"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
In the 18 months since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican officials have had ample opportunity to prove they’re not merely antiabortion but also pro-child. They keep failing.
GOP politicians across the country have found new and creative ways to deny resources to struggling parents and children. Take, for instance, the summer lunch program.
Under a new federal program, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches can also receive food assistance during the summer. The policy, created as part of the bipartisan budget deal in 2022, gives eligible families $40 per month per child, or $120 total over the summer. It often works essentially as a top-up for food stamps, since these families must buy more groceries when their children lose access to nutritious school meals when classes go out of session. (It’s similar to a temporary program offered during the pandemic, though it’s much less generous.)
The federal government pays the entire cost of the benefits associated with this new food program and half the administrative costs. The program isn’t automatic, though; states had to opt in by Jan. 1.
Republican governors across 15 states chose not to, as my Post colleague Annie Gowen reported. Up to 10 million kids will be denied access to this grocery aid as a result.
Why have these governors rejected food assistance, even amid soaring grocery prices and pledges to help families strained by inflation?
Some states, such as Texas and Vermont, cited operational or budgetary difficulties with getting a new system running in time for this summer. These obstacles could presumably be surmounted in future years. In other states, GOP politicians expressed outright disdain for the program.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, for instance, said of the new program, “I don’t believe in welfare.” A spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Children and Families cited vague unspecified fears about “federal strings attached.”
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds suggested there was no point in giving this grocery assistance to food-insecure children “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”
Reynolds is apparently unaware that obesity is linked to a lack of reliable access to nutritious food and that children in food-insecure homes face a higher risk of developmental problems. This suggests withholding this nutritional assistance hurts not only the state’s children today but also its workforce tomorrow.
This is hardly the only time GOP politicians have worked to swipe food from the mouths of hungry children — and their moms.
. . . .
Indeed, if a version of a child tax credit expansion ultimately materializes — and it might in the next few days — that will happen only because Democratic lawmakers explicitly held those corporate tax breaks hostage in exchange for aid to poor kids.
Republicans keep assuring the American public that they really, truly care about helping women forced into bearing children even when they’re not financially or emotionally ready to do so. They claim they want to protect youngsters and invest in their financial future.
Time for the GOP to put its money where its mouth is.
This guy’s ugly presence and vile racist views hang over the 2024 election campaign and Congressional negotiations. Why? Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) says he has transported 95,000 migrants from the Texas border to New York, Washington, DC, and other cities. On New Year’s Eve, Abbott flew hundreds of migrants — including many children — to the Rockford airport in Illinois, 30 miles outside of Chicago. It was snowing upon their arrival, and some of the migrants had no coats or shoes. Others were wearing flip-flops. The migrants were then loaded onto buses chartered by Abbott and dropped off in various suburbs.
Abbott says that he is transporting migrants to “sanctuary cities” as punishment for the cities’ permissive policies. A “sanctuary city” is a derisive term used by the right to describe a city that chooses not to volunteer local law enforcement resources to assist federal immigration agents. But in this case, the issue is largely irrelevant. The overwhelming majority of people being used as pawns by Abbott are in the United States legally.
One approach to deterring migrants is ignoring human rights and making the ordeal as traumatic as possible. That appears to be Abbott’s strategy. But it is not the law.
The Refugee Act of 1980, which passed Congress unanimously, gives migrants inside the United States the right to claim asylum based on “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” It was enacted “in part to make amends for the country’s shameful refusal to accept Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.”
Previously, most people seeking to cross the southern border of the United States came from Mexico. They were generally seeking seasonal work inside the United States and, therefore, sought to evade detection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But beginning in 2010, there was an influx of migrants from Central America fleeing gang violence, racial discrimination, and extreme poverty. More recently, political and economic disruption has prompted an increase in migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti. These new migrants are seeking legal asylum and want to present themselves to border agents — not evade them.
Migrants are being transported by Abbott to places where housing is expensive and in short supply. Most asylum-seekers would like to work to support their families, but the law does not allow them to receive a work permit for 180 days. Because of bureaucratic delays, asylum-seekers often wait a year or more before they are able to work legally.
Abbott also says his efforts are in protest of President Joe Biden’s “open border policies.” Biden has not opened the border. He did recently repeal Title 42, the Trump-era program that denied migrants the right to seek asylum, citing the public health emergency created by the COVID pandemic. Title 42 was legally questionable from the outset, but its continued use after other pandemic-related restrictions were lifted was indefensible. Title 42 also encouraged repeated border crossings. After Title 42 was imposed, “migrant encounters reported by CBP increased every month for 15 straight months.” Under Title 42, many migrants were deported immediately, and no record was created. This meant there was an incentive for migrants to attempt to cross the border again and again until they were successful.
Despite the rhetoric of Abbott and other prominent Republican officials, Biden has taken a hard line against migrants. Some advocates believe that Biden’s efforts to deter migrants from crossing the southern border have exceeded his legal authority.
The truth about Biden’s immigration policy
During his campaign for president in 2020, Biden vowed to undo Trump-era immigration policies. His promises included not building “another foot of wall” on the border and a pledge to stop using private prisons as immigration detention centers. On day one of his presidency, Biden proposed legislation “to restore humanity and American values to our immigration system.” His plan, known as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, would have created pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, increased assistance to Central America, and strengthened oversight and accountability of border operations.
The bill, however, died in Congress. Since then, Biden has only managed to make modest changes to immigration — like overruling Trump’s Muslim Ban and creating a task force to reunify separated migrant families. For the most part, experts say, Biden has continued many of Trump’s policy decisions.
Earlier this year, for example, Biden imposed new restrictive rules for asylum seekers who are not from Mexico. Dubbed by critics as the “Asylum Ban,” the rule assumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum and were similar to ones previously proposed (but never implemented) by Trump. In most cases, migrants will only be considered for asylum if they make an appointment in advance through a smart phone app, CBP One. There are far more people seeking asylum each day than appointments available through the app. In October 2023, the Biden administration announced that it was waiving 26 federal laws to construct up to 20 miles of the border wall in Texas.
A Washington Post analysis found that “nearly 18,000” family members were deported in fiscal year 2023 – about 3,000 more than were deported under Trump in fiscal year 2020. Since Biden took office, the number of migrants detained by ICE has also more than doubled. The majority of these people, the ACLU says, are held in private detention facilities. According to the group, the share of migrants detained in facilities “owned or operated by private prison corporations” has increased under Biden. In some instances, the administration has even kept open detention facilities “that its own oversight agencies have recommended for closure in light of abusive conditions and safety risks.”
Last month, immigration advocacy groups alleged in a federal complaint that officials have “forced asylum seekers to remain in CBP custody in open-air detention sites along the U.S.-Mexico border in California.” The group accuses CBP agents of forcing migrants to wait in “dangerous, exposed conditions” and “failing to provide the adequate food, water, sanitation, shelter, and medical care required under the law.” So far, at least one migrant has died while waiting outside.
Texas passes its own immigration law
On December 18, Abbott signed a law, Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), that will allow state law enforcement to arrest migrants in Texas. The new state law would make it illegal to cross into Texas from Mexico without using an official port of entry. This practice is already illegal under federal law. But now state law enforcement officers will be permitted to arrest individuals based on their suspected immigration status.
SB 4 includes exceptions for migrants in “public or private schools; churches and other places of worship; health care facilities; and facilities that provide forensic medical examinations to sexual assault survivors,” but does not protect those on college or university campuses. The law does not require that law enforcement officers complete any additional training on immigration law, “despite the fact it would authorize them to quickly make decisions about a person’s immigration status.”
Opponents argue that SB 4 is unconstitutional because the federal government, not Texas, is responsible for enforcing immigration laws. On December 28, the Justice Department sent a letter to Abbott stating that SB 4 “violates the United States Constitution.” Yesterday, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Texas and Abbott. The lawsuit states that “Texas cannot run its own immigration system” and that SB 4 “intrude[s] on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate[s] the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere[s] with U.S. foreign relations.”
In response to the December letter, Abbott posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “The Biden Admin. not only refuses to enforce current U.S. immigration laws, they now want to stop Texas from enforcing laws against illegal immigration,” Abbott said in the post. According to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, when signing SB 4 into law, Abbott said, “We think that Texas already has a constitutional [right] to do this but we also welcome a Supreme Court decision that would overturn the precedent set in the Arizona case.”
HISTORICAL NOTE: The article states that the Refugee Act of 1980 “passed Congress unanimously.” But, that isn’t completely accurate.
There was indeed very strong bipartisan support for that Act. It passed the Senate, 88-0.
A different version of the bill overwhelmingly passed the House, 328-47. Therefore, a Conference Committee was formed to resolve differences.
The Conference Committee report largely adopted the Senate version. The Conference bill unanimously passed the Senate again. But, the vote in the House was closer, 207-192, with 34 Representatives abstaining.
The above summary was reconstructed from the outstanding historical article by refugee guru Professors Deborah Anker and Michael Posner in the San Diego Law Review (1981) with an assist from my own recollection of events in which I long ago participated. https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1735&context=sdlr.
Another helpful resource that I consulted is Ballotpedia.
The Popular Informationarticle reprinted above does very accurately set forth the lies, misinformation, and invidious intent behind the GOP’s attack on and attempt to dehumanize legal asylum seekers!
When a party has no issues, no accomplishments, and no plans for governing in a responsible way, “ginning up” hate, resentment, and “revenge” with lies, misrepresentations, and myths becomes a “strategy.” And somehow, the mainstream media largely falls for it.
Question: Is there anything more absurd than red state governors rejecting federal programs that directly benefit their constituents?
Easy answer: Yes. It’s the explanations they give to make their actions appear to be sober, responsible fiscal decisions.
The Republican governors of Iowa and Nebraska brought us the most recent examples of this phenomenon just before Christmas.
The issue in both states is a summer food program that provides $40 a month per child in June, July and August to families eligible for free or reduced-price school meals.
The program is known as the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program for Children, or Summer EBT. Its purpose is to give the eligible families a financial bridge during the months when their kids aren’t in school.
The governors didn’t see it that way. Here’s how Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds justified her decision to reject the federal subsidy
for low-income Iowans: “Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families.”
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen’s explanation was,
“I don’t believe in welfare.”
Both governors said their states already had programs in place to address food needs for low-income families, and that was enough.
It’s worth noting that the explanations by both Reynolds and Pillen are fundamentally incoherent. What does Reynolds even mean by calling the program “not sustainable”? It would be sustained as long as Congress continues to fund it, which is almost certain as long as Republicans don’t take control of both houses and kill it.
As for Pillen’s crack about “welfare,” he didn’t bother to explain what he believes is wrong with “welfare” as such; he just uttered the term knowing that it’s a dog whistle for conservative voters aimed at dehumanizing the program’s beneficiaries.
What makes these governors’ refusals so much more irresponsible is that the federal government is picking up 100% of the tab for the benefits; the states only have to agree to pay half the administrative costs. Their shares come to $2.2 million in Iowa and $300,000 in Nebraska, according to those states’ estimates.
In return, 240,000 children in Iowa would receive a total of $28.8 million in benefits over the three summer months, and 150,000 Nebraskans would receive a total of $18 million. Sounds like a massively profitable investment in child health in those states.
The governors’ defenses smack of the same strained plausibility of those statements made by banks, streaming networks and other commercial entities that explain that their price hikes and service reductions are “efforts to serve you better.”
. . . .
*************************
Read the complete article at the link.
Cowardly, irresponsible GOP governors pick on poor kids and their families.And, the other things that might lift families out of poverty:higher wages, shorter hours, more childcare, better health care, educational opportunities, vocational assistance, family planning assistance — the GOP opposes them all in their totally corrupt and disingenuous “race to the bottom.”
Just look at the amount of money GOP politicos have wasted on cruel stunts and gimmicks intended and guaranteed to make the humanitarian situation worse!
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said and done a lot of massively cringeworthy stuff over the last several years, including but not limited to:
Traveling to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Donald Trump’s ring just weeks after condemning the ex-president for not denouncing the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021
Losing the vote for House Speaker a whopping 14 times before dragging himself across the finish line on round 15 by striking a deal with the Freedom Caucus
Reportedly saying of Marjorie Taylor Greene things like, “I will never leave that woman” and “I will always take care of her.”
Anyway, the former Speaker added a new entry to the “What kind of cringey stuff is Kevin up to today” archives on Sunday, when he posted a video to his X account in which he made clear that his knowledge of US history leaves…a lot to be desired!
Appearing in a tuxedo at an unnamed event—possibly a gathering of politicians who had their lips sewn to the worst president in modern history’s ass, possibly not—McCarthy declared: “In every single war that America has fought we have never asked for land afterwards except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for.”
Think for one moment. In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterward—except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.
Readers added context
The US has acquired numerous territories through conflict, including:
This, of course, is not true at all. After the Revolutionary War, the US doubled in size due to land relinquished by the British. After the Mexican-American war, the US took possession of present-day states California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. And after the Spanish-American War the US took over Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
Is McCarthy’s blunder embarrassing? Hugely! Is basic knowledge of this country’s history, how our government functions, and other lessons children learn in school a prerequisite for being a member of the modern Republican Party? Well, as his colleagues canattest, obviouslynot.
*****************
Bess Levin Politics & Finance Writer Vanity Fair
Read more of Bess and Vanity Fair at the above link.
Dumbing down American history, censorship, book banning, and teaching myths instead of truth are all part of the GOP agenda! Just look at what’s happening on some local school boards and libraries!
The Northern Virginia doctor knows at least that much about his situation. He knows he is no longer considered a citizen of the United States — the place where he was born, went to school and has practiced medicine for more than 30 years — and that he also belongs to no other place.
“I’m in limbo,” he told me on a recent afternoon.
In the past few years, there have been many passport-renewal nightmare stories, with processing delays forcing people to beg, lose sleep and miss once-in-a-lifetime trips. But what Sobhani has experienced this year after trying to renew his passport is uniquely unmooring.
As he tells it, when he sent in an application for a new passport in February, he had no reason to expect he’d face any difficulties. He had renewed his passport several times previously without problems. This time, it was set to expire in June, and he wanted to make sure he had a valid one in hand before his family took a trip in July.
But he did not receive a new passport. Instead, at the age of 61, he lost what he had held since he was an infant: U.S. citizenship.
A letter from a State Department official informed him that he should not have been granted citizenship at the time of his birth because his father was a diplomat with the Embassy of Iran. The letter directed Sobhani to a website where he could apply for lawful permanent residence.
“This was a shock to me,” said Sobhani, who specializes in internal medicine. “I’m a doctor. I’ve been here all my life. I’ve paid my taxes. I’ve voted for presidents. I’ve served my community in Northern Virginia. During covid, I was at work, putting myself at risk, putting my family at risk. So when you’re told after 61 years, ‘Oh there was a mistake, you’re no longer a U.S. citizen,’ it’s really, really shocking.”
. . . .
********************************
Read Theresa’s full article at the link.
Months for a routine passport renewal? If you’re lucky! The DOS has struggled to cope with a totally predictable and largely self-aggravated “crisis!” Who would have thought that after several years of pandemic isolation and with a booming economy, Americans would start traveling again in record numbers? Probably, everybody in America except ivory tower DOS bureaucrats who failed to prepare for the obvious and to elevate public service over intrasigence!
As a veteran of more than four decades of dealing with the immigration bureaucracy — from both the inside and outside — I can testify to the truth of the adage that “Some cans of worms are better left unopened!” (Corollary: “If you open it, you own it!”) Where’s the common sense here? Lost in the bureaucratic fog, 🌫️ I guess!
The stories of child migrant laborers are harrowing. They take on late-night, early-morning or 12-hour shifts that keep them out of school. They work on farms, at garment and food manufacturing factories as well as meat and processing plants, in construction and sawmills — often dangerous jobs with few protections.
Despite media portrayals of this system as a new economy, historian Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez has documented that the success of industries such as agriculture, manufacturing and construction in the Southwest relied on child labor as far back as the early 20th century. My dad arrived in Los Angeles from El Salvador as a 17-year-old in the 1970s. He immediately became a garment worker in denim factories across downtown Los Angeles and later installed carpet for a man who refused to pay him.
Los Angeles remains a center for this problem. My research studies the lives of undocumented young adults who arrived in the U.S. as unaccompanied minors from 2003 through 2013 and now live in L.A. I’ve spoken to children who have worked in garment factories that sew clothes for companies including Forever 21, J. Crew and Old Navy. Others worked in hotels such as the Ritz Carlton downtown or cleaned the homes of the rich and famous as live-in domestic workers.
Given my research focus, I often get asked what the government is doing about this child labor epidemic and what regular people can do about it. My response: It depends how far you want to go.
Perhaps counterintuitively to many Americans, part of the equation is paying attention to these youth before they cross our border by granting them what anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink and other scholars identify as “el derecho a no migrar” — the right not to migrate.
Young people need alternatives to migration to make a living. That shouldn’t mean aiding foreign governments in deporting migrants, as the Biden administration recently pledged to aid Panama’s government. It should mean investing in community-based programming to integrate children into their home society, such as Colectivo Vida Digna in Guatemala, which aims to reduce youth migration by supporting Indigenous teens and their families in reclaiming Indigenous cultural practices and strengthening communities so they can build futures without leaving their home country.
Even with those programs, some children will migrate to the U.S. and need shielding from exploitation. That may sound uncontroversial in theory, but the current policy landscape shows little willingness to widen the social safety net in practice, even for children and youth.
Take, for example, that last month a federal judge ruled illegal, but declined to end, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program implemented by executive order in 2012 that offers work authorization and a stay on deportation for undocumented youth brought to the U.S. as children. Courts have debated the policy for more than a decade, and with the Supreme Court expected to review the policy a third time, even these longtime U.S. residents — once touted by President Obama as “talented, driven, patriotic young people” — are left in limbo.
Then there’s the immigration program meant to provide vulnerable immigrant children a path to lawful residence and citizenship: the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status designation created in 1990. A recent report found that it has produced “avoidable delays, inconsistent denial rates, and a growing backlog” of petitioners, putting unaccompanied youth’s lives “on hold” and leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
All the while, states across the U.S. are actively moving to weaken child labor laws for all children, immigrants or not.
Children’s futures are under threat in the U.S., and stalled immigration policy is a culprit. Protecting children and child workers requires moving forward on immigration. Failing to do so may haunt us for generations to come.
Stephanie L. Canizales is an assistant professor of sociology at UC Merced.
***************************
Jennifer Podkul Vice President of Policy & Advocacy Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”) PHOTO: Momsrising.com
The figures in the Oct. 20 news article “Child labor violations soar in FY 2023” were staggering and all too familiar in my work with unaccompanied children, who are particularly vulnerable to exploitative labor conditions. Overnight shifts operating heavy machinery at slaughterhouses are not jobs or roles for any child.
To prevent this exploitation of unaccompanied children, we need to ensure existing laws are enforced, including child labor standards put forth by the Labor Department. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services should work toward ensuring every unaccompanied child is provided legal counsel as set out in the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act, recently introduced by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).
As we’ve seen from experience, a lawyer can be one of the few trusted adults in the life of a child who is experiencing exploitation. Attorneys help unaccompanied children understand their rights against abuse and access a fair chance to make their case for U.S. protection, which can lead to the ability to apply for legal and safe employment. Most unaccompanied children do not have this elemental protection.
Jennifer Podkul, Washington
The writer is vice president of policy and advocacy for Kids in Need of Defense.
*************************
Read Stephanie’s full op-ed at the above link. Many thanks to both of these experts for speaking out on this tragic, solvable, yet widely ignored by the pols and the media, issue!
The fact remains that the U.S. government spent a lot of money to build new barriers to keep migrants out and did not get the result it wanted.
. . . .
Trump used a lot of hyperbole to promote his pet project and was prone to describe the barrier as the personification of his presidency. He took a keen interest in its aesthetic appearance and design features, often urging aides to make it look as imposing as possible. He told supporters his wall would be “impenetrable.” He also said Mexico would pay for it (Mexico did not).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials didn’t make such claims and weren’t surprised when criminal smuggling organizations in Mexico began sawing through the steel bars — using ordinary power tools — almost immediately.
The border wall has been hacked through thousands of times since then, so often that the government has had to deploy welding crews full-time to shore up the structural integrity of the barrier. Smugglers have figured out a cheaper and even easier way to defeat it, fashioning cheap, disposable ladders out of scrap wood or metal rebar. They send migrants and drug couriers up and over the top, then use ropes to lower them down the other side. Experienced fence-jumpers have developed a technique using the steel bars like fire poles, sliding down onto the U.S. side in seconds.
. . . .
Dozens of migrants have been killed and hospitalized after falling from the structure, often with horrific spinal trauma and broken legs. Immigrant advocates also say the barriers force migrants toward more remote desert areas, contributing to more deaths from heat stroke and exposure. CBP reported 568 migrant deaths along the border during the 2021 fiscal year, the most recent for which data is available — nearly twice the amount of the previous year.
The border wall has a devastating toll on animals too, advocates say. The steel bars have essentially cut in half the habitat of animal species, in some cases cutting off their access to water and grazing areas. Trail cameras set up by researchers have shown pumas, bobcats and other large mammals blocked and searching fruitlessly for some way to get through.
The expensive futility of the wall and border barriers might pale in comparison with the human damage to both migrants and our nation’s soul, according to this interview with border physicians by Melissa Del Bosque in The Border Chronicle:
Melissa Del Bosque Border Reporter PHOTO: Melissadelbosque.com
Dr. Brian Elmore is an emergency-medicine resident physician in El Paso, Texas. He’s also the cofounder of Clínica Hope, a free clinic for migrants in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, which he runs with the nonprofit Hope Border Institute. Elmore frequently treats patients who have been injured by razor wire or fallen from the border wall that divides El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. He’s coined a term for these injuries: political pathologies. “These are normally healthy people, most of them young, who have been injured because of political decisions made thousands of miles away,” he says. “These are the political repercussions of the border.”
. . . .
That’s interesting that you use this term political pathologies. Is that a term you coined yourself?
It’s what I’ve started calling these injuries that otherwise healthy folks are receiving. These are mostly young people in their 20s, 30s, and sometimes kids, who out of sheer desperation decided to climb the wall or cross the river or desert. Other than for decisions that politicians made thousands of miles away to fortify the border, and make it as dangerous to cross as possible, they wouldn’t have these injuries. It’s really tragic.
. . . .
I’ve treated quite a few border wall falls. I’ve become used to this. But last week, I had a child who came in with multiple lacerations from barbed wire. She came in with her family, and they were all cut up from barbed wire. It’s jarring to see this, especially when it’s a kid, who’s innocent and has no idea what’s going on.
I started talking to the dad, and he told me they were from Venezuela. He said they’d heard a rumor in Ciudad Juárez that officials were letting Venezuelans cross outside of ports of entry. So a huge crowd showed up to present themselves to U.S. border officials [and ask for asylum]. Everyone became frustrated and irritated when they discovered that it wasn’t true.
And this family were pressed up against the barbed wire by the crowd, and they couldn’t go back. The only way for them to move was forward. So they started crawling under the barbed wire. This is the mother, father, the child, who is about 10, and an infant.
So, I’m stitching them up, making small talk because sewing up lacerations takes time and you’re face-to-face, and I’m talking to the dad and he lifts his shirt, and I see that he has a thoracotomy scar. When you perform a thoracotomy, it’s a last-ditch Hail Mary effort to save somebody’s life. The majority die after a thoracotomy. It’s when you crack open a chest because there’s either aortic bleeding or a penetrating injury to the heart. He told me he’d been stabbed and robbed in Caracas. And it was stunning to see his scar and to know that he’d survived. And the thing is, this is the second thoracotomy scar I’ve seen on a Venezuelan patient I’ve treated. This really reinforced for me the constant levels of violence people are facing. I feel like Americans have very little context for what’s going on in that country and how desperate things are there.
. . . .
There’s a very characteristic injury. It’s called a pilon fracture. It’s a lower-extremity kind of ankle fracture, very debilitating. And it’s often associated with a lumbar spinal fracture. Sometimes the bone has broken through the flesh and may require surgery. A lot of times they’ll be fitted with a device that keeps the bone in place while the swelling goes down, so they can get surgery. They’re then discharged to a migrant shelter in town while they wait for surgery.
. . . .
You see on the news, all these headlines, “migration crisis” and “invasion.” And that’s not what people in El Paso are experiencing or how they’re responding to it. They’re responding to the humanitarian crisis with compassion. You see people at shelters volunteering their time, offering to cook, and giving donations. I think the people of El Paso are amazing in the way they’ve responded. As opposed to how the rest of the country is just totally freaking out. I think El Paso is the most inspiring place to be and to practice.
*********************
You can read the full articles (and listen to Nick’s) at the above links.
Just think what could happen if we stopped “doubling down on failure,” eschewed dehumanizing treatment of asylum seekers, and devoted some of the time, money, and effort we spend on dehumanization, militarization, and deterrence to building better systems for fairly and timely screening, identifying, and resettling refugees.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way for Kevin McCarthy. After all, he had done nearly everything that the far-right faction of his caucus wanted, given in to their every demand. Why ever would that fail to satisfy them? But in the end, his actions recalled the parable of the scorpion and the frog. As Fortune magazine retold it,
A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog then agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature.
It is the nature of nihilistic, burn-it-to-the-ground extremists to destroy everything around them, including the very party that once carried them to victory. McCarthy’s mistake was thinking he could ever change that by actually inviting the crazies in and embracing them even closer. Instead, he became the first ever speaker in the 240-year history of the House of Representatives to be ousted. In a period of historic firsts—first president impeached twice, first president to be indicted (and charged 91 times), and now first successful motion to vacate the chair—the GOP seems determined to outdo itself.
As writer Charlotte Clymer colorfully put it, “McCarthy served 270 days, the equivalent of 27 scaramuccis or 0.093 of a pelosi, after giving away his power—and his dignity—to man-toddlers who eventually stabbed him in the back.”
Let’s look at what happened yesterday and then answer some common questions about where things go from here in the GOP’s fractured majority in the House.
Subscribe
Mean Girls Day
October 3rd is a day that sticks in my mind because of my favorite movie, Mean Girls, which is turning out to carry many lessons for the GOP. The Lincoln Project was out with a meme quickly.
“On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was!” exclaims Cady Heron of the dreamy Aaron Samuels.
“It’s Kevin McCarthy’s last day as Speaker,” Cady responds.
Indeed, it was.
After Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) made good on his promise to file a motion to vacate the chair, McCarthy pressed for quick consideration of the motion, rebuffing calls to wait until Thursday when more members were back in Washington. He apparently had hoped to catch a number of Democratic House members away. Nancy Pelosi missed the votes, for example, because she was attending the funeral of her longtime friend, the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
No matter. After first losing a procedural vote to table the motion, with 11 Republicans voting “no” along with all the Democrats present, Kevin McCarthy faced a full vote of the House and was removed by a vote of 216 to 210, with eight GOP members joining all of the Democrats. Even Gretchen Wieners—er, I mean, Nancy Mace (R-SC)—who styles herself as a moderate, was a yea on the motion. Et tu, Nancy?
It bears noting that the Democrats had met as a group earlier that day and emerged with a consensus that they would not be helping McCarthy out. There was simply too much bad blood, from his kissing Trump’s ring two weeks after condemning him for January 6; to his reneging on the budget deal struck in May; to his launch of an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden based on nothing but speculation; to his blaming the Democrats for the near shutdown of the government, when it was Democrats who had kept it open. They simply did not trust him and saw no reason to throw him a lifeline. In fact, he never even asked for help from them directly, though his minions reportedly made a series of calls begging moderate Democrats to save him.
After the vote, several members of the House Republican caucus gathered in a group to pray on the House floor, while Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), wept openly. It was quite a fall for Rep. Wagner, who had triumphantly spearheaded two anti-abortion measures earlier in the year with Speaker McCarthy’s blessing.
McCarthy’s loss of the speakership leaves the GOP caucus effectively without leadership, at a time when appropriations remain largely unfinished.
The Speaker pro tempore
The gavel is currently in the hands of a caretaker Speaker pro tempore, Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC), who gaveled out the evening with such ferocity that he damn near cracked the thing. It’s a good thing men aren’t emotional in politics.
McHenry is supposed to hold the position only so long as it takes to elect a new speaker, and to wield the gavel only for purposes of getting this done. But he couldn’t help but act like yet another petulant man-baby, ordering Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi to clear out her office in the Capitol building and relocate to the Cannon Building. Pelosi issued a response:
With all of the important decisions that the new Republican Leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new Speaker Pro Tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol. Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.
Petty moves aside, McHenry won’t have any real power to push legislation through, and few even inside the GOP would likely stand for him seeking to assert himself in any way except as a momentary caretaker.
So what happens next?
With McCarthy out, the GOP is back to where it was in January, without the numbers to put someone over the top. One key piece of news that already broke: McCarthy won’t be running for the job again.
That leaves a number of possible replacements. The No. 2 in the House is Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is well liked but faces health challenges, as he is currently undergoing treatment for blood cancer. Other names that have bubbled up include Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and the No. 3 guy in charge of this mess, Tom Emmer (R-MN).
There is no consensus candidate as of this moment. The House GOP members scattered to their districts on Tuesday night after the debacle, giving a cooling off period before they regroup next week.
Isn’t the devil we know better?
There is considerable and understandable consternation that we might wind up with someone worse than McCarthy, whose feckless cowardice at least led to predictable capitulations and back to the inevitable point of political equilibrium.
But it’s also fair to say that even someone more extreme, like a Jim Jordan, couldn’t actually do anything with this fractured majority beyond what McCarthy already did with it. A House majority without a Senate in concurrence can accomplish little other than hearings and inquiries, which is what the GOP has been up to for months already with nothing to show for it. Handing the keys to the bus to someone else who doesn’t know how to drive isn’t going to keep the party from catastrophe next November.
It also might take some time before they can coalesce around a new leader. Extremists want someone to the right of McCarthy, but moderates might never support such a candidate. And even assuming they did, the party would quickly find itself exactly where it is now: facing a government shutdown while it tries to renege on a deal already agreed to, and up against a Democratically-controlled Senate ready to get on with the business of governing.
The political fallout
The collapse of GOP leadership in the House likely will become a central talking point for Democrats for the 2024 elections. The GOP brand is already badly tarnished by everything from anti-abortion extremism to election denialism to authoritarian suppression.
One thing is clear, however: It was Trump, acting behind the scenes by pressing extremists to hold the line against the budget, who is in large part to blame for the destruction of the House GOP caucus. He won’t take ownership of that, of course, but the amount of damage he has inflicted upon his own party cannot be overstated.
And in a weird twist, some members of the far-right are moving to nominate Donald Trump as Speaker. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) announced late Tuesday he will file paperwork to nominate the former president to be the next Speaker, who in fact doesn’t have to be a member of the body to preside as Speaker. In the past Trump has said he would not be interested in the job, so it’s unclear whether he would take such a nomination seriously. But it does demonstrate how rudderless and leaderless the House GOP caucus is that they once again turn to their Dear Leader to beg him to rescue them. (Trump of course wouldn’t know the first thing about how to act as Speaker, or move legislation through, or count votes, nor would he have time to learn the ropes given his trial schedule. Perhaps they could recruit his son Eric, who at least is foolish enough to accept and might soon have nothing to do because all his businesses have had their certificates to operate in the state canceled.)
That plan might run smack into the GOP’S own House rules, though, which requires leadership to step aside if indicted for a felony with a punishment of more than two years.
Returning to the scorpion and frog fable, and looking back at his tragic and brief tenure, McCarthy’s political death was inevitable. The moment he began to negotiate with the caucus terrorists in order to secure his seat, he sowed the seeds of his ultimate destruction. After all, under the terms of his parole, a single missed frog step could bring down a motion to vacate by a single member. By May, McCarthy had already committed the giant sin of compromising with the Democrats in a near evenly divided government, and a few months later, a single MAGA scorpion planted its stinger right into his back.
**************************
Of course, it’s supreme irony that about the only responsible leadership action McCarthy took during his short tenure as speaker led to his demise at the hands of the GOP anti-American nihilists whom he coddled and ingratiated himself with to get the job in the first place!
At some point, the anti-American GOP voters who put these dangerous, yet cowardly, spineless, and valueless, nut cases into positions of influence have to be held accountable, if only by history! 🏴☠️
Matt Gaetz (R-Outer Space) The so-called mainstream media has seen fit to anoint this evil clown as the official spokesthing for the insurrectionist GOP. PHOTO: X (formerly Twitter)
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
October 1, 2023
Saturday, at the 12th hour, GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy (D-CA) finally did the obvious — reached out to Dems to save America from insurrectionist, anti-American GOP extremists by passing a last-minute continuing resolution that will fund American government until Nov. 17.
All Dems except one (who was protesting the GOP’s pro-Putin defunding of Ukraine aid) voted for the House bill, while 90 GOP insurrectionists voted to tank America and manufacture a needless crisis. The bill passed the nominally Dem-controlled Senate in about 30 seconds, and was signed by President Biden before midnight. The message about which party is serious about governing for the common good is obvious to all real patriots, even if a shocking number of GOP voters have foisted these far-right GOP clowns upon the rest of us.
The mainstream media uses the namby-pamby misnomer “border security,” to refer to the GOP’s proposed racist-nativist attack on immigration, destruction of the long-established right to asylum, and bogus attempts to reinstate “proven to fail,” draconian deterrence measures. As happened when tried unsuccessfully in the past, the GOP would turn over control of border migration policies to cartels, smugglers, and organized crime, while deflecting attention and undermining law enforcement efforts to control human and drug smuggling.
A true accounting for the GOP extremist agenda would clearly show how firmly on the side of Putin and border bandits today’s dangerous, “destroy America” GOP has become. Too bad the so-called “mainstream media” has so little interest in digging beyond the cosmetics on the border issues and Ukraine aid.
In perhaps the ultimate example of clueless, Fox News inspired, “mainstream journalism,” CBS’s “This Sunday” saw fit to inflict Gaetz and his bombastic nonsense on hapless viewers today. NBC, on the other hand, maybe still smarting from new-host Kristen Welker’s disastrous, totally uncalled for, “inaugural” interview with a raving, incoherent, lie-spouting Trump, gave us wall-to-wall coverage of the Ryder Cup in place of “Meet the Press.” Honestly!
Look forward to more clownish theatrics and anti-American posturing from the GOP and their “Chief Clown” Trump, and more insipid reporting from the mainstreamers as America careens toward another likely GOP-generated “crisis” in mid-November. It’s NOT a “Washington problem! It’s purely a GOP that lacks any interest whatsoever in responsible governing.
A federal judge ordered Texas to remove floating barriers in the Rio Grande and barred the state from building new or placing additional buoys in the river, according to a Wednesday court filing, marking a victory for the Biden administration.
Judge David Alan Ezra ordered Texas to take down the barriers by September 15 at its own expense.
The border buoys have been a hot button immigration issue since they were deployed in the Rio Grande as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative known as Operation Lone Star. The Justice Department had sued the state of Texas in July claiming that the buoys were installed unlawfully and asking the judge to force the state to remove them.
In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in the Western District of Texas, the Justice Department alleged that Texas and Abbott violated the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act by building a structure in US water without permission from United States Army Corps of Engineers and sought an injunction to bar Texas from building additional barriers in the river. The Republican governor, meanwhile, has argued the buoys are intended to deter migrants from crossing into the state from Mexico.
Texas swiftly appealed the judge’s order.
. . . .
Ezra also found Texas’ self-defense argument – that the barriers have been placed in the face of invasion – “unconvincing.”
. . . .
Ezra also found Texas’ self-defense argument – that the barriers have been placed in the face of invasion – “unconvincing.”
. . . .
*********************************
Read the rest of Priscilla’s report at the link.
Who knows how this will play out in the 5th Circuit and the Supremes, given the composition of those courts. But, at least for a day, Judge Ezra has brought some common sense and the rule of law to bear on out of control grandstanding Texas “Governor” Greg Abbott.
We should also remember that the vast majority of those whom Abbott and the nativists bogusly call “invaders” seek only to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities so they can exercise their clear legal rights to apply for asylum — rights that attach regardless of status or manner of entering the U.S. (Rights that also have improperly been diminished and impeded by the Biden Administration’s ill-advised asylum regulations, currently under legal challenge).
If successful (under a legal system intentionally rigged against them), these so-called “invaders” will use their skills and work ethic to expand our economy and help Americans prosper while saving their lives and those of their families. To anybody other than Abbott and other White Nationalists, that sounds like a potential “win-win” that could and should be “leveraged” for everyone’s benefit!
Judge Ezra’s opinion in the aptly-named U.S. v. Abbottcan be found here:
Alex Nowrasteh Vice President for Economic & Social Policy Studies Cato Institute
Tea writes:
Editor’s Note – August 2023
Dear Reader,
America is built on the drive and determination of immigrants. Even though immigration is one of America’s founding principles, it remains one of the most hotly contested social and political issues of modern times. This ongoing debate is fueled by a number of negative myths about immigrants that have taken root in society.
This month, we are committed to busting the common political, economic, and demographic myths about immigration. We examine how these myths have taken root in our society, how they spread, and what can be done to change the narrative on immigration.
For this month’s issue, we spoke with Alex Nowrasteh, the Vice President for Economic and Social Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Alex is one of the leading voices when it comes to immigration policy.
Hope you gain new insights,
Téa
Watch “Tea’s Coffee” where she interviews Alex Nowratseh here:
Alex says there are three things we can do to combat the myths and lies being spread by the nativist/restrictionists:
Recognize the humanity of immigrants and their legal rights under our laws;
Emphasize that immigrants compliment, rather than compete with, us;
Point out that the “border chaos” is largely the result of bad laws and failed deterrence policies rather than the fault of immigrants.
By contrast, you can spot the bogus restrictionist/nativist myths a mile way because they:
Dehumanize immigrants by falsely reducing them to “statistics, numbers, apprehensions, beds, costs, graphs, and charts;”
Make the bogus claim that our economy is a “zero sum game” where every additional immigrant means “less of the pie” for you or me — a claim which is demonstrably false because people and immigration are what have allowed us historically to expand our economy so there potentially will be more for everyone (provided that those at the top don’t grab a disproportionate share for themselves);
Promote the myth of “just get in line” when there in reality is no line for most to get in because of the unduly restrictive nature of our laws and their poor administration by successive Administrations. They ignore the reality that robust migration is here to stay. The real choice is whether or not we want realistic laws and policies that recognize and harness that reality or instead continue to reward smugglers, enrich jailers, and force millions of migrants into the “extralegal” underground economy where they can not contribute fully economically or politically.
Haley Sweatband Edwards Nation Editor Time Magazine PHOTO: Pulitzer
As another “myth debunker,” Time’s Haley Sweetland Edwards, said:
These political reactions fail to grapple with a hard truth: in the long run, new migration is nearly always a boon to host countries. In acting as entrepreneurs and innovators, and by providing inexpensive labor, immigrants overwhelmingly repay in long-term economic contributions what they use in short-term social services, studies show. But to maximize that future good, governments must act -rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.
“And the winner was . . . .” PHOTO: Clown Civertan.jpg, Creative Commons License
“Governments must act rationally!” Certainly, neither Trump nor any of the GOP clowns 🤡 seeking to be him are “rational actors” on immigration, the economy, infrastructure, education, individual rights, or anything else of importance to our nation. Indeed, the ignorance, indecency, irrationality, and bias exhibited during the so-called “GOP debate” was beyond appalling, despite the media’s pathetic attempts to “normalize” idiocy. Six folks afraid to say “hypothetically” that they would vote for someone OTHER than a convicted felon who made totally baseless claims that he won the 2020 election! Gimmie a break! (I’m certainly not the only one impressed by the disturbingly low quality of the GOP “field.” See, e.g.,https://www.huffpost.com/entry/larry-hogan-gop-candidates-trump-conviction-question_n_64e82302e4b0a2a9abc4bdc0).
Tea Ivanovic — an amazing immigrant entrepreneur and inspirational leader who is on Forbes’s list of “30 under 30” — is a stellar example of how immigrants of all types — from those at the border to those in boardrooms — make America better! See, e.g.,
Melissa Del Bosque writes in the Border Chronicle:
. . . .
While this might seem uniquely cruel, Abbott is closely following the authoritarian playbook of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, and current European thought leader for MAGA Republicans. Donald Trump calls Orbán a friend, and White supremacist Tucker Carlson spent a week covering him for his former show on Fox, later making a “documentary” about Hungary called Hungary vs. Soros: Fight for Civilization. For the last two years, the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference, founded in the U.S., has held a “Woke Free Zone” conference in Budapest.
By studying Orbán’s crackdown on asylum seekers and its progression over the last several years, you can see exactly where Abbott’s Texas is headed (and DeSantis’s Florida, for that matter).
In a speech in July 2022, Orbán argued that European and non-European people should not mix. Europeans “do not want to become peoples of mixed-race,” he said. After the speech, one of Orbán’s longtime advisers quit in protest. “I don’t know how you didn’t notice that you were presenting a pure Nazi text worthy of Goebbels,” his adviser wrote in her public resignation letter. Orbán’s speech was widely condemned in Europe, and it further alienated him from other Western leaders.
But in Texas, just days after his speech “worthy of Goebbels,” Orbán was welcomed with a standing ovation at the CPAC conference in Dallas, where he touted his “zero migration” and Judeo-Christian nationalism. “The globalists can all go to hell,” he boasted. “I have come to Texas.”
On the same CPAC stage that day, Abbott followed with similar xenophobic talking points. He bragged about Operation Lone Star and encouraged conference-goers to donate to a state-run website to pay for bussing migrants out of Texas. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick echoed Orbán’s White Christian nationalism: “The framers did not write the Constitution,” he said. “God wrote the Constitution. We are a Christian nation.”
. . . .
Unsurprisingly, Orbán’s cruel tactics against asylum seekers, which have included kidnappings and beatings, do not deter people from coming. They are fleeing wars, after all. But Orbán has used his poisonous populism to solidify his power, just as Abbott and DeSantis are trying to do. It began with asylum seekers in 2015, but now in Hungary there is no independent media or judiciary, and the LGBTQ community and immigrants have become targets for persecution as the prime minister has consolidated his control over the government. Antisemitism is also on the rise.
This is the playbook that MAGA Republicans are following in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere. We already know how it ends. Orbán’s “illiberal democracy,” which is being lionized by Trump, Abbott, and others, is nothing new. In fact, it’s very old. It’s called fascism.
Here’s a report from Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase of the Round Table:
Hi all: As you know, our group filed an amicus brief in East Bay Sanctuary v. Garland, challenging the new rules at the border that would make most of those unable to get an online appointment through an app ineligible to apply for asylum.
District Court Judge Jon Tigar just issued the attached order granting summary judgment to plaintiffs and denying defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
From Judge Tigar’s order:
“Congress granted the agencies authority to impose additional conditions on asylum eligibility, but only those consistent with section 1158…Two of the conditions imposed by the Rule have been previously found to be inconsistent with Section 1158…
The Court concludes that the Rule is contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who enter between ports of entry, using a manner of entry that Congress expressly intended should not affect access to asylum. The Rule is also contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who fail to apply for protection in a transit country, despite Congress’s clear intent that such a factor should only limit access to asylum where the transit country actually presents a safe option.”
The order is stayed for 14 days to allow the government to appeal.
Our group has once again helped make a difference in providing fairness and due process. Congrats to all.
**********************
Congrats to the plaintiffs and to my Round Table colleagues!
This was basically a blowout for the plaintiffs on all issues! The USG argument essentially was that complying with the law would be too difficult and/or politically unpopular. Therefore, they have chosen to violate the law and to use rather transparent pretexts (actually misrepresentations about the bogus “presumption”) to evade it.
Really, folks, how do we have a Dem AG who 1) approves such complete legal nonsense; 2) advances essentially frivolous and disingenuous arguments in an attempt to defend the indefensible; and 3) can’t make the legal system for asylum work in a fair and legal manner at EOIR or DHS?
How immoral and intellectually dishonest are Garland’s arguments. Here’s one of my favorite passages from Judge Tigar’s opinion:
While they wait for an adjudication, applicants for asylum must remain in Mexico, where migrants are generally at heightened risk of violence by both state and non-state actors.
See, e.g., PC 32446–68 (2022 State Department report noting credible reports of gender-based violence against migrants; reports of migrants being tortured by migration authorities; “numerous instances” of armed groups targeting migrants for kidnapping, extortion, and homicide; and that asylum seekers and migrants were vulnerable to forced labor); PC 22839–42 (NGO report documenting violent crimes against 13,480 migrants in Mexico, by both state and non-state actors, between January 2021 and December 2022); PC 76248–87 (table of crimes summarized in preceding report); PC 21752–58 (2022 NGO report discussing gender-based violence in northern Mexico border cities, including against LGBTQI+ and Black migrants); PC 21610–11 (2022 NGO report concerning gender-based violence against Venezuelan women and LGBTIQ+ migrants in southern Mexico).16
16 In addition to these examples, the record is replete with additional documentation of the extraordinary risk of violence many migrants face in Mexico. See, e.g., PC 22129–30 (2023 news report documenting instances of kidnapping of asylum seekers in northern Mexico); PC 23247–50 (2022 news report quoting Chihuahua state police chief stating that “organized criminal gangs are financing their operations through migrant trafficking”); PC 23082 (2023 NGO report discussing treatment of migrants and asylum seekers); PC 20937–43 (2021 NGO report documenting kidnapping and extortion of Venezuelan migrants in Mexico); PC 29740–29744 (2021 NGO report documenting instances of rape, kidnapping, and other violence experienced by migrant women in Mexico); PC 75946–48 (2022 NGO report documenting violence against migrants in Mexico); AR 4881 (2022 NGO report noting that asylum seekers from Central America have been pursued across the border and found in southern Mexico by their persecutors).
Only somebody who avoids the border, has never represented asylum seekers there, and is impervious to facts and reality could make such outlandish arguments in favor of an outrageously deficient and illegal “policy.” Sounds like something out of the “Stephen Miller Playbook!”Why is it coming from a Dem AG?
“The United States’ war in Afghanistan required regional allies willing to aid the effort. One such ally was Shaker Ullah, a Pakistani businessman who sold supplies to coalition forces. This invoked the wrath of the Pakistani Taliban, which demanded exorbitant payments from Ullah under threat of death. Ullah repeatedly refused, and the Taliban attempted to carry out its threat, promising to hunt him until it succeeded. After losing his business, home, and nearly his life, Ullah fled to the United States seeking asylum. The Immigration Judge and Board of Immigration Appeals both recognized that Ullah suffered past persecution entitling him to a presumption that the Taliban would continue to target him if he returned to Pakistan. But they agreed with the government that because Ullah lived in Islamabad (the capital of Pakistan) for a few weeks without the Taliban finding him, he could live in a new area of the country without fear of reprisal. We disagree. Ullah’s brief sojourn to Islamabad—where he never left the house— doesn’t rebut the presumption that a notorious terrorist organization continues to imperil his life. Since the record would compel any reasonable adjudicator to conclude Ullah faces a well-founded threat of future persecution, we grant Ullah’s petition for review, reverse the Board’s denial of Ullah’s preserved claims, and remand with instructions that the agency grant relief.”
[Hats way off to superlitigator Ben Winograd! Listen to the oral argument here.]
“Petitioner Zuowei Chen is a native of China admitted to the United States on a student visa in 2009. Chen now seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals order denying his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. If removed to China, Chen fears, he will be persecuted and tortured by Chinese authorities, who in 2008 allegedly imprisoned and violently beat him because of his Christian beliefs and practices. We find there are aspects of the agency’s decision that require clarification before we can meaningfully review Chen’s claims. Accordingly, we vacate the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals and remand for further explanation, consistent with this opinion.”
Notably, and refreshingly, in Ullah, the 4th Circuit took the unusual step of directing the BIA to grant asylum, rather than just remanding for the BIA to screw it up again! In Chen, Trump appointee Circuit Judge Marvin Quattlebaum was part of the unanimous panel! Condemnation of EOIR’s deficient performance is uniting Article III jurists across ideological lines!
The GOP is “out for Garland’s scalp” for all the WRONG reasons! It’s actually Dems who should be demanding an accounting for his inexcusable, miserable, democracy-eroding (non)performance at EOIR!
Garland’s mess at EOIR isn’t “theoretical,” “academic,” or “speculative!” It’s ACTUALLY endangering lives, eroding democracy, and creating unnecessary chaos on a daily basis! His intransigence is also diverting HUGE amounts of resources that could be used to DEFEND American democracy, rather than seeking to hold a tone-deaf Dem Administration accountable!
In the meantime, Dems are fecklessly moaning and groaning about a lawless and ethics-free Supremes. Yet, a Dem Administration is operating a huge, nationwide “court” system presenting these same problems, in spades!♠️
And, the victims of EOIR’s substandard judging are overwhelmingly people of color, literally fighting for their lives in a dysfunctional system that the Biden Administration is unwilling and/or unable to fix. In these cases, the victims were fortunate enough to be represented by two of the “best in the business,” Ben Winograd and Tamara Jezic. But, too many others face this biased and unfair system unrepresented, a situation that Garland not only has failed to remedy, but has made worse in some ways.What “message, does this send, particularly to the younger cohort of “social justice” voters whom the Dems are counting on for the future?
Following the 2020 election, human rights advocates and experts expected and deserved dramatic, long overdue progressive improvements in justice at EOIR. Instead, Garland inexplicably has retained many of the most regressive features of injustice at EOIR, developed and reinforced during the Trump years. Frustration abounds, while justice for the most vulnerable among us suffers under a Dem Administration! Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160
How bad is EOIR under Garland? One informed observer put it this way:
BIA staff attorneys are rewarded for the number of signed decisions per month. With the present make-up of the Board, their only incentive is to crank out denials.
Dems love to talk about “change!” The GOP actually achieves it, even though the results are overwhelmingly negative, regressive, and existentially damaging to democracy! Something’s got to give here!
I’m sure many of you remember a childhood game called “Mother, May I?” An authority figure would say, “Jeff, take two giant steps forward!” But before doing so, the player would have to ask “Mother, may I?” Those two giant steps could only be taken if the response was “Yes, you may.” Otherwise, if the player took the steps, they were out.
If we were to take this game, direct the request and reply through an app called CBPOne, and make the stakes life or death, the result would be something very similar to the Biden Administration’s latest regulations governing asylum at the southern border.
The new rules are at odds with U.S. law. Congress has already authorized asylum seekers to take the necessary steps up to the border. The very first sentence of 8 U.S.C. § 1158 (the U.S. asylum statute) says that any noncitizen “whether or not at a designated port of arrival” and irrespective of their immigration status may apply for asylum.
And yet, not Congress but two Executive Branch agencies have now added a “Mother, May I?” type obstacle for those seeking to do what the law has long permitted. Under the new rules, the asylum seeker must first ask through a glitchy government phone app for specific permission (in the form of an appointment) before striding up to the border. Otherwise, the asylum seeker is simply not eligible for asylum, no matter how serious the danger they face if removed to their country.
How can Executive Branch agencies issue regulations that so directly contradict the statute those agencies are charged with enforcing? That question is the basis of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies in U.S. District Court.1
Our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges filed an amicus brief in support of petitioners’ arguments. We are in good company, as the USCIS asylum officers’ union filed a persuasive amicus brief as well.2 This means that groups representing the views of the only government officials authorized to decide asylum claims in this country (i.e. immigration judges and asylum officers) are united in opposing the new rule.
In our Round Table brief, we specifically take issue with the government’s false labeling of the new bar as merely a “rebuttable presumption” of asylum ineligibility.
Real rebuttable presumptions have long existed in our asylum regulations. For example, there is a rebuttable presumption that someone who has been persecuted in the past for reasons that give rise to an asylum claim may be persecuted again, unless major changes have since taken place in their country. There is also a presumption that one whose persecutor is the government of their country can’t find safety by simply relocating within that same country.
As you’ve probably noticed, there is a logic that flows in each of those examples from the known facts to the presumption. It is logical to assume that someone who was harmed before might be harmed again if conditions remain the same. The government may rebut the presumption by showing a fundamental change of the type that would put those fears to rest. There is a similar logic in concluding that a government’s reach extends throughout the country it governs. Again, the government may rebut that presumption through evidence establishing an exception to this general rule. In both of these examples, the fact established increases the likelihood of the fact presumed.
Now let’s return to the new rule. Say that a person faces brutal persecution on account of their political opinion if returned to their country. How does the fact that they couldn’t or didn’t get an appointment through a phone app in any way create a presumption that they are not in need of humanitarian protection? There can’t be a presumption if the fact established (i.e. that the person didn’t obtain an appointment through the app) is completely unrelated to the fact presumed (i.e. the person is not in need of asylum).
I believe it matters greatly whether the rule is considered a bar or a presumption. It is Congress that decides who may apply for asylum in this country. Thus, a regulation that admittedly creates a new bar to asylum (particularly where that bar is in direct contradiction to Congressional intent) is likely to be rejected as ultra vires by the courts. And in fact, a very similar bar to this one published by the Trump Administration was enjoined for just that reason.3 Agencies cannot usurp Congress’s role by legislating in the guise of rulemaking.
By attempting to disguise the new bar as merely a “rebuttable presumption,” the agencies seek to increase the odds of the ban passing muster this time. That is exactly the Department of Justice’s argument in its response brief: that its new rule is completely different from the prior administration’s “bar,” because according to DOJ, the new rule “does not treat manner of entry as dispositive, but instead creates a rebuttable presumption that can be overcome…”4
So the “Mother, may I?” regs clearly overstep the agencies’ legal authority. But do they create an equal barrier for all asylum seekers? The answer is no. As stated, the rules require one intending to apply for asylum to first obtain an appointment. Of course, there are more asylum seekers than there are available appointments. As mentioned, the government app through which one tries to secure an appointment, CBPOne, is full of glitches. As Prof. Austin Kocher recently noted, those glitches have impacted who gets those appointments:
the initial release of CBP One was accompanied by a variety of tech failures that did not necessarily undermine CBP’s ability to fill up its appointments calendar for asylum seekers but did create barriers to entry for migrants who were less tech savvy, could not access high-speed Internet, were part of larger families, or, either directly or indirectly, migrants who were darker-skinned or Black.5
That last point refers to the app’s problems with facial recognition that have caused it to reject applicants who are not white.6 As a result of these and other reported scheduling inequities, Sen. Edward Markey wrote to DHS back in February urging the agency to cease use of the app, due to its inaccessibility to many intending applicants, adding that “we cannot allow it to create a tiered system that treats asylum seekers differently based on their economic status — including the ability to pay for travel — language, nationality, or race.”.7
Instead of “ditching the app” as the Senator requested, the agencies instead added an exception to the bar if the noncitizen “demonstrates by a preponderance of the evidence that it was not possible to access or use the DHS scheduling system due to language barrier, illiteracy, significant technical failure, or other ongoing and serious obstacle.”8
However, there is a big catch. Pursuant to the rule, this exception is only available to those without an appointment who make their claim at an actual port of entry. But observers at points of entry along the southern border report that “practices by U.S. and Mexican authorities restricted asylum seekers without CBP One appointments from physically reaching U.S. ports of entry to make protection requests.”9 So the exception written into the regs is not available in reality, as one seeking to claim it is restricted from reaching the port of entry where it must be claimed, and is barred from claiming the exception if they cross the border elsewhere.
If you’re wondering how the new system is working out, according to one report, it has resulted in asylum seekers on the Mexican side of the Laredo port of entry being robbed, kidnapped, and held for ransom.10 Another article described how some of those “lucky” enough to have obtained CBPOne appointments at Laredo claimed “that Mexican officials in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, had threatened to hold them and make them miss their scheduled asylum appointments unless they paid them.”11 As a result, CBPOne appointments were temporarily suspended for the Laredo port of entry.
One excluded from asylum under these rules may still seek two types of lesser protections called withholding of removal.12 Oddly, under U.S. law, these alternative protections are much more difficult than asylum to qualify for, yet provide far fewer benefits. Asylum is an actual legal status which extends to the spouse and minor children of the asylee, allows for travel abroad, and puts recipients on a path to permanent residence and then citizenship in this country. By contrast, withholding of removal arises when an individual is ordered deported, and only blocks their deportation to a country in which persecution or torture is likely to occur, but otherwise leaves the recipient in limbo. The protection provides no path to family reunification or permanent status, and no right to travel abroad to visit the family members from whom the recipient is left indefinitely separated.
Nevertheless, withholding of removal does save lives. But not satisfied with simply barring asylum, the new regulations also make these lesser forms of protection far more difficult to access. This is because one must first pass something called a “credible fear interview” in order to even have the right to apply for withholding of removal in this country. As those interviews are conducted within days of the asylum-seeker’s arrival, in custody, often before the applicant has had the opportunity to obtain legal counsel or evidence, and possibly while suffering from the effects of persecution, the credible fear standard was intentionally designed to be a low one. The idea is to allow people who might genuinely be at risk the opportunity to fully develop their cases in a full removal proceeding, while only quickly removing those lacking legitimate claims.
But the new regulations raise the burden of proof by requiring the applicant at this very early stage to demonstrate a “reasonable fear” of persecution, which USCIS describes as the exact same standard required for a grant of asylum – i.e. “well-founded fear.13 Again, the lower credible fear standard being replaced was created solely because it isn’t reasonable to expect someone to prove more under the conditions faced by such recent arrivals. This intended safeguard has thus been completely undermined, as one who might only be a day or two in the country must now present a full-blown asylum claim just to earn the chance to have a hearing.
The new process requires non-lawyers to satisfy a complex legal standard they won’t understand, often without the time to seek legal advice or compile the evidence necessary to meet the heightened burden. I have no doubt that the process will result in genuine refugees being denied protection. And once again, the entire reason for placing applicants at such heightened risk is their not having obtained an appointment on a problematic phone app.
Why does the Biden Administration believe all this is necessary? In a recent column, Jamelle Bouie addressed the vows of some Republican presidential candidates to eliminate the constitutional right to birthright citizenship through executive order.14 In addition to presenting a compelling argument as to why this cannot legally be done, Bouie included in his column a wonderful quote from Frederick Douglass: “The outspread wings of the American Eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come.”
In case the Biden Administration is wondering if it can champion that same sentiment today, in lieu of its convoluted attempt to ban protection to those deserving of it under our laws, the answer is: “Yes, you may.”
(Much thanks to attorneys Ashley Vinson Crawford and Steven Schulman of the law firm of Akin Gump for representing the group of former Immigration Judges and BIA Members on our amicus brief in East Bay Sanctuary.)
Copyright 2023, Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
Notes:
East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Biden, No. 18-cv-06810-JST, N.D. Cal. (Filed May 11, 2023).
See Britain Eakin, “Asylum Officers, Ex-Judges Back Suit on Biden Asylum Rule,” Law360, June 8, 2023.
East Bay Sanctuary v. Barr, 964 F.3d 832 (9th Cir. 2020) (holding that the Trump Administration’s asylum bar was inconsistent with our asylum laws).
Defendants’ Reply Brief, East Bay Sanctuary v. Biden, (June 30, 2023) at 8.
Austin Kocher, “Glitches in the Digitization of Asylum: How CBP One Turns Migrants’ Smartphones into Mobile Borders,” mdpi.com, June 20, 2023, https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/13/6/149, section 4.
Melissa del Bosque, “Facial Recognition Bias Frustrates Black Asylum Applicants to US,” The Guardian, Feb. 8, 2023,
One form of withholding covers persecution for specified reasons; the other applies to torture.
See Asylum Officer Basic Training Course Lesson Plan, “Reasonable Fear and Torture Determinations,” (USCIS, RAIO, 2017) at 11 (“The ‘reasonable possibility’ standard is the same standard required to establish eligibility for asylum (the ‘well- founded fear’ standard).”)
Jamelle Bouie, “Opinion: What Frederick Douglass Knew That Trump and DeSantis Don’t,” NYT, June 30, 2023.
JULY 5, 2023
***********************
It’s an existential problem for our nation when a Dem Administration claims as “success:” failure to recognize the rights of asylum seekers, intentionally evading asylum law, and endangering the lives of asylum seekers!
Lest anyone think the confusion, unfairness, and disorder caused by the Biden/Harris failure to implement competent, professional, expert leadership on human rights is “overhyped,” here’s an “in person” report from Professor Lenni Benson of NY Law School, founder of Safe Passage Project, and a widely reknowned “practical expert” on asylum and human rights.
Professor Lenni B.Benson Distinguished Chair of Immigration and Human Rights Law New York Law School Founder, Safe Passage Project PHOTO: NYLS website
Sharing an excellent Blog post by retired IJ Jeff Chase on why the CBP One app may be endangering asylum applicants. See below.
Related to the CBP One app was a hearing I observed last Friday, June 30, 2023 in NY City.
A self-represented individual was asked by the IJ “were you admitted or inspected” by the government, the Respondent through a Mandarin interpreter said “Yes, through the CBP app.” The IJ paused. The OPLA attorney was visible on Webex. She was silent.
The IJ said “I will note your statement for the record, I find you removable as charged for not having been inspected or admitted.” [The Respondent had declined an opportunity to find an attorney.]
I am sure CBP will argue that entry under the app is not an inspection or admission and I haven’t looked carefully at the regulations but the issue is there to perhaps be litigated.
The other interesting twist in this particular case was that the government then told the Judge that she could see the Respondent had already completed biometrics and submitted an asylum application, but no application was in either her file nor the Court’s.
The IJ asked, do you have a copy?
The respondent: “On my phone.”
The IJ set a call-up date hearing to have the respondent print out the application and file it with the court in person.
I didn’t get a chance to speak to the Respondent, but I wondered if he had perhaps thought his interview with CBP was his asylum application or if he had filed affirmatively with USCIS.
Just sharing with this community.
Confusion abounds.
“Confusion abounds!” 🤯Why, rather than clarifying and applying the law, would the Administration intentionally create confusion and a host of unnecessary “litigatable issues?”
Why would they create delay by supposedly having applications for asylum “filed” but unavailable electronically to either ICE or EOIR?
Why didn’t the Administration recruit and hire real “practical experts” like Lenni Benson and her colleagues to straighten out the asylum system at the border, restore the rule of law, and reform and repopulate the critically important, currently dysfunctional, Immigration Courts and the BIA with well-qualified progressive judges, merit-selected experts in human rights and practical problem solving?
Pleased to join my friend “Sir Jeffrey” in giving a big “shout out” to our Round Table colleagues and superstar NDPA attorneys Steve Schulman, Ashley Vinson Crawford, and their pro bono team at Akin Gump for representing us on the amicus brief in East Bay Sanctuary!
*********************
Anybody naive enough to believe the “party line” from Administration wonks about “success at the border” should heed this “hot off the presses” report from Mica Rosenberg @ Reuters. It confirms the legal and humanitarian disaster at the border resulting from two plus years of mismanagement of asylum by Mayorkas, Garland, and the rest of the Biden immigration politicos who havefailed to undo the humanitarian and legal mess left behind by White Nationalist Stephen Miller and the rest of the Trumpist scofflaws!
Mica Rosenberg National Immigration Reporter, Reuters
Mica writes:
We examined the impact of the Biden administration’s new asylum regulation at the U.S.-Mexico border after it replaced the COVID-era Title 42 expulsion policy on May 11.
U.S. officials have said the regulation and other Biden immigration policies, that have opened new legal pathways to the US, have dramatically reduced the number of illegal border crossings.
But in the first month of the new policy, Reuters interviews with more than 50 migrants, U.S. and Mexican officials, a review of court records and previously unreported data found:
More than 100,000 migrants waiting in northern Mexico, many trying to snag an appointment on an oversubscribed government run smartphone app; a sharp drop in people passing their initial asylum screenings; more people in detention and tens of thousands of deportations.
My colleagues visited the mile-long migrant camp in Matamoros, across the river from Brownsville, Texas, where conditions are deteriorating, including cases of sexual assault in the camp, and we also spoke to a father who crossed the border but was speedily deported while his family was allowed into the US.
The report at the above link has many photos illustrating both the cruel stupidity of the Biden program and the amazing resilience of those still hoping, against the odds, to have their legal rights respected and protected by the USG.
Thanks, Mica, for “telling it like it is” and penetrating the “bureaucratic smokescreen” thrown up by the Administration to cover its misdeeds and human rights abuses!🤮
LIKE
COMMENT
