing. An estimated 5% of rapes among victims of reproductive age result in pregnancy, which by one estimate amounts to 32,000 rape-related pregnancies each year in the United States. The six-week mark under the Texas law allows a maximum buffer of two weeks from the time a pregnant woman misses her period, the first sign of pregnancy. In a third of rape-related pregnancy cases, victims do not discover they are pregnant until the second trimester, 13 weeks into the pregnancy.

. . . .

The shadow of the forthcoming Supreme Court decision lies at the intersection of human rights, law, and medicine. Abortion transcends partisan politics, with far-reaching consequences for women, children, healthcare providers, and all tax-paying citizens.

Rather than prioritize the life of an unborn child, our country must consider the lives that will be forever altered by a birth into desperate circumstances. States should enact protections for groups that will be most vulnerable, including victims of assault or rape, sex-trafficked individuals, and refugees. By defending our nation’s most vulnerable, we would see substantial benefits to the nation as a whole.

Weinstein is a research assistant in the department of anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Yale-Loehr is an immigration professor at Cornell Law School.

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

Read the full op-ed at the link.

But, as some of my NDPA colleagues would say, isn’t cruelty and hurting refugee women of color the point of the far right’s war on abortion?

It’s certainly not about the welfare of children and women for which they care not a fig. See, e.g., vicious attacks on vulnerable LGBTQ kids and their families; end of child tax credits; child separtion; unrepresented kids in Immigration Court; making “White kids feel good” at the expense of their minority classmates; seeking to circumvent protections for unaccompanied minors at the border; disparaging statements calling U.S. citizens “anchor babies,” etc.

Ironically, children of migrant women are considered by the GOP to be “persons” as long as they are in the womb. Once they are born, they become “nonpersons” with few if any rights that Repubs are willing to recognize.

If they could (and that might be next), they would strip kids of undocumented parentage of citizenship. Who says today’s Supremes wouldn’t go along? Having a class of “nonpersons” makes their job easier. No rights, no problems for righty judges and right wing politicos!

Sound familiar? It should? See Dred Scott.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-20-22

🗽NDPA NEWS: GET SMART FOR FREE! 🧠 — Join author Ali Noorani, CEO of the National Immigration Forum, for a virtual discussion on Wednesday April 27 from 1-2 pm ET about his newest book, “Crossing Borders: The Reconciliation of a Nation of Immigrants!”

Join author Ali Noorani, CEO of the National Immigration Forum, for a virtual discussion on Wednesday April 27 from 1-2 pm ET about his newest book, “Crossing Borders: The Reconciliation of a Nation of Immigrants,” with Cornell immigration law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr and Wall Street Journal reporter Michelle Hackman. Based on interviews in Honduras, Mexico, Eastern Europe, and communities across the U.S., Mr. Noorani’s book presents the complexities of migration through the stories of families fleeing violence and poverty, the government, and nongovernmental organizations helping or hindering their progress, and the U.S. communities receiving them. Going beyond highly charged partisan debates, the panel will offer real insights and actionable strategies for restoring the dignity of both immigrants and the United States itself.

To register for the free webinar, go to https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K042722a The webinar is co-sponsored by the Cornell Migrations Initiative.

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

Another all-star 🌟 panel featuring some of the “best in the business!” Think how much better immigration and human rights policies could be if folks like this were “on the inside” formulating and directing USG policy rather than commenting from the outside. I’ll bet the Immigration Courts, the border, and our asylum and refugee systems would all be on a much better trajectory!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-18-22

😰TRAUMATIZED BY DEALING WITH GARLAND’S DYSFUNCTIONAL EOIR? — Thankfully, There’s Help For That! — Professor Steve Yale-Loehr & A Panel Of Mental Health Experts Will Discuss Methods For Dealing With Traumatic Situations Created By An Out-Of-Control, Leaderless, Values-Free System Designed & Staffed To Dehumanize & Deny!*

Navigating Trauma: Tips for Attorneys and Their Clients: Free webinar Mar. 30 1 pm ET

Interested in learning how to deal with trauma in your clients and vicarious trauma you might suffer in sensitive cases like asylum, domestic violence, and violent crimes? Sign up for a free webinar entitled “Navigating Trauma: Tips for Attorneys and Their Clients” this Wednesday March 30, from 1-2 pm Eastern time.

Dr. JoAnn Difede, Director of the Program for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies and a Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Dr. Michelle Pelcovitz, Assistant Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine, will teach you how to recognize and deal with trauma. They will also provide self-care tips. Stephen Yale-Loehr, Professor of Immigration Law Practice at Cornell Law School and co-chair of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) Committee on Immigration Representation, will moderate.

The webinar is sponsored by NYSBA, Cornell Law School, Proskauer, Immigrant Justice Corps, the Association of Pro Bono Counsel, and other organizations. NYSBA will provide 1.0 MCLE credit of professional practice for attendees.

Anyone can register for the free webinar; you don’t have to be a NYSBA member. NYSBA members can register at https://nysba.org/events/navigating-trauma-tips-for-attorneys-and-their-clients/. If you aren’t a NYSBA member, set up a free account at https://nysba.org. Then input your name and email address so NYSBA can send you the Zoom link. The price is set up for free, so it will automatically be $0.00 when you add the program to your cart and check out. You can also call the NYSBA membership center at 800-582-2452 to register via phone. The program will be recorded, and attendees will receive handouts.

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

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

Feeling stressed? Burned out? “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” poor quality IJ decisions, and a “Trump holdover BIA” stacked with “appellate judges” who almost never see an asylum case they aren’t eager to deny got you down? Tired of having the exact same facts and arguments win in one case and lose in the next! Angry about Garland’s latest due process killing gimmick — more “expedited asylum procedures?”

Welcome to “business as usual” in the “Not so Wonderful” World of Merrick Garland’s EOIR!☠️

To practice before the dysfunctional Immigration Courts and USCIS in the “Biden Era,” members of the NDPA are going to need “coping skills” in addition to legal expertise to “fight the good fight” against systemic injustice, indifference to common sense and best practices, and endemic incompetence!

Check this out! It’s free!

Remember: It’s only human lives and the future of humanity that are at stake here! Why should Garland and his ivory tower lieutenants take it seriously, just because YOU do?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-25-22

*⚠️IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: “Courtside” is solely responsible for the content of this promotion. It has not been approved for public consumption by the webinar sponsors, the FDA, or anyone else of any importance whatsoever!

😎👍🏼⚖️🗽 MORE FREE NDPA TRAINING FROM THE EXPERTS: 6 Months After the Fall of Aghanistan: Free Webinar Mar. 9 1-2 pm ET!

Cornell Law School and the Cornell Migrations Initiative, along with other organizations, are hosting a free public webinar on Wednesday March 9 from 1-2 pm ET entitled “After the Fall: The Future of Afghan Allies Fleeing the Taliban.”

Six months after the fall of Afghanistan, a lot has been done, but a lot remains to be done.The United States evacuated over 100,000 Afghans to the United States or third countries.Yet an estimated 200,000 Afghans who helped the U.S. military or government remain in Afghanistan, fearing persecution and famine.Moreover, those who have made it to the United States have mostly entered on humanitarian parole, which is a temporary status that expires after two years.They need ways to remain in the United States permanently.

Learn what Cornell University and other organizations have done to assist Afghans at risk, what remains to be done, and how you can help.

Speakers include Joel Kelsey, chief of staff to U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal; Chis Purdy, director of Veterans for American Ideals and Outreach at Human Rights First; Nell Cady-Kruse from the Evacuate Our Allies Coalition; Camille Mackler, executive director of Immigrant ARC; and Katie Rahmlow, a Cornell law student who has worked on several Afghan cases. Cornell law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, who directs an Afghanistan asylum clinic at Cornell Law School, will moderate.

To register for the free webinar, go to https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K030922a/

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

Phone: 607-379-9707

e-mail: SWY1@cornell.edu

Twitter: @syaleloehr

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

Thanks so much Steve for passing this along! An all-star lineup to be sure! 🌟🌟🌟 Don’t miss it! Required registration available at the above link.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-24-22

⚖️🗽NDPA OPPORTUNITY: GET SMARTER FASTER AS YOU PREPARE TO BATTLE FOR DUE PROCESS IN AMERICA’S WORST COURT SYSTEM!

Free NYSBA asylum training CLE webinar Dec. 13 1-2 pm ET

Are you considering handling your first pro bono asylum case, but unsure of how to proceed? This free one-hour CLE training sponsored by the New York State Bar Association will orient you to the fundamentals of asylum eligibility and procedure, common issues to consider, and mentorship possibilities. Handouts will be provided.

When: Monday December 13, 2021, 1-2 pm ET

Where: online

Speakers: Victoria Neilson (Managing Attorney, Catholic Legal Immigration Network), Rebecca Press (Legal Director, UnLocal, Inc.), and Steve Yale-Loehr (Cornell Law School)

MCLE credits: 1.0

Cost: free

Event link and registration: https://nysba.org/events/handling-your-first-pro-bono-asylum-case-2/

If you aren’t an NYSBA member, call 800-582-2452 to register.

The CLE will be recorded and available to people who register but can’t attend the live event.

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

Phone: 607-379-9707

e-mail: SWY1@cornell.edu

Twitter: @syaleloehr

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

Thanks, Steve, my friend, for passing this on! I’m grateful for all you do to educate, guide, support, and most of all inspire the NDPA in the never-ending fight to force our Government to make due process and fundamental fairness for all persons in America, regardless of race, creed, or status, a reality rather than the cruel farce it is today!

Never has the need for talented pro bono representation in Immigration Court been greater.

And, the Garland DOJ’s indifference to long overdue due process, quality control, personnel, and best practices reforms in the broken and backlogged EOIR system means that the battle to save lives and force change through aggressive litigation is just beginning and ultimately will succeed!

The good news: Given the endemic lack of expertise, discombobulated administration, and disregard for quality at EOIR, the “talent balance” favors the NDPA! Many deserving lives can be saved and at least some degree of accountability forced on Garland’s dysfunctional EOIR through aggressive, well prepared litigation that makes compelling records, advances correct interpretations and applications of the law, and resists and triumphs over the “race to the bottom” that has destroyed and perverted justice in our Immigration Courts.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-07-21

😢👎🏽HOW MUCH USCIS “SERVICE” DOES $575 BUY A REFUGEE? — Not Much, According To Deanna García @ “Early Arrival” — Plus Other Top News For Immigration Advocates!

Deanna Garcia — Deanna García
Immigration Journalist
PHOTO: Muckrack.com

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OCTOBER 25, 2021

Hello, this is Deanna Garcia with today’s edition of Early Arrival. You can email me at deanna.garcia@documentedny.com.

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NJ Immigrant Detainees Worried About Transfers as ICE Contracts End

📍 Documented Original

As New Jersey jails began to terminate their contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency has started sending immigrant detainees to other jails in the U.S., further away from their families and friends. ICE told lawyers that the agency can’t release their clients because it considers them a public safety threat, even though majority of them are imprisoned over unresolved charges for nonviolence crimes. This action indicates the power ICE has on where and how immigrant detainees are being held. “We all hoped that ICE would use its discretion to release,” said Ellen Pachnanda, the attorney in charge of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. “As long as ICE retains this discretion to transfer, they will transfer.” Read more at Documented.

Documented is the only newsroom that creates journalism with and for New York’s immigrant communities. This work is not easy and it is not cheap. Help us fuel this work for $10/month.

AOC Revives Citizenship Bill for 9/11 Cleanup Crew

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and two other legislators reintroduced a federal bill to put immigrants who helped clean up after the 9/11 attacks on a fast track to U.S. citizenship. The 9/11 Immigrant Worker Freedom Act is an adjusted version of a bill that former Rep. Joseph Crowley introduced in 2017, which didn’t advance to the House. New York immigrants have asked for years to obtain legal immigrant status as compensation for the work they did and health problems they’ve suffered since the attacks. Several dozens are still protesting, while others gave up on fighting. The Associated Press

New Jersey Haitian Leaders Protest Deportations

Haitian community leaders and immigrant advocates gathered outside of a federal immigration office to protest the Biden administration deporting thousands of Haitian migrants under Title 42. The group of 50 people demanded that President Joe Biden allow more Haitians to seek asylum in the U.S. “These people just want to work and find a better way of life. We’re speaking in Newark because this city is a bedrock for New Jersey’s Haitian population,” said the Rev. Jean Maurice of the New Jersey Haitian Pastors Organization. According to U.S. Census data, New Jersey has roughly 60,000 Haitian residents. North Jersey

Advocates Rally Again for Schumer to Ensure a Pathway to Citizenship

For the last few weeks, immigrant advocates have been demanding Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to work to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. On Friday, that demand continued at Schumer’s Peekskill office. Immigrants and advocates said they help Democrats gain power in Washington, so now they want Schumer to work for them. “We’ve delivered that control to the Democrats, so we feel that the Democrats have to deliver the promise that they’ve made us and make sure that citizenship is being included in this year’s reconciliation package,” said Peekskill City Councilor Vanessa Agudelo. Advocates said they’re in talks with Schumer’s office and will continue the pressure. News12 the Bronx

ICE Investigation Discovered Falsified Documents of Immigrant’s Suicide

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s External Reviews and Analysis Unit, medical and security staff at Stewart Detention Center in Georgia violated several agency rules when handling Efraín Romero de la Rosa’s suicide in 2018. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed suicide after being in solitary for 21 days. The review discovered staff falsified documents, poorly dealt with his medication, didn’t follow proper care procedures and improperly placed him in disciplinary solitary confinement, even though there were multiple warnings of his declining mental health. The review also lists 22 separate violations of ICE and Stewart Detention Center rules by staff during Romero de la Rosa’s four months in detention and eight separate “areas of concern.” The Intercept

Migrant Caravan Breaks Mexican National Guard Roadblock

Roughly between 3,000 and 4,000 migrants left the U.S.-Mexico border city of Tapachula on Saturday morning and headed to Mexico City. Caravan organizers say that will be their last stop while they continue to attempt to secure humanitarian permits for Haitians andCentral and North American migrants to move freely throughout Mexico. But some migrants said they plan on going to the southern border as part of their push. Videos on social media show the caravan recently ran into a Mexican National Guard roadblock and broke through it, with soldiers making no attempts to pursue or draw weapons against them. Border Report

California Hires Border Wall Contractor to Screen, Test and Vaccinate Migrants

California Gov. Gavin Newsom hired Sullivan Land Services Co. to screen, test and vaccinate migrants for COVID-19 at the border. SLSCO, based in Galveston, Texas, received a no-bid $350 million contract from California. This was the same company former President Donald Trump used to build the border wall along the border. Newsom had criticized the border wall and even pushed to file several lawsuits to halt its construction. According to a report, SLSCO staff gave COVID-19 services to about 60,000 migrants at five locations. Immigration advocates and health care leaders aren’t happy about the state’s partnership with SLSCO. KXAN

Child Allowed into U.S. for Urgent Cancer Treatment and Given Humanitarian Parole

Carlitos, a 2-year-old boy from Guatemala, was allowed to enter the U.S. from Tijuana in an ambulance. According to his attorney Hollie Webb, his story of kidnapping, expulsion, lack of access to medical care and a serious illness that without proper treatment could kill him, provided him with a rare outcome. Attorneys and doctors campaigned U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to allow Carlitos and his mother, Ana, to cross into San Diego under a humanitarian parole to give him cancer treatment. CBP granted the request after an inquiry from The San Diego Union-Tribune. The two crossed into the U.S. Thursday evening to a hospital in San Diego. The San Diego Union-Tribune

Georgia Lawmakers Consider Immigration Solutions Amid Labor Shortages

Just like elsewhere in the U.S., Georgia is facing labor shortages as its economy recovers from the pandemic. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has been meeting to figure out how Georgia’s immigrants can help solve this problem and contribute to the state’s economy. They spoke with industry leaders and immigration advocates to learn what prevents immigrants from maximizing their participation in the workforce. According to Darlene Lynch, a representative of Georgia’s Business & Immigration Partnership, about 1 in 5 foreign-born Georgians with college degrees are either unemployed or employed in a low-wage job, which costs the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue per year. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Biden Allowing Private Groups to Sponsor Afghan Evacuees, Small USCIS Staff Tackling Humanitarian Requests, Arizona Mayor Claims Migration Stresses Local Services

The Biden administration plans on revealing a program Monday that would let private groups sponsor Afghan evacuees and assist their resettlement in the U.S., three sources familiar with the plan told CBS News. According to a presentation describing the plan, groups of about five individuals could apply to become “sponsor circles” that would help Afghan refugees secure housing, basic necessities, financial support, legal counsel and medical services for about 90 days. This program would become an alternative to the traditional refugee resettlement process, which is overseen by nine national agencies and their local affiliates. The “Sponsor Circle Program,” a joint initiative between the Department of State and the Community Sponsorship Hub, oversees online applications from potential sponsors and helps connect them with refugees. CBS News

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services allocated just six employees to process roughly 14,000 humanitarian requests for Afghan evacuees seeking relocation last week, drawing condemnation from lawmakers. “That is completely and utterly unacceptable, and I call on USCIS to address the shortcoming immediately,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, (D-R.I.). As of Friday, that number jumped to close to 20,000 requests, which is 10 times more than the number of humanitarian applications submitted around the world in a typical year, said a USCIS official. In response to Langevin’s criticism, the USCIS official said the agency is assigning additional staff for the workload. VOA News

Yuma, Arizona, Mayor Douglas Nicholls (R) told a Washington, D.C. forum that the increase of undocumented immigrants is stressing health care and nonprofits that assist migrants in his town. “As these (migrant) numbers continue to increase, it’s going to be beyond their capability,” he said. “From that perspective we have real concern about our health care system holding up, our nonprofit system holding up, and even our economy.” His comments come as apprehensions of immigrants at the southern border are at their highest numbers in decades. Immigration advocates say those numbers can be misleading since they might represent one migrant who was stopped multiple times. They also argued that nonprofits were under stress due to the pandemic before immigration numbers increased in Trump’s last year in office. AZMirror

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

Recently, I wrote about the heroic efforts of my friends Processor Erin Barbato and the UW Law Immigration Clinic and Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr and the Cornell Law Immigration Clinic to help Afghan refugees, including assistance filing applications for “humanitarian parole.”

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/10/21/%f0%9f%91%8d%f0%9f%8f%bc%f0%9f%98%8e%f0%9f%97%bdmore-ndpa-news-immigration-guru-professor-stephen-yale-loehr-cornell-immigration-clinic-help-afghan-refugees-with-humanitarian-parole-requests/

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/10/21/%f0%9f%97%bd%f0%9f%91%8d%f0%9f%8f%bc%f0%9f%98%8endpa-news-amazing-practical-scholar-professor-erin-barbato-leads-uw-law-clinic-in-helping-afghan-refugees-ft-mccoy-wi/

I also questioned the unusually high $575 fee being charged by USCIS for these emergency humanitarian applications! Now, we find out that for this outrageously high fee, USCIS has assigned only a “skeletal staff” of six adjudicators to process those very predictable applications. Undoubtedly, that will result in unnecessary backlogs and processing delays.

Ur Mendoza Jaddoul — Ur Mendoza Jaddou
Director, USCIS
PHOTO: PotomacLaw.com

These are the types of “X’s & O’s” practical problems that USCIS Director Ur Jaddou was hired to fix. So, she needs to “get on the stick” and fix this NOW!

A drastic increase in humanitarian parole applications and backlogs was totally predictable. Why is it only getting attention after it becomes a problem and draws public criticism?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-25-21

👍🏼😎🗽MORE NDPA NEWS: IMMIGRATION GURU PROFESSOR STEPHEN YALE-LOEHR & CORNELL IMMIGRATION CLINIC HELP AFGHAN REFUGEES WITH HUMANITARIAN PAROLE REQUESTS!

https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/news/cornell-law-students-and-professors-assist-afghans-at-risk/

Cornell Law Students and Professors Assist Afghans at Risk

By Alexandra Eguiluz

October 19, 2021

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The National Lawyers Guild and the International Refugee Assistance Project chapters at Cornell Law School, along with two professors and over three dozen law students, are volunteering to help Afghans seeking humanitarian parole in the United States. The recent turmoil in Afghanistan caused by the withdrawal of American troops and the takeover of the Taliban has forced many individuals into hiding and fearing for their lives, especially if they helped the U.S. military, government contractors, or Western aid groups.

Law student volunteers, Amy Godshall ’23 (far left), Jason Steuerwald ’23, Ethan Taveras ’23, and Matt Nelson ’23 (far right) preparing to mail the eleven cases they filed during the first week of October.

Humanitarian parole is a rarely used avenue in U.S. immigration law that allows individuals to come to the United States temporarily for urgent humanitarian reasons. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has been closed, leaving Afghans with no option but to either leave Afghanistan and begin humanitarian procedures in another country or stay in Afghanistan and have a family member or friend in the United States sponsor them. Almost all of the individuals who are receiving legal assistance on their humanitarian parole applications at the Law School are currently in Afghanistan.

Cornell Law students Ethan Taveras ’23, Amy Godshall ’23, Jason Steuerwald ’23, and Victoria (Tori) Staley ’23 are spearheading the project, which involves fifty law students who are volunteering their time and efforts. Aside from gathering paperwork from the families and filing cases, all four law students are also working on training other law student volunteers. Professors Stephen Yale-Loehr, director of the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Clinic, and Beth Lyon, associate dean for experiential education and clinical program director, are volunteering their time to supervise the law students.

“Currently there are about seventy active humanitarian parole cases we’re working on. Jason and Amy just filed a case for eleven people,” said Staley.

Although the project is in its initial stages, the students are facing some challenges, including high application fees ($575 per applicant), gathering evidence from individuals in hiding or separated from their identification documents, compiling all the documentation required for the application, and uncertainty with how long the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will take to decide on the applications. All these challenges, particularly the last one, are currently leaving Afghan applicants “waiting, without knowing whether they should leave Afghanistan or not,” said Godshall.

Despite these challenges, most of the students have been able to speak directly with the Afghan clients and their sponsors. Some clients or sponsors speak English; in other cases, the students are using the translation feature in WhatsApp. “We hope to file another chunk of cases in the next few weeks,” said Staley.

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Thanks, Steve, to you and your students for all they are doing for humanity and American justice!

I must say that for USCIS to charge each refugee $575 for the humanitarian parole application seems rather “Trumpian.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-21-21

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! 🚀 “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum . . . .” INA section 208(a). Black Organizations File Complaint About Biden Administration’s Scofflaw Actions Targeting Black Haitians & Other Asylum Seekers Of Color!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-immigration-groups-demand-biden-halt-deportations-haitian-asylum_n_6150a453e4b00164119567a9

Sanjana Karanth reports for HuffPost:

Several Black immigration organizations have filed a formal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, demanding that the Biden administration halt its continued deportations of Haitian asylum seekers.

The complaint filed by four groups ― the Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, African Communities Together and Black Alliance for Just Immigration ― requests that any potential witnesses of Border Patrol abuses be allowed to remain in the U.S. while their asylum claims are investigated. The complaint was first reported by theGrio, and signed by dozens of advocacy groups.

More than 13,000 Haitians were camped along the river at the Texas border town of Del Rio last weekend when Border Patrol officers on horseback charged at some of those gathered there, verbally assaulting and appearing to whip them. Photos of the violence shocked the public.

. . . .

The complaint by the organizations notes that the migrants have been denied access to attorneys, interpreters, adequate medical care, fear-based screening and proper nourishment and sanitation, all under intense heat. It also highlights physical intimidation and violence against migrants by Border Patrol officers, and misleading statements made by Homeland Security officers to Haitians about where they were being flown to.

“We’re not living up to our obligation as a nation to be a place of refuge for people seeking a better life,” former Obama administration Cabinet member Julián Castro told HuffPost earlier this week. “And in the least, asylum seekers, whether they’re from Haiti, or from one of these Northern Triangle countries should be allowed to make their asylum claim, instead of being severely expelled from the country. This was not the change we were hoping for on immigration policy.”

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Mayorkas’s defense of his grotesque, “Trumpist” misuse of Title 42, which actually has been rejected by a Federal Judge, on “Meet the Press” was as disgraceful as it was dishonest!

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr succinctly nailed it in a recent interview for National Geographic: “The United States has to realize that more people are on the move in the world than ever before. We’re never going to be able to shut off our borders.” https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/expert-u-s-immigration-laws-don-t-match-current-reality

Either Mayorkas doesn’t understand reality, or he’s too intellectually dishonest to speak truth! Regardless, it’s not good!

Re-establishing the rule of law and treating asylum seekers fairly and generously, as the law requires, is not an option! It’s a legal and moral obligation! There is absolutely no reason to “apologize” for treating asylum seekers fairly and humanely, no matter what racist GOP nativists like Texas “Governor Death” Greg Abbott and Senator “Cancun Ted the Insurrectionist” Cruz say!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-27-21

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Cornell Law School Welcomes New Immigration Postdocs and Scholars

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At a minimum Garland must:

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Professor Steve Yale-Loehr @ Cornell Law writes:

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Check this out! It’s free!

Remember: It’s only human lives and the future of humanity that are at stake here! Why should Garland and his ivory tower lieutenants take it seriously, just because YOU do?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

*⚠️IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: “Courtside” is solely responsible for the content of this promotion. It has not been approved for public consumption by the webinar sponsors, the FDA, or anyone else of any importance whatsoever!

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Sanjana Karanth reports for HuffPost:

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