🤮👎🏽ULTIMATE HIPOCRACY: EVEN AS AMERICA FINALLY CELEBRATES JUNETEENTH HOLIDAY, DRED SCOTT & INSTITUTIONALIZED RACIST DEHUMANIZATION REMAIN REALITIES FOR BLACKS & OTHER MIGRANTS OF COLOR AT EOIR & DHS — Imprisonment Without Trial, Bogus Bonds, Mistreatment In The New American Gulag, Jim Crow “Courts,” No Rule Of Law, Still Realities For Those Of Color Exercising Legal Rights In Broken System!

“They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice, Supreme Court, March 1857, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857)

“Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien’s lawful entry into this country and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the due process clause.”

Justice Samuel Alito, Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 591 U.S. ___ (2020)

Dred Scott (circa 1857)
Public Realm — Black asylum seekers and other migrants aren’t celebrating the continuing disgraceful “Dred Scottification of the other” in Mayorkas’s “New American Gulag” and Garland’s “Miller Lite” Immigration “Courts” that aren’t “courts” at all!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/institutional-racism-immigration-system_n_60cbc554e4b0b50d622b66d7

By Rowaida Abdelaziz in HuffPost:

Yacouba, a political activist in Ivory Coast, knew if he didn’t immediately flee his home country, he wouldn’t survive.

After being threatened, attacked and tortured by people sympathetic to those in power, Yacouba fled his country in 2018. He went to Brazil for a few years, then made a perilous trek through Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Mexico before finally arriving in the United States.

The journey was one of the two most challenging periods of his life. The second was being detained as a Black immigrant in the U.S.

As the nation celebrates Juneteenth — a day commemorating the emancipation of African Americans who had been enslaved in the United States — as a federal holiday for the first time, Black Americans and immigrants are fighting to dismantle institutional racism, including within the immigration system. Black immigrants are disproportionately detained, receive higher bond costs, and say they face racist treatment within detention centers.

Recognizing and celebrating the emancipation of slaves is vital, activists say ― but continuing to take down systemic racism needs to come with it.

“From an immigration perspective, Black immigrants face disproportionate levels of detention and exclusion,” Diana Konate, policy director at the advocacy group African Communities Together, said Thursday on a press call. “These can be life-threatening, as Black immigrants often get deported back to unsafe and dangerous conditions. While we celebrate the victories, we keep in mind that a lot of work remains.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Rowaida’s article at the link.

Every day that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke drag their collective feet on ending “Dred Scottification,” racial bias, and xenophobia at EOIR diminishes their credibility on all racial and social justice issues. To date, Garland has appointed zero (O) progressive judges at EOIR, has only scratched the surface of the White Nationalist bias in decision-making in the Immigration Courts, and has failed to re-establish due process and the rule of law for Blacks and other migrants of color at the border.

Justice Alito and his colleagues in the majority disgracefully basically “dressed up” the core of Dred Scott dehumanization and bias in “21st century faux constitutional gobbledygook and intentional, disingenuous fictionalization!” Make no mistake: asylum seekers applying at our borders with their lives and humanity at stake are “persons” subject to our jurisdiction and are entitled to full Constitutional due process and statutory rights that are being denied to them every day, currently by the Biden Administration.

While Alito & Co. are wrong, DEAD WRONG in all too many cases, nothing in their dishonest and misguided “jurisprudence” prevents Garland from providing due process to individuals, regardless of status, in Immigration Court and to ending the racism and dehumanization underneath both the mess at EOIR and the cowardly abdication of duty by the Supremes’ majority in Thuraissigiam! In human rights, you either solve the problem or become part of it. And, experts, journalists, and historians are making a permanent record of the actions of the Supremes and the Biden Administration when democracy and racial justice are under stress!

You don’t have to look very far to “connect the dots” between Alito’s dismissive attitude toward the human rights of Asians and other asylum seekers of color and the increase in hate crimes directed against Asian Americans and unfair policing of African Americans. Once courts and government officials endorse “dehumanization of the other based largely on ethnicity” the “protections” and “distinctions” of citizenship tend to also vanish. If the lives of migrants of color can be declared worthless, what difference does citizenship mean for those of the same ethnic heritage that Alito deems below humanity? Obviously, the Trump kakistocracy’s attack on migrants of color was just a “place holder” for their attack on the rights of all persons of color in America!

How can Garland’s DOJ demand racial justice in state law enforcement while operating America’s most notorious “Jim Crow Court System?”

James “Jim” Crow
Symbol of American Racism — He still “rules the roost” at Garland’s EOIR!

It’s time for all civil rights and civil liberties organizations to join forces in demanding an end to bias and “Dred Scottification of the other” in Garland’s disgracefully dysfunctional Immigration “Courts.” Not rocket science!🚀 Just human decency, common sense, available (yet ignored) progressive expertise, and Con Law 101!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-21-21

🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/24/border-crisis-migrants-media-biden/

Leon Krauze in the WashPost tells us what’s really happening at the border. WARNING: It has little to do with the myths and false narratives being peddled by the GOP, the Administration, and the media.

The current emergency at the border has found the U. S. media at its most solipsistic. Coverage seems more focused on whether the emergency should be called “a crisis” (it should) and what the political fallout for the Biden administration will be. With few exceptions — like the remarkable work of MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff or Politico’s Sabrina Rodriguez — many news outlets seem utterly uninterested in the stories of the migrants themselves.

This is wrong because it fails to provide one crucial piece of the puzzle: the very concrete context of human suffering.

. . . .

This by no means excuses the stories of anguish and confinement that have emerged over the last few weeks from within the facilities set up by the Biden administration to deal with the number of young migrants crossing the border, nor does it absolve the president himself from delivering on his promise of a humane immigration system, diametrically opposed to Trump’s cruel policies, designed in collaboration with unapologetic racist xenophobes like Stephen Miller.

The Biden administration can and should do better. But the current debate cannot ignore the very concrete despair facing thousands of immigrant families who, under the direct threat of violence or abuse, chose to push their young children to the United States, in search of safety.

If the alternative was famine, gang violence, kidnapping, rape or sexual slavery, wouldn’t you bet it all on the journey north? If more people understood this, the political debate and the coverage surrounding the crisis would be much more empathetic and we would get closer at delivering concrete, humane solutions.

Now, let’s hear more “simple truth” from Suzanne Gamboa over at NBC News:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/americas-immigration-impasse-self-inflicted-doesnt-rcna485

America’s immigration impasse — an endless loop across different administrations — is largely self-inflicted, because Congress has repeatedly failed to acknowledge one simple thing: Immigration happens.

Accordingly, immigration laws must be continually adjusted, reformed and revised, experts say.

“People will always want to come to the U.S., and the U.S. will always need people,” said former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was a top immigration adviser to President George W. Bush.

Until there is a system that allows enough legal immigration to meet the economy’s needs, there will be illegal immigration, Gutierrez said.

“That’s just part of how our economy is set up. It’s part of demographics,” Gutierrez said. “Our birthrate is not high enough to be able to fill the needs of our economy.”

The coronavirus pandemic reinforced the importance of immigrant labor to the American economy, including labor by the undocumented.

It opened many Americans’ eyes to the precariousness of the U.S. food supply, which depends on immigrant and undocumented farmworkers and meat plant workers, as well as to other immigrants’ roles as essential workers, such as home health care aides, nurses and paramedics.

All of those people and many other immigrants, including young immigrants — often called “Dreamers” based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act — will play a key role in helping the economy recover from its pandemic bust.

But immigration requires periodic calibration, and the economics and the changing patterns are lost in the politics.

“People are going to move — as they are all around the world — where they think they can find places to better feed their children. That’s the bottom line, and that’s the history of migration to the United States,” said Luis Fraga, director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

. . . .

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

Everyone should read the rest of the stories at the above link.

Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration

By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt

“Courtside” Exclusive

March 26, 2021

Notwithstanding the endlessly disingenuous and self-centered alarmist rhetoric coming from all directions on the border mess, often mindlessly regurgitated by the press (not just Fox News), the real “crisis” involves the human lives at stake and the unnecessary human misery we are causing by failing to establish, professionally staff, and fairly and competently operate the legal refugee and particularly asylum systems required by law. This “due process crisis” actually has devastating and debilitating practical effects, starting with the dysfunctional immigration, refugee, and asylum system and the beyond dysfunctional Immigration Courts.

Heck, we don’t even pretend to comply with Constitutionally-required due process of law for asylum seekers who present themselves to us seeking life-saving refuge. Most of those who show up at legally-established border ports are told that the border is “closed” and that there is no way for them to apply. OK, so they attempt to cross between ports and immediately present themselves to the Border Patrol. But, they also are told there is no way to apply and are orbited back to some of the most dangerous countries in the world without any process whatsoever, let alone due process of law. Who are we kidding with all our dishonest pontificating about “the rule of law?”

It’s a strange way to implement the statutory command that any foreign national “irrespective of . . . status, may apply for asylum,” along with a constitutional guarantee that “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Gee, you don’t even need one of those fancy Ivy League law degrees to understand that language. You just have to be able to read, comprehend, and act.

What you do have to do to get where we are today is to view asylum seekers and other migrants (predominantly people of color) as less than human — “non-persons” in a constitutional sense. It’s what some of us call “Dred Scottification of the other” and it has accelerated over the past four years — not just in immigration.

The whole idea of a “court system” being run by the Executive who also is the chief of enforcement is beyond constitutionally preposterous. It’s a “negative tribute” to the Supremes and other Article III life-tenured judges who have grown so distant from their own humanity and immigration stories as to become willfully blind to the ongoing farce that constitutes “justice” and “due process of law” for asylum seekers and other immigrants in the U.S.

Today’s nearly non-existent “asylum system” is a deadly and illegal “catch 22,” with the Supremes sitting in their marble palace refusing to do the primary task that justifies their continued existence: enforce the Constitution against Government misbehavior and in favor of the “little guys” and the “vulnerable.” No thanks, not up to the job!

The real tragedy is that there are plenty of folks out here with the knowledge, integrity, courage, and ability to establish a legal system that would actually comply with out laws, our Constitution, and further offer the hope of constructively addressing some problems before refugees arrive at our borders. But, they remain “benched,” even by the Biden Team. So the “good guys”are going to keep attacking the corrupt and broken system in court and at the polls for as long as it takes to get some course correction — years, decades, centuries — ask most African Americans how long it takes to achieve the true justice that America promises to all, but historically has only delivered to some.

In the long run, a fair system would undoubtedly accept many more legal refugees and asylum seekers. That’s what happens in refugee situations — it’s the core of what we call “forced migration” — when you sign on to international conventions intended to prevent the “next holocaust,” and you fairly and humanely apply the rules meant to protect refugees and those who face torture. And, as they have in the past, the overwhelming number of refugees and asylees, like the overwhelming majority of immigrants (essentially all of us, except Native Americans) will adapt, fit in, and contribute to the health, wealth, and future of our nation. They will change, but so will we — ultimately for the better!

Sure, America wouldn’t be as white, “Christian” (to the extent that adherence to a nominal Christian denomination, rather than actually performing Christ’s extremely difficult, self-sacrificing, risky, compassionate mission, defines Christianity), and nominally heterosexual as it was when White Nationalist myths and whitewashed history ruled the roost. But, it would be a better nation — one that actually has a chance of prospering, realizing the full potential of all its residents, and leading the world in the 21st century. A nation that could devote more human, natural, and monetary resources to building and exporting greatness, rather than to an endless stream of cruel, inhuman, stupid, and wasteful enforcement and deterrence gimmicks.

Bottom line, folks are going to come to America, as they have throughout history. Some will stay, some won’t. But, come they will, unless and until those like Trump and the GOP create such a mess that our own people start fleeing to foreign shores. Immigration, regardless of status, is a sign of strength. Xenophobia a sign of fatal weakness.

Our real choice isn’t whether we want to “close” borders, bar refugees, and abuse children as the Cottons, Cruzes, Millers, and Hawleys advocate. It’s whether we create a robust, orderly, rational legal system to screen, regulate, and distribute the inevitable flow or whether, as we have for the past decades, we force millions to reside and work underground — part of an “extralegal” or “black market” system that pols of both parties and those who profit from that underground system have created.

Sprawling mismanaged enforcement bureaucracies, dysfunctional “courts,” armies of publicly-paid lawyers defending the indefensible, for-profit civil prisons, big agriculture, hospitality giants, loads of upwardly mobile professionals who need child care to pursue careers, communities that live off of marketing ethnic culture, meat packing conglomerates, architects and construction firms who are “building America,” even news media fixated on hyping the problem rather than fixing it (see, e.g., yesterday’s Biden press conference), the list of those who profit from a talented, hard working, reliable, loyal, yet politically and socially disenfranchised, workforce is endless.

Even the GOP’s “Cotton-Cruz crowd” benefits from having an imaginary enemy to rant and rail and gin up hate against — safe in the knowledge that the tanking of our economy, upheaval of society, and possible threat to their privilege that would result from realizing their disingenuous call to boot the entire undocumented population will never happen. Their kids and grandkids can continue to reap the privilege that comes from exploiting an essential, yet politically neutered, workforce. It’s really more about institutionalizing racism to maintain economic and political power over the eventual non-white majority that drives their bogus and ugly narratives.

We can degrade ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever! It’s a vision based on a written promise, not a “pipe dream!”

PWS

03-26-21

⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️👩‍⚖️THE JUDICIARY: Has Justice Kagan Been Reading “Courtside?” (Her Recent Dissent Sounds Like It!) — Plus: The New Face Of A Better Federal Judiciary That Represents American Society Rather Than The Federalist Society?

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/covid-elena-kagan-supreme-court-kill.html

From Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom:

I fervently hope that the Court’s intervention will not worsen the Nation’s COVID crisis. But if this decision causes suffering, we will not pay. Our marble halls are now closed to the public, and our life tenure forever insulates us from responsibility for our errors. That would seem good reason to avoid disrupting a State’s pandemic response. But the Court forges ahead regardless, insisting that science-based policy yield to judicial edict.

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

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ketanji-brown-jackson-dc-appeals-court/2021/02/05/543bfeda-67f1-11eb-8468-21bc48f07fe5_story.html

Ruth Marcus writes about U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in WashPost:

. . . .

Still, Jackson, named to the district court by Obama in 2013, brings to the bench an intriguing — and for the Democratic Party’s restless progressives, attractive — piece of career diversity as well: experience as a public defender.

No current Supreme Court justice has the perspective of having been a public defender, representing indigent defendants, although several — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor and Brett M. Kavanaugh, in his role as associate independent counsel — have prosecutorial experience.

For Jackson, the daughter of two public school teachers (her father later became a lawyer), the criminal justice system has an unusually personal wrinkle as well: Her uncle was convicted of a low-level drug crime when she was a senior in high school, and was sentenced to life in prison under a draconian three-strikes law. (He had been convicted previously of two minor offenses.) He ended up receiving clemency from Obama after serving three decades.

She also brings the real-world perspective of a working mother. In a remarkably candid speech at the University of Georgia in 2017, Jackson described the challenges she encountered juggling private practice at a major law firm, marriage to a surgeon and motherhood to two young daughters.

“I think it is not possible to overstate the degree of difficulty that many young women, and especially new mothers, face in the law firm context,” she observed. “The hours are long; the workflow is unpredictable; you have little control over your time and schedule; and you start to feel as though the demands of the billable hour are constantly in conflict with the needs of your children and your family responsibilities.” How refreshing to hear from a self-confessed non-Superwoman.

. . . .

But a more obscure ruling, involving William Pierce, a deaf D.C. man who was imprisoned for 51 days after a domestic dispute, may offer more insight into Jackson’s belief in law as a mechanism for achieving justice. Corrections officials did nothing to accommodate Pierce’s disability, as the law requires, ignoring his repeated requests for a sign-language interpreter.

Jackson assailed prison officials’ “willful blindness regarding Pierce’s need for accommodation.” She said it was “astonishing” for D.C. to claim that it had done enough, when “prison employees took no steps whatsoever” to figure out how to help him. And she took the unusual step of ruling for Pierce even before trial.

You can learn a lot about a judge by the way she handles the biggest-profile cases, involving those at the highest levels of government. But perhaps the more revealing test is how she applies the law to help those with the least power and the greatest need for justice.

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

Read the full articles at the above links. “Willful blindness” and intentional abuses intended to “dehumanize” are daily occurrences in our warped and broken “immigration justice system” as almost any immigration/human rights/civil rights lawyer could tell you. It just operates below the radar screen, on the border, or in foreign countries (to which vulnerable humans seeking legal refuge are arbitrarily and capriciously “orbited”) where the very human trauma, torture, sickness, desolation, despair, and death are “out of sight, out of mind” to most Federal Judges and Justices.

Yes, eventually journalists and historians will document for posterity the disastrous human rights abuses in which the Federal Judiciary is complicit. But, by then it will be far too late for those who have suffered and died while those in black robes shirked their legal and moral duties!

Judge Jackson understands exactly what’s missing from today’s all too often elitist, non-diverse, non-representative Federal Judiciary (including much of the Immigration Judiciary) who are tone-deaf to, and insulated from, responsibility for the human trauma and injustice caused by their bad decisions.

Additionally, I can assure Justice Kagan that vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers (including children) have died and unnecessarily suffered lifetime trauma from the Supremes’ willful failure to enforce the Constitution against overt Executive tyranny in cases involving the “Remain in Mexico” (“Let ‘Em Die In Mexico”) Program, return of asylum seekers to torture and death with no due process whatsoever, and the “Muslim Ban.”

Indeed, the Supremes’ majority’s abdication of responsibility in the latter case led directly to Trump’s eventual insurrection against the Capitol. He was assured early on by Roberts and others that he was above the Constitution, uncountable, and exempt from normal conventions governing human decency and treatment of the most vulnerable among us in the 21st Century. I/O/W, “Dred Scottification” of the “other” — a 21st Century “Jim Crow Regime” — was A-OK with the GOP Supremes’ majority “forever insulat[ed] . . . from responsibility for [their] errors.”

Today in particular, our nation still struggles with the sense of impunity and unaccountability improperly conferred by a dilatory Supremes’ majority on their party and its leader. Insurrection, violence, attempted overthrow of democracy — it’s all “no problem” to a tone-deaf Supremes’ majority unconcerned with the fate of our democracy.

After all, the Trump’s magamoron rioters weren’t storming their marble halls — just those of the supposedly co-equal branch across the street. But, what might have happened if they had actually stood up against Trump? He might have identified them as “the enemy” and sent his rioters their way! Worth thinking about, Oh Cloistered Ones far removed from the pain and suffering you help cause and countenance!

A better judiciary 🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️👩‍⚖️ for a better America! Bring on the “practical scholars” and those with actual experience representing the mostly vulnerable among us (asylum seekers are a prime example) in court.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-09-21

🌞😎DAWNING OF A NEW ERA — First Gibson Report of The Biden Presidency (01-25-21) Shows Potential For Returning Sanity, Humanity, Focus On Human Rights, Good Government To America While Highlighting Continuing Problems @ EOIR & Deficiencies @ Supremes! — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group! — Judge Garland Must Take Notice & Fix This Outrageous Mess If He Doesn’t Want to Become Part of It! — There Will Be No “Grace Period” For The Continuing Abuses Of Justice @ Justice! — We Have A “Supreme Problem” In Our Failing Justice System!

Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

COVID-19 & Closures

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.

EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, February 19, 2021. NYC non-detained remains closed for hearings.

TOP NEWS

AILA: First 100 Days of the Biden Administration: Tracking executive actions and proposals.

Biden Took Eight Administrative Actions on Immigration. Here’s What You Need to Know

IAC: Here is a summary of eight immigration-related changes the new administration just implemented:

1. Scaling back Trump’s unchecked immigration enforcement.

2. 100-Day moratorium on most deportations.

3. The end of the Muslim and African travel bans.

4. Protecting people with DACA.

5. Expedited and extended access to green card processing for Liberians.

6. Pausing construction on the border wall.

7. Ending Trump’s unconstitutional census executive order.

8. Suspending new enrollments in the so-called “Migrant Protection Protocols.”

Biden EO: Early Calendar of Themed Days

White House: January 29: Immigration

1. Regional Migration/Border Processing EO : Directs creation of strategies to address root causes

of migration from Central America and expand opportunities for legal migration, while taking

steps to restore the U.S. asylum system by rescinding numerous Trump Administration policies

2. Refugee Policy EO (tent.) : Establishes the principles that will guide the Administration’s

implementation of the U.S. Refugee Admission Program (USRAP) and directs a series of actions

to enhance USRAP’s capacity to fairly, efficiently, and security process refugee applications

3. Family Reunification Task Force EO : Creates task force to reunify families separated by the

Trump Administration’s Immigration policies

4. Legal Immigration EO : Directs immediate review of the Public Charge Rule and other actions

to remove barriers and restore trust in the legal immigration system, including improving the

naturalization process

Texas sues Biden administration over 100-day deportation ‘pause’

WaPo: Paxton’s lawsuit claims the deportation freeze defies an agreement between Texas and DHS finalized Jan. 8 — less than two weeks before Trump left office — requiring the department to provide 180 days notice before making changes to immigration policy and enforcement practices. See also Bronx man set to be deported despite 100-day moratorium, attorney says (flight canceled following advocacy) .

Biden is starting to roll back Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program

Vox: The Biden administration announced that, starting Thursday, it will no longer enroll asylum seekers newly arriving on the southern border in a Trump-era program that has forced tens of thousands to wait in Mexico for a chance to obtain protection in the United States. The Homeland Security Department urged anyone currently enrolled in the program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or colloquially as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, to “remain where they are, pending further official information from U.S. government officials.”

Trump blocks Venezuelans’ deportation in last political gift

AP: With the clock winding down on his term, U.S. President Donald Trump shielded tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants from deportation Tuesday night, rewarding Venezuelan exiles who have been among his most loyal supporters and who fear losing the same privileged access to the White House during the Biden administration.

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021: Help for Asylum Seekers, U Visas, Military Aides

ImmProf: There’s a lot to unpack there. First: eliminating one-year deadline for filing asylum claims. Second: increasing “protections for U visa, T visa, and VAWA applicants.” Third: raising the cap on U visas for 10,000 to 30,000. Fourth: expanding protections for foreign nationals assisting U.S. troops. But see GOP Lawmakers Propose Major Immigration Restrictions.

Biden wants to remove this controversial word from US laws

CNN: Biden’s proposed bill, if passed, would remove the word “alien” from US immigration laws, replacing it with the term “noncitizen.”

Sen. Hawley moves to block swift confirmation for Biden’s homeland security pick

WaPo: Homeland security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas told senators he would carry out President-elect Joe Biden’s immigration overhaul while intensifying efforts to combat domestic extremism, during a hearing Tuesday that highlighted Republican opposition to his confirmation.

The State of the Immigration Courts: Trump Leaves Biden 1.3 Million Case Backlog in Immigration Courts

TRAC: While the Trump administration hired many new immigration judges and implemented a range of different strategies aimed in part at reducing the Immigration Court backlog, the backlog grew each month. Some of Trump’s changes in court operations arguably slowed case processing. However, the primary driver of the exploding backlog was not only the lack of immigration judges but the tsunami of new cases filed in court by the Department of Homeland Security.

Bad conduct, leering ‘jokes’ — immigration judges stay on bench

SFChron: Interviews with dozens of attorneys across the country and current and former government officials, as well as internal documents obtained by The Chronicle, show the problems have festered for years. The Justice Department has long lacked a strong system for reporting and responding to sexual harassment and misconduct.

Vera Statement on Governor Cuomo’s 2021 State of the State Address

Vera: Gov. Cuomo reaffirmed his commitment to funding the Liberty Defense Project, which provides essential legal services for immigrants across New York State. This is excellent news for families facing separation, deportation and other horrors caused by the federal government’s actions.

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

District Court Halts Most of EOIR Filing Fee Rule from Going into Effect

A district court judge issued a nationwide stay of the effective date of the 12/18/20 EOIR final fee review rule and a preliminary injunction to enjoin most of its implementation. The rule was set to go into effect on 1/19/21. (CLINIC, et al., v. EOIR, et al., 1/18/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011933

White House Issues Memo on Regulatory Freeze Pending Review

White House Chief of Staff Ronald A. Klain issued a memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies instituting a regulatory freeze pending review. AILA Doc. No. 21012090

DHS and DOJ Delay Effective Date of Final Rule on Pandemic-Related Security Bars to Asylum and Withholding of Removal

Advance copy of a document that will be published in the Federal Register on 1/25/21, delaying the effective date of the final rule “Security Bars and Processing,” which was scheduled to become effective on 1/22/21. The effective date is delayed until 3/21/21. AILA Doc. No. 21012143

DHS Acting Secretary Issues Memorandum on Immigration Enforcement Policies

Acting DHS Secretary Pekoske issued a memorandum directing DHS components to conduct a review of immigration enforcement policies, and setting interim policies for civil enforcement during that review. Beginning 1/22/21, DHS will pause removals of certain noncitizens ordered deported for 100 days. AILA Doc. No. 21012136

President Biden Issues Executive Order Revising Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities

President Biden issued an Executive Order revoking EO 13768 of 1/25/17, and directing the DOS Secretary, the Attorney General, the DHS Secretary, and other officials to review any agency actions developed pursuant to EO 13768 and to take action, including issuing revised guidance, as appropriate. AILA Doc. No. 21012135

Presidential Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States

President Biden issued a proclamation revoking EO 13780, PP 9645, PP 9723, and PP 9983. The proclamation directs the DOS secretary to direct embassies/consulates, consistent with visa processing procedures, including any related to COVID-19, to resume visa processing consistent with the revocations. AILA Doc. No. 21012002

President Biden Issues Executive Order on Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel

President Biden issued an EO, which, among other things, directs government officials to assess CDC’s order requiring a negative COVID test from airline passengers traveling to the U.S., and to take “further appropriate regulatory action” to implement public health measures for international travel. AILA Doc. No. 21012300

Presidential Proclamation Terminating Restrictions on Entry of Certain Travelers from the Schengen Area, the U.K., Ireland, and Brazil

In light of a CDC order issued on 1/12/21, President Trump issued a proclamation on 1/18/21, effective 1/26/21, removing travel restrictions from the Schengen Area, the U.K., Ireland, and Brazil. (86 FR 6799, 1/22/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011930

DHS Suspends New Enrollments in the MPP Program

DHS announced that it is suspending new enrollments in the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) Program and will cease adding individuals into the program effective 1/21/21. DHS advised current MPP participants to remain where they are, pending further information. AILA Doc. No. 21012001

President Biden Issues Memorandum on Preserving and Fortifying DACA

On 1/20/21, President Biden issued a memorandum directing the DHS Secretary, in consultation with the Attorney General, to take all actions he deems appropriate, consistent with applicable law, to preserve and fortify DACA. (86 FR 7053, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012130

President Biden Issues Memorandum Reinstating Deferred Enforced Departure for Liberians

On 1/20/21, President Biden issued a memo deferring through 6/30/22, the removal of any Liberian national, or person without nationality who last habitually resided in Liberia, who is present in the U.S. and who was under a grant of DED as of 1/10/21. (86 FR 7055, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012131

President Biden Issues Executive Order Revoking Prior Presidential Actions Excluding Undocumented Immigrants from the Apportionment Base Following the Decennial Census

On 1/20/21, President Biden issued an executive order revoking prior presidential actions that sought to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment base following the 2020 census. (86 FR 7015, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012134

Presidential Proclamation Terminating Emergency with Respect to the U.S. Southern Border and Redirecting Funds Diverted to Border Wall Construction

President Biden issued a proclamation terminating the national emergency declared by Proclamation 9844, and continued on 2/13/20 and 1/15/21. The proclamation directs officials to pause work on construction on the southern border wall and to develop a plan to redirect funds and repurpose contracts. AILA Doc. No. 21012132

President Trump Issues Memorandum on Deferred Enforced Departure for Certain Venezuelans

On 1/19/21, President Trump issued a memo directing DHS and DOS to defer, with certain exceptions, for 18 months the removal of any Venezuelan national, or individual without nationality who last habitually resided in Venezuela, who is present in the U.S. as of 1/20/21. (86 FR 6845, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012030

Supreme Court Vacates Decision of Ninth Circuit in ICE v. Padilla

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated the judgment of the Ninth Circuit, and remanded for further consideration in light of DHS v. Thuraissigiam. (ICE, et al. v. Padilla, et al., 1/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011934

BIA Rules §58-37-8(2)(a)(i) of the Utah Code Is Divisible with Respect to the Specific Controlled Substance Involved in Statue Violation

The BIA ruled that §58-37-8(2)(a)(i) of the Utah Code, which criminalizes possession or use of a controlled substance, is divisible with respect to the specific “controlled substance” involved in a violation of that statute. Matter of Dikhtyar, 28 I&N Dec. 214 (BIA 2021) AILA Doc. No. 21012237

CA1 Remands Asylum and Withholding Claims of Iraqi National Who Worked for U.S. Army During War

The court vacated and remanded the BIA’s denial of the asylum and withholding of removal claims of the petitioner, who feared that he would be subjected to harm on account of his work as a paid contractor for the U.S. Army during the war in Iraq. (Al Amiri v. Rosen, 1/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012039

CA4 Remands Plaintiffs’ Claim That DHS Unreasonably Delayed Adjudication of Their U Visa Petitions

Vacating in part the district court’s decision, the court held that the plaintiffs had pled sufficient facts to allege a plausible claim that DHS unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed adjudication of their U visa petitions. (Fernandez Gonzalez, et al. v. Cuccinelli, et al., 1/14/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012048

CA5 Finds Petitioner Failed to Show Due Diligence Where He Waited Eight Months After Lugo-Resendez to File Motion to Reopen

The court upheld the BIA’s conclusion that the petitioner did not demonstrate due diligence because he had waited approximately eight months after the court’s decision in Lugo-Resendez v. Lynch to file his current motion to reopen under INA §240(c)(7). (Ovalles v. Rosen, 1/6/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011943

CA5 Dismisses for Mootness After Finding Inadmissibility Was Not a Collateral Consequence of BIA’s Withholding-Only Decision

The court held that even if the BIA had erred in denying withholding of removal to the petitioner, inadmissibility was not a collateral consequence of the BIA’s decision, because the petitioner would still be subject to his February 2012 removal order. (Mendoza-Flores v. Rosen, 12/29/20) AILA Doc. No. 21011942

CA6 Says BIA Abused Its Discretion by Finding That No Exceptional Circumstances Justified Minor Petitioner’s Failure to Appear

The court held that, based on the totality of the circumstances, including petitioner’s young age and her inability to travel from New York to Memphis for the hearing, the petitioner had established exceptional circumstances justifying her failure to appear. (E. A. C. A. v. Rosen, 1/12/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012040

CA6 Says It Has Jurisdiction to Review BIA’s Ultimate Hardship Conclusion for Cancellation of Removal After Guerrero-Lasprilla

The court held that the BIA’s ultimate hardship conclusion is the type of mixed question over which it has jurisdiction to review after the Supreme Court’s decision in Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, but found that petitioner failed to show the requisite hardship. (Singh v. Rosen, 1/7/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011944

CA7 Finds BIA Did Not Err in Denying Asylum to Mexican Petitioner Whose Family Was Targeted by Sinaloa Cartel

The court held that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s determination that the petitioner had failed to establish the requisite nexus between his fear of persecution from the Sinaloa Cartel upon return to Mexico and his family membership. (Meraz-Saucedo v. Rosen, 1/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012044

CA7 Remands Petitioner’s Request for Administrative Closure After Finding BIA Did Not Exercise Its Discretion According to Law

The court held that the petitioner was entitled to have his request for administrative closure considered as a proper exercise of discretion under law, including BIA precedents and the factors set forth in Matter of Avetisyan and Matter of W-Y-U. (Zelaya Diaz v. Rosen, 1/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012041

CA8 Affirms BIA’s Denial of Deferral of Removal to Somali Petitioner Who Feared Torture by Al-Shabaab for Minority-Clan Membership

The court affirmed the BIA’s decision denying petitioner’s request for deferral of removal to Somalia, finding that substantial evidence supported the IJ’s and BIA’s conclusions that he was unlikely to be tortured by Al-Shabaab due to his minority-clan membership. (Hassan v. Rosen, 1/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012045

CA8 Holds That DHS Was Permitted to Substitute CIMTs Charge for Immigration Fraud Charge as Basis for Petitioner’s Removal

The court held that, in seeking the petitioner’s removal, DHS could choose to rely on a claim that the petitioner had committed crimes involving moral turpitude (CIMTs), rather than on the alternative claim that she had committed immigration fraud. (Herrera Gonzalez v. Rosen, 1/4/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011945

CA9 to Rehear En Banc Case Involving Derivative Citizenship

The court ordered rehearing en banc and vacated its prior decision in Cheneau v. Barr, which held that the petitioner did not derive citizenship from his mother’s naturalization because his claim was foreclosed by the court’s precedent. (Cheneau v. Rosen, 1/6/21) AILA Doc. No. 21011948

CA9 Affirms District Court’s Denial of Government’s Motion to Terminate Flores Settlement Agreement

The court held that the district court had correctly concluded that the Flores Settlement Agreement was not terminated by new regulations adopted by HHS and DHS in 2019, and that the government did not show that changed circumstances justified termination. (Flores v. Rosen, 12/29/20) AILA Doc. No. 21011946

CA9 Holds That Petitioner Who Adjusted to Permanent Resident Under SAW May Be Removed at Present Time

The court held that, under the Special Agricultural Worker program (SAW), a noncitizen who was inadmissible at the time of his adjustment to temporary resident status may be removed after his automatic adjustment to permanent resident status. (Hernandez Flores v. Rosen, 12/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 21011947

CA9 Reverses and Remands Habeas Petition Denial Where Petitioner Claimed His ICE Arrest Was Retaliation for Protected Speech

Where the petitioner had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 8 USC §2241 arguing that his immigration arrest and re-detention was retaliation for his protected speech, the court reversed the district court’s denial of the petition and remanded. (Bello-Reyes v. Gaynor, 1/14/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012047

CA9 Upholds Denial of Asylum to Pakistani National Who Claimed He Feared Persecution from Taliban

The court held that the IJ had provided the pro se petitioner with a full opportunity to present testimony, and found the BIA did not err in concluding that petitioner’s description of generalized violence failed to meet his burden to show targeted persecution. (Hussain v. Rosen, 1/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012046

CA11 Says Substantial Evidence Supported BIA’s Finding That Petitioner Committed Fraud with Loss Amount over $10,000

The court upheld the BIA’s finding that petitioner’s Florida convictions for money laundering and workers’ compensation fraud were aggravated felonies because each conviction involved fraud in which the amount of loss to the victim exceeded $10,000. (Garcia-Simisterra v. Att’y Gen., 12/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 21012038

Notice of Proposed Settlement Regarding Asylum Applicants with Employment Authorization Who Were Denied Safety Net Assistance in New York

The NY County Supreme Court approved a proposed settlement in Colaj v. Roberts benefiting a class of asylum applicants with work authorization who were denied Safety Net Assistance between 8/7/14 and 11/21/17. Under the agreement, the applicants will get a certain amount of back benefits.AILA Doc. No. 21011935

DOS Notice Designating Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism

On 1/12/21, DOS issued a notice designating Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. (86 FR 6731, 1/22/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012233

ICYMI: EOIR Issues Guidance on “Enhanced Case Flow Processing” in Removal Proceedings

EOIR issued guidance on the implementation of an enhanced case flow processing model for non-status, non-detained cases with representation in removal proceedings. Memo is effective 12/1/20. AILA Doc. No. 20120130

DOS Provides Annual Immigrant Visa Waiting List Report as of November 1, 2020

DOS provided a report from the NVC showing the total number of immigrant visa applicants on the waiting list in the various family- and employment-based preference categories and subcategories subject to the numerical limit as of 11/1/20. The figures only reflect petitions received by DOS. AILA Doc. No. 21012232

EOIR Releases Policy Memo on Adjudicator Independence and Impartiality

EOIR issued a policy memo (PM 21-15) reiterating and memorializing EOIR’s policy regarding adjudicator independence and impartiality. The memo notes that it remains EOIR policy that adjudicator decisions should be based solely on the record before the adjudicator and the applicable law. AILA Doc. No. 21012033

Duckworth Asks President Biden To Prohibit Deportation Of Veterans And Strengthen Naturalization Process For Servicemembers

Duckworth: Combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) is urging President Joe Biden to take immediate action to prevent the deportation of Veterans, repatriate deported Veterans, strengthen the military naturalization process and remove barriers to accessing VA care faced by Veterans living broad.

RESOURCES

2020 USCIS Statistical Annual Report

AILA: Practice Alert: Biden Administration Executive Order Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel

AILA: Practice Alert: Federal Court Grants Partial Injunction of Proposed EOIR Fee Increases

AILA: Practice Alert: President Biden Protects DACA

AILA: Practice Alert: Presidential Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States

AILA: Avoiding Disciplinary Action for Requesting Multiple Continuances in Immigration Court

AILA: Current Leadership of Major Immigration Agencies

AILA: Bite-Sized Ethics: Withdrawing When a Client Goes MIA

Legal Aid: What You Need to Know About Deferred Enforced Departure for Venezuelans (including English/Spanish Fact Sheets)

White House FACT SHEET: President Biden Sends Immigration Bill to Congress as Part of His Commitment to Modernize our Immigration System

IARC: Summary and Analysis of The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021

ICYMI: Legislative and Administrative Updates

CLINIC: FOIA Disclosures on Special Immigrant Juvenile Status Policies After Bringing Lawsuit, CLINIC v. USCIS

CLINIC: Current USCIS Guidance on Adjudicating Disability Waivers

CLINIC: Practice Advisory: Adjustment Options for TPS Beneficiaries

CLINIC: Practice Pointer: EOIR Policy Memo on Case Flow Processing

Penn State Fact Sheet: Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to The United States

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: Cruelty, Coercion, and Legal Contortions: The Trump Administration’s Unsafe Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador

ILRC: Special Immigrant Juvenile Status & Visa Availability

ILRC: Executive Action on DACA under Biden

ILRC: The “Migrant Protection Protocols”

GAO: DHS and DOJ Have Implemented Expedited Credible Fear Screening Pilot Programs, but Should Ensure Timely Data Entry

EVENTS

CUNY Immigration Seminar Series, Spring 2021: Feb 5: Holding Fast, Feb 19: Hyper Education, Mar 5: Citizenship Reimagined, Mar 12: The President and Immigration Law, Mar 26: The Browning of the New South, Apr 9: Reuniting Families, Apr 23: Represented But Unequal, Apr 30: Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era.

1/25/21-2/8/21 Three-Part Webinar Series: All About Public Charge Inadmissibility

1/26/21 Entries, Exits, Re-entries: Dealing with 212(a)(9) Inadmissibility Issues

1/27/21 EOIR’s New Case Flow Processing – Live

1/28/21 3rd Annual Western New York Refugee Film Festival

1/28/21 Preparing Your Client to Testify — How to Ethically Prepare Your Witness

1/28/21-03/11/21 Case Management Techniques and Strategies

1/29/21 Nuts and Bolts of DACA Filings in 2021

2/1/21 Current Status of the USCIS Fee Rule and Fee Waivers

2/2/21 Post-Inauguration: An Immigration Update

2/4/21 Basic Immigration Law 2021: Business, Family, Naturalization and Related Areas

2/5/21-2/6/21 2021 New York Asylum & Immigration Conference

2/5/21 Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Crime Victim, and Other Immigration Relief 2021

2/5/21 Addressing Domestic Violence 2021: Remote Family and Immigration Law Practice During Pandemic or Disaster

2/5/21 Refugee Advocacy and Higher Education Access

2/9/21 U Visa Certifications, T Visa Declarations and NYC Agencies

2/9/21 What Every Lawyer Should Know About U.S. Immigration Law

2/10/21 #EndSIJSBacklog National Strategy Call

2/10/21 Public Charge Emerging Issues

2/10/21 All About DOJ Recognition and Accreditation

2/16/21 DACA: Updates and Changes to the Program

2/17/21 Out of Order and Out of Control – IJ Complaints, Disciplinary Procedures, Ethics, and EOIR Reform

2/25/21-4/8/21 Introduction to Family-Based Immigration Law

3/2/21 SIJS-based Adjustment of Status before EOIR

3/4/21 TPS Updates

3/5/21-3/26/21 Webinar Series: Selected Issues in Inadmissibility

3/12/21 Strategies and Tactics for Successful Immigration Appeals

3/16/21 Representing Immigrants in Family Court

3/17/21-3/18/21 Legal Remedies for Immigrant Survivors: Introductory Seminar Series – Part II: Preparing The Case

3/23/21 Complex Naturalization: How to Get Your Clients to Citizenship

3/23/21 Understanding the Conditional Permanent Residence Petition (Form I-751)

3/30/21 Public Charge and the Affidavit of Support

4/15/21 DACA

4/20/21 Hot Topics in Naturalization Adjudications

4/21/21 Working with Domestic Violence Immigrant Survivors: The Intersection of Basic Family Law, Immigration, Benefits, and Housing Issues in California 2021

4/28/21 Community Defense: Legal Service Partnerships with Organizers

5/4/21 Public Charge: Current State of Play

5/6/21 Hot Topics in Asylum Law

5/13/21 Marijuana and Immigrants

5/18/21 Ethics in Representing Family Members in U Visa, U AOS/929, and VAWA Cases

5/26/21 Hot Topics in Removal Defense

6/1/21 VAWA Adjustment of Status Fundamentals

6/9/21 Hot topics: Adjudication and Enforcement Trends

6/10/21 Public Charge and Hot Topics in Consular Processing

6/15/21 U Visa Hot Topics

6/22/21 Defending Immigration Removal Proceedings 2021

6/30/21 Immigration Update – June 2021

ImmProf

Monday, January 25, 2021

CUNY Immigration Seminar Series – Spring 2021

Republican counterproposals to Biden’s anticipated Citizenship Act of 2021

Immigration Article of the Day: Border Solutions from the Inside by Raquel Aldana

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Texas Sues Feds Over Suspension of Deportation

President Biden Tells Mexico’s President Obrador of U.S. Immigration Policy Changes

Saturday, January 23, 2021

Crossing the Darién Gap

American Immigration Council Fact Sheet on the “Migrant Protection Protocols”

Friday, January 22, 2021

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021: Help for Asylum Seekers, U Visas, Military Aides

Immigration Article of the Day: Language Access and Due Process in Asylum Interviews by Pooja Dadhania

Book Event: Immigrant California: Understanding the Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Policy

Empirical evidence that words matter: Biden proposal to update INA terms

PennState Law Fact Sheet on President Biden’s Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States

Bad conduct, leering ‘jokes’ — immigration judges stay on bench

Death on the Border: The Many Nameless Migrant Skeletons Buried Along America’s Border

Bringing Racial Justice to Immigration Law

Thursday, January 21, 2021

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021: Replacing “Alien” with “Noncitizen”

Biden Administration Suspends MPP

Stories from the Border: A Conversation with Community Storytellers on the Deportation of Childhood Arrivals and Family Separation

Bruce Springsteen’s Land of Hopes and Dreams Kicks off the Inauguration Concert

Feedback on President Biden’s Initial Immigration Moves

Immigration Article of the Day: Unseen Policies: Trump’s Little-Known Immigration Rules as Executive Power Grab by Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Biden Administration’s Executive Actions

Senator Duckworth Asks President Biden to Prohibit Deportation of Veterans

Trump Presidential Memorandum Benefits Venezuelans in US

President Biden’s Day One Immigration Bill

DHS Nominee Hits Snag in Senate

President Trump Pardons Former Chief Political Strategist Steve Bannon

Immigration Article of the Day: The Institutional Hearing Program: A Study of Prison-Based Immigration Courts in the United States by Ingrid V. Eagly & Steven Shafer

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Confirmation hearing for DHS Secretary Nominee Alejandro Mayorkas

Federal Court Blocks Immigration Courts Fee Increases

The State of the Immigration Courts: Trump Leaves Biden 1.3 Million Case Backlog in Immigration Courts

Guest Post: The “Complete Helplessness” of Matter of A-B- And One More Last Ditch Effort to Torpedo Asylum by Geoffrey A. Hoffman *

Birthright Citizens and Paper Sons by Amanda Frost

TODAY: UC Davis Webinar — Immigration Policy: Ideas for the Biden Administration

Immigration Article of the Day: Socialism and Empire: Labor Mobility, Racial Capitalism, and the Political Theory of Migration by Ines Valdez

Monday, January 18, 2021

Achieving America’s Immigration Promise: ABA Recommendations to Advance Justice, Fairness and Efficiency

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

A better Monday right off the bat, as I had predicted and hoped! But, the work has just begun!

However welcome the Biden Administration’s immediate actions are, they have barely “touched the tip of the iceberg” on the human rights, civil rights, and human dignity abuses left behind by the just-departed kakistocracy.

There is a mess in the Federal Judiciary, from the lowest levels (EOIR) to the highest levels (Supremes). For example, the Supremes’ totally wrong-headed remand of ICE v. Padilla (described in Elizabeth’s report) shows a deficient Court that overtly fails to uphold the Constitution for asylum seekers and whose false and stilted jurisprudence continues to advance Jim Crow, White Nationalism, and Dred Scottification well into the 21st Century. Totally outrageous!

Let’s think about the Supremes in “real life” terms! The most vulnerable among us — asylum seekers who are being openly abused by our Government while their lives are being trashed by our legal “system” get the shaft from El Supremos. But, yesterday the same Supremos issued corrupt traitor Prez Trump a “free pass” by going along with a corrupt scheme to “run out the clock” on “emoluments clause cases” that those seeking to uphold the rule of law had won below!

Suffering, death, and unfairness to the most vulnerable; free passes to the powerful and overtly corrupt! The problems with our failing justice system begin at the top and obviously have filtered down to places like EOIR where nobody expects any accountability for “going along to get along” with the Trump-Miller White Nationalist, racist, degradations of humanity!

Quoting Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “This is not justice!” Not even close!

Judge Garland must end the White Nationalist mess at EOIR by replacing (what passes for) administration and the BIA immediately, while quickly developing due process-expert-equal justice-human rights-diversity criteria and meaningful public participation in the judicial appointment process for the Immigration Courts. Then apply those criteria not only to new appointments, but also to retention decisions for the existing judiciary which is the product of a skewed “insider only,” “prosecutor and hard liner biased” defective system.

Some Immigration Judges are well qualified, fair, and well respected; some are not. Judge Garland needs to figure out quickly who should serve, who shouldn’t, and who the best-qualified, fairest, and most universally respected “experts” are to create “the world’s best administrative judiciary” that will serve as a model for a better Article III Judiciary!

This is also the first step to reform throughout the Federal Judiciary all the way up to the failed Supremes. A functioning due-process-oriented, practical, progressive, independent Immigration Judiciary should become a source of better Article III Judges who handle high volume and promote best practices while actually improving due process and efficiency. A big winner for America!

A “model Immigration judiciary” (in place of the “Star Chambers”) will also be the centerpiece of a new independent legislative Article I Immigration Court that Judge Garland must push aggressively to insure that his reform work is institutionalized and is not destroyed by a future DOJ kakistocracy.

As one of my esteemed judicial colleagues in the NAIJ said, immediately and radically reforming the current EOIR while pushing forward with Article 1 legislation requires the “ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Surely, Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, Lisa Monaco and the rest of the incoming team at Justice have the demonstrated ability to do just that!

It’s up to all of us in the NDPA, the human rights and immigration advocacy community, the civil rights community, and the “good government movement” to keep pressure on Judge Garland and his team to fix EOIR and get the Federal Judicial reform movement moving at full speed. Raise hell if you have to, but don’t let this issue be delayed or “back burnered!”

This is not a “tomorrow” issue! Folks are suffering, dying, and the justice system is deteriorating — from the Supremes to “America’s Star Chambers” every day that the current EOIR due process and fundamental fairness disaster remains unaddressed. Courageous lawyers who have fought to save our democracy from the “creeping and creepy kakistocracy” are being outrageously abused in “Star Chamber Courts” every day that the Biden Administration fails to take bold corrective action @ EOIR!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Justice @ Justice Can’t Wait! Fix The EOIR Clown Show 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ Now! Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-26-21

🇺🇸🗽⚖️MORE GOOD NEWS FOR AMERICA AS TRUMP KAKISTOCRACY☠️🦹🏿‍♂️⚰️ FINALLY COMES TO AN END: Biden Will Move Immediately For Sane, Humane, Practical Immigration Policies — Wants To Put Trump’s Cruel, Racist, Stupid Abuses Of Humanity, Common Sense, Rule Of Law, & America’s Immigrant Heritage In The Rear-View Mirror! — Promises Reversal Of DHS’s Role As White Nationalist “Political Police Force”🏴‍☠️☠️ That Beat Up On the Most Vulnerable While Ignoring Real Security Threat Posed By Trump-Inspired Righty Domestic Terrorists!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-immigration-plan/2021/01/18/f0526824-59a8-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html

Seung Min Kim reports for WashPost:

President-elect Joe Biden will roll out a sweeping overhaul of nation’s immigration laws the day he is inaugurated, including an eight-year pathway to citizenship for immigrants without legal status and an expansion of refugee admissions, along with an enforcement plan that deploys technology to patrol the border.

Biden’s legislative proposal, which will be sent to Congress on Wednesday, also includes a heavy focus on addressing the root causes of migration from Central America, a key part of Biden’s foreign policy portfolio when he served as vice president.

The centerpiece of the plan from Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris is the eight-year pathway, which would put millions of qualifying immigrants in a temporary status for five years and then grant them a green card once they meet certain requirements such as a background check and payment of taxes. They would be able to apply for citizenship three years later.

. . . .

The focus on Central America reflects the message that Biden has relayed to senior officials in the region: that he will advocate for policy changes aimed at what drives scores of migrants there to come to the United States illegally to seek safe harbor.

“Ultimately, you cannot solve problems of migration unless you attack the root causes of what causes that migration,” one official said, pointing to the various reasons — from economic to safety — that drive migrants to flee their home countries. “He knows that in particular is the case in Central America.”

Transition officials are aware of recent reports of the increased numbers of migrants at or heading to the border in anticipation of the end of Trump’s presidency, and urged them to stay in their home countries. They emphasized that newly arriving immigrants would not qualify for the legalization program that Biden proposes.

Biden wants to move the refugee and asylum systems “back to a more humane and orderly process,” the official said. But “it’s also been made clear that that isn’t a switch you flip overnight from the 19th to the 20th, especially when you’re working with agencies and processes that have been so gutted by the previous administration.”

Biden hopes to reinstate a program granting minors from Central America temporary legal residence in the United States. The Trump administration terminated the program in August 2017, officials said. The administration also wants to set up a reunification program for Central American relatives of U.S. citizens that would allow those who have been already approved for U.S. residency to be admitted into the country, rather than waiting at home for an opening. The program would be similar to ones that existed for Cubans and Haitians but also were ended by the Trump administration.

The Biden proposal also would put in place a refugee admissions program at multiple processing centers abroad that would better help identify and screen those who would qualify to be admitted as refugees into the United States.

As for border enforcement, the plan calls on the Department of Homeland Security to develop a proposal that uses technology and other similar infrastructure to implement new security measures along the border, both at and between ports of entry. Biden has long vowed not to expand the border wall Trump has marginally extended.

“This is not a wall; this is not taking money from [the Department of Defense],” a transition official said, referring to how Trump helped to finance his wall after pledging Mexico would pay for it. “It’s a very different approach.”

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

This is a welcome change from the poorly conceived, often ill-informed approach to immigration by the Obama Administration. It appears that Biden and Harris have actually “listened to the experts” and acted a accordingly.

The concentration on addressing the reality of Central American migration and dealing honestly and constructively with its root causes in a sensible and humane way is also refreshing. Using intelligence and technology to address real border security issues (as opposed to squandering resources on politically manufactured ones) also shows promise.

NBC star reporter Julia Edwards Ainsley just broke a story on how under the Trump regime, DHS wasted lots of time and money “beating up on” and denying the legal rights of migrants and asylum seekers and ripping apart families while ignoring or mishandling the real threats to our national security presented by right wing domestic terrorists. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/capitol-riot-exposed-flaws-trump-s-dhs-focused-immigration-not-n1254464

Many of the latter were energized by the Trump/DHS program of White Nationalist racist fear-mongering and intentionally false anti-immigrant, anti-due-process narratives. That’s what “applied malicious incompetence” looks like — DHS and EOIR are two of the most egregious examples in a regime that raised it to an “art form.” It will take an aggressive and far-reaching “house cleaning” to get these agencies that have abandoned the common good and now operate “on the dark side” back on track.

The immediate “knee-jerk opposition” to rational, practical, fact-based immigration reform by notorious White Nationalist racist Sen. Tom Cotton (R-ARK) shows that Team Biden is on the right track to disavow the toxic institutionalized racism and biased policies of the Trump regime and move America along the path to racial justice and realistic, progressive immigration policies that will further the national interest and lead to a better future for all!

It’s a great, if long overdue, start to getting beyond Jim Crow and “Dred Scottification” and saving and enhancing our democracy! But, the proof will be in the results!

Biden, of course, will also face the formidable challenges of dealing with the human carnage left behind by the Trump regime’s disastrous mis-handling of COVID-19, economic inequality, the environment, racial justice, and foreign policy where American “prestige” has plummeted to levels not seen since the days of the Barbary Pirates.

He also must address a failing Federal Justice System that, particularly at its appellate levels, did not effectively stand up to the Trump regime’s unrelenting assault on human decency and American democracy. Indeed, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a consistently competent and courageous Justice among our failing Supremes, offered this final harsh but true assessment of her GOP colleagues’ malfeasance in a death penalty case: “This is not justice.”https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/not-justice-justice-sonia-sotomayor-offers-fierce-dissent-death-penalty-n1254554

You could say that about almost everything in the departing, defeated White Nationalist regime!

I’ll note for the record that among other things, the Supremes’ tone-deaf majority has been responsible for letting bona fide asylum seekers rot in squalor in camps in Mexico while waiting for non-existent “due process,” and also authorized the imposition of potential death sentences and torture on asylum seekers within our jurisdiction without any whit of due process.

The GOP majority’s disgraceful failure to stand up for voting rights of African Americans, Latinos, and other voters of color has also deepened racial injustice in America and helped usher in a horrible “Jim Crow Revival” pushed, incited, and enabled by the GOP, “The Party of the Failed Insurrection.”

Any competent first-year law student might ask “How could this happen in America?” That’s a question that Roberts and his gang of fellow Trump enablers and apologists will have to answer before the “court of history!”

🇺🇸🗽⚖️👍🏼Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-19-21

CRIME BLOTTER: CHILD ABUSE🤮☠️⚰️🦹🏿‍♀️: DOJ IG REPORT CONFIRMS WHAT COURTSIDE & OTHERS KNEW FROM THE START: Trump, Sessions, Miller, Rosenstein, Hamilton Are Cowards🐓, Lying 🤥 Criminals, Child Abusers🦹🏿‍♀️, Who Belong Behind Bars For Intentionally Abusing Asylum Seeking Families & Kids & Then Having Their Sleazy DOJ Lawyers Lie To Federal Judges! — What Happened To “Due Diligence” As An Ethical Requirement For Government Lawyers?

Sessions in a cage — Jeff Sessions’ Cage by J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group/AL.com
Republished under license

Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions
“Police Brutality? What Police Brutality?”

Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com, Republished under license

Stephen Miller Cartoon — Stephen Miller & Count Olaf
Evil Twins, Notorious Child Abusers

Stephen Miller & Wife — “Gauleiter Muller & Eva Braun” Yuck it Up In The Comfort Of “Public Welfare Dole” While Looking Forward to Planning Together for More “Crimes Against Humanity,” Abusing Children, Dehumanizing Persons of Color, Spreading Lies & False Narratives, & Targeting World’s Most Vulnerable Refugees 🤮☠️⚰️🦹🏿‍♂️ — Sure Looks Like “Welfare Fraud” to Me!

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjByaGq6p7uAhVwuVkKHXiFC34QxfQBCFMwBA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fkval.com%2Fnewsletter-daily%2Fmerkley-calls-for-prosecution-of-trump-officials-after-report-on-child-separation-policy&usg=AOvVaw1vnWzv2UxSmymy6iLrVQ-o

By KVAL CBS (Eugene, OR) News Staff:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has called for the investigation and prosecution of current and former Trump administration officials after the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General released “a disturbing report confirming that the Trump administration knew their zero tolerance policy would lead to family separations,” the Oregon Democrat said in a statement.

“We finally have more answers about how this diabolical plan came to be,” Merkley said. “It is crystal clear that Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, Chad Wolf, Kirstjen Nielsen and other senior Trump administration officials were not only fully aware that their policy would have traumatizing impacts on families, but also that their intention was to inflict that trauma as a means to deter people from coming to America in search of a better life.”

The senator added “it’s now confirmed that they committed perjury by lying to Congress about their intentions and actions in order to avoid accountability for their monstrous initiative.”

In June 2018, Merkley traveled to Texas and attempted to enter a child detention center in a former Walmart, calling attention to the practice of separating and detaining children apart from their families.

“The intentional infliction of harm on innocent children is unforgivable and has no place on our soil,” Merkley said Thursday. “The architects should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law for any crimes connected with both the atrocities and the cover-up.”

Merkley returned to the border 6 more times and advocated for families to be reunited – and for people seeking refuge “from gang violence, murder, rape, and extortion in their home countries” be allowed to make their case – something the senator alleges the Trump adminitration has not allowed in keeping with the law.

“America is at its strongest when we embrace our historic role as a beacon of hope for persecuted people from around the world,” Merkley said. “I am determined to work with the Biden administration to ensure that we turn that vision into a reality, and to hold the perpetrators of the Trump administration’s cruelty fully accountable.”

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

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Senator! Right on! Remarkable how all it takes is an armed insurrection against our Capitol and our democracy generated by the Traitor Prez and supported by far, far too many cowardly, anti-American members of his “Party of Treason” to get folks “thinking like Courtside.”

Even if the criminals described by the IG escape prosecution for their crimes, the new IG Report and the additional documents that certainly will come to light once the Trump kakistocracy is removed should provide enough evidence to keep these wretched fascist creatures and their families tied up in civil litigation for the rest of their miserable and worthless lives!

To date, only Senator James Langford (R-OK) has had the decency to apologize for his role in supporting Trump’s beyond bogus, treasonous, insurrectionist claims of “election fraud” or a stolen election. Where are the apologies from the rest of the cowardly GOP traitors and toadies who supported and/or enabled Trump and his band of racist thugs over the past four years? Why is scumbag Rep. Jim Jordan walking around with a bogus “Medal of Freedom” for spreading lies and encouraging sedition, rather than sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial?

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

“Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions. Child abuser and racist plotter remains at large, after having the shameless audacity to run for the U.S. Senate again, being defeated by Magamoron “Coach Tubby Traitorville” (a blithering idiot who obviously got hit by one too many flying tackling dummy).

“Gauleiter Stepan Muller.” Hiding out on the public dole in the seat of corruption and insurrection (formerly and soon again to be known as the “White House”) with his repulsive “Eva Braun substitute” and carrying out more “crimes against humanity” to the end.

Rod Rosenstein. Hiding out, hanging his head in (belated, fake) shame and making the big bucks at King & Spaulding. Will need them after he is dismissed from his law firm, disbarred, and has to pay legal fees and damages to the families he traumatized.

Gene (No Relation to Alex) Hamilton. Still grifting on public welfare at the DOJ until next Wednesday. First cowardly “Waffern SS Member” to publicly take the “Nuremberg defense:” “I was only following Der Fuhrer’s orders.” But, he won’t be the last.

Donald J. “Big Loser/Traitor” Trump. Hiding out in White House basement and planning flight from DC after initiating botched coup attempt against his own Government.

Victims of Failed Regime’s “Crimes Against Humanity.” Already sentenced to a lifetime of pain, suffering, and trauma by Large Banana Republic that shirked its legal and moral duties.

Accountability for this “gang of White Nationalist thugs” is important!

Also, Judge Garland needs to look into the conduct of the DOJ lawyers who defended the regime’s transparent lies and false claims that there was “no child separation policy.” These turkeys 🦃 took no responsibility for their clients’ ongoing crimes and cover ups. Indeed, outrageously, they got away with making it the burden of the plaintiffs’ lawyers to reunite families the Government intentionally and illegally separated without any plans for reunification.

The invidious racist, unconstitutional motives of criminals like Trump, Miller, Sessions, Hamilton, and Rosenstein was no secret. Except for the degree of Rosenstein’s involvement, it was widely reported at the time. Trump was a well-established liar whose public statements and rationales should have been assumed false until proven true. (Ask yourself what would happen to a corporate lawyer who took at face value and presented to a court as “facts” or a “defense” in a civil suit false statements by a corrupt CEO with a long-standing record of fraud, racism, and dishonesty.)

Also, what was the a racist hack like Sessions (the report also reveals that he was as totally incompetent as a lawyer as he was devoid of human decency) doing running border enforcement programs that had intentionally been removed from the AG’s portfolio by Congress when DHS was created? How does that fit with “Gonzo’s” transparently unethical and unconstitutional actions as a “quasi-judicial officer” in interfering with due process at the EOIR Clown Show🤡/Star Chamber🦹🏿‍♂️?

This IG report is just the “tip of the iceberg” of the institutionalized racism and systemic misconduct that polluted the immigration kakistocracy at DOJ and DHS during the Trump regime. The failings of the U.S. Justice system from top to bottom, starting with the Supremes’ consistent failure to critically examine the regime’s transparent pattern of unconstitutional, racist, biased behavior culminating in an insurrection can’t be “swept under the carpet.”

Nor can their enabling of the White Nationalist immigration agenda of “Dred Scottification” pushed by unethical SG Noel Francisco! In a well-functioning democracy, the Trumpist thugs’ child abuse should have been stopped in its tracks. Thanks to the failure of legal, ethical, and moral leadership by Roberts and his righty GOP buddies, it wasn’t!

The entire beyond disgraceful and patently illegal “zero tolerance program” instituted by Gonzo was a grotesque misuse of public funds and abuse of prosecutorial discretion. Real crimes (the Trump regime has been an absolute boon to serious criminals from the Oval Office on down) went un-prosecuted and un-investigated. The conduct of U.S. Attorneys, Federal Judges, and U.S. Magistrate Judges along the border who shirked their duties and participated in the legal farce taking place in our criminal justice system also needs to be examined.

Those of us who lived through Watergate can see that this time around, under extraordinarily poor leadership generated by an anti-American GOP, the response of all three branches of our Federal Government to the overt threats to our Constitution and democracy posed by a dishonest Executive fell disturbingly below the bipartisan levels that saved our nation from Nixon.

That’s why the critical democratic standard of a “peaceful and orderly transfer of power” has fallen by the wayside and the Biden-Harris Inauguration will take place in an armed camp. Ironically, the man administering the oath to President Biden, Chief Justice John Roberts and his GOP colleagues on the Supremes bear a major responsibility for democracy’s peril and the pain and suffering of those like separated families whom they failed to protect from Executive abuses!

As I’ve said before, although it won’t happen, the resignations of Roberts and his fellow GOP Justices should be on President Biden’s desk on the morning of January 21. That would be a real start on healing, restoring democracy, and reinstituting human decency and respect for human lives and the rule of law in America.

(Let’s not forget that ethics-challenged Justices Thomas and Coney Barrett showed up at what essentially was a “MAGA campaign rally” at the White House on the eve of the election that eventually resulted in impeachable acts of insurrection and sedition by a patently dishonest and dangerous Chief Executive whose unfitness to govern was more than clear by that time. Honestly, it’s going to take more than a black robe to cover the shame of these dudes who stand for protecting and enabling tyranny and against justice for the people. If nothing else, it’s high time for a Democrat-led Congress to impose at least some minimal ethical standards on the Supremes, since they appear to have none to mention. That’s, of course, after they come to grips with the treason of GOP guys like Cruz and Hawley who should be expelled and barred from public “service” (treason?) for life.)

🇺🇸⚖️🗽👎🏻Due Process Forever! Cowardly thugs, 🥷🏻magamorons, 🦹🏿‍♂️ and their enablers, never!

PWS

01-16-21

⚖️🗽🇺🇸HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT: 6 Months Is Far, Far Too Long For Ending Crimes Against Humanity, Overt Racism, & Knowingly & Intentionally Endangering The Lives Of Asylum Seekers — The Biden-Harris Administration Needs To Bring In Experts From The NGO Community To Stop The Carnage & Illegality Now! — That Means Immediate “Remove & Replace” @ The EOIR Clown 🤡🦹🏿‍♀️☠️Show!

From Human Rights First:

URGING A SPEEDY REVERSAL ON ASYLUM POLICIES

The Biden administration has said it may need 6 months to reverse Trump administration asylum policies and bring asylum seekers stranded in Mexico to safety. Tragically, some may not survive that long.

In her newest blog post, Legal Fellow Julia Neusner presents a heartbreaking portrait of the violence, discrimination, and trauma asylum seekers have endured under the Trump administration’s policies.

Julia writes about victims of these policies, including Ana and Jorge, an Afro-Cuban couple who were kidnapped after US border officers expelled them to Mexico under MPP. Armed men robbed them and forced them into a room covered in blood. Other kidnapping victims were moaning on the floor, some with severed body parts.

“They told us [a friend] would have to pay $4,000 for both of us, and if he didn’t, they would cut us up, part by part,” Ana recalled. “I lost control and started crying. My boyfriend pleaded with them, and they hit him with a gun. Then they beat me. It was horrible. We spent these days in hell.”

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON ASYLUM

On Wednesday, President Trump travelled to the southern border to tout his immigration record. In response, Human Rights First released a fact sheet outlining the Trump administration’s record on asylum: one defined by chaos, cruelty, and illegality.

From separating over 5,500 families to delivering people to life-threatening danger in Mexico to spurring the spread of COVID-19 by refusing the repeated pleas of epidemiologists to release asylum seekers and immigrants from detention, Trump’s real record is deep damage our asylum system.

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

A key to “setting the record straight on asylum” is immediate removal of the “EOIR Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ in Falls Church, a retraction of the gross lies and misleading anti-asylum, anti-lawyer narratives set forth in their White Nationalist nativist “Bogus Fact Sheets,” immediately cancelling the insane anti-due process, anti-lawyer procedures now in place, and setting the record straight on asylum law, including the toxic, unethical, and unconstitutional role of EOIR in actively undermining the legal rights and humanity of asylum seekers as well as being responsible for gross mismanagement of the Immigration Courts.

There are folks out there in the private/NGO/academic community who can get the job done, starting day one! Yeah, there are many other priorities; that’s a beyond compelling reason for bringing in the experts and empowering them to solve the problems, sooner rather than later! There really is no viable “later” here!

We simply don’t have six months to stop killing people and violating human rights on a daily basis! If we don’t make radical changes and take some calculated risks to end the abuses and mismanagement at EOIR, the SG’s Office, and DHS right off the bat, it will be too late for too many!

Maybe Judge Garland and his Executive Team need to spend a few days with some immigration practitioners and NGOs right now to see what’s happening in the “Star Chambers impersonating courts” that they will “own” in a few weeks. Maybe they should spend some time in the squalid migrant camps in Mexico, seeing what existence is really like for those to whom we have shirked our legal and moral responsibilities.

Ask themselves, would THEY subject THEIR families to such mistreatment? If not, then why hasn’t a plan been announced to end the deadly “EOIR Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿‍♀️☠️ immediately and put some legitimate judges and competent managers who understand asylum law and immigration practice in place?

Judge Garland, with all due respect, when the incoming Administration tells lawyers, many working pro bono or low bono, who are risking their lives to save their clients’ lives in the “living Hell” of today’s U.S. Immigration Courts to “be patient, we’ll get to you soon,” you are giving them a very clear and chilling message: THEIR LIVES, SAFETY, AND SANITY AREN’T YOUR PRIORITY — I/O/W, THEIR LIVES DON’T MATTER!

That’s neither an appropriate nor uplifting message to give to an embattled group whose support, assistance, ideas, creativity, and energy will be absolutely essential to your plans to “restore justice to Justice!”

The sad truth is that time does not, in fact, “heal all wounds,” and failures that kill and damage people for life can’t be “undone,”

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Allowing the “killer kakistocracy of scofflaws” to control the agenda while the incoming Administration “ruminates” and “hems and haws,” never!

PWS

01-14-21

⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️COURTS OF APPEALS CONTINUE TO THROW ROTTEN TOMATOES 🍅 @ BIA’S ANTI-ASYLUM BIAS — Basic Analytical, Legal Errors Continue From Weaponized, Non-Expert “Star Chamber” ☠️ Posing As ”Tribunal!” — Judge Garland Must Fix This Inexcusable, Unnecessary, Systemic Failure Now! — Justice For Persons Of Color & Migrants Can’t “Wait For Godot!”

Two most recent recent rebukes, courtesy of Dan Kowalski at Lexis-Nexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca6-on-exceptional-circumstances-e-a-c-a-v-rosen

Immigration Law

Daniel M. Kowalski

12 Jan 2021

motion to reopen

exceptional circumstances

AAO asylum bia ca9 cimt COVID-19 DHS DOL eoir final rule H-1B H-2A H-2B I-9 ICE mehta Ninth Circuit ocaho State Department Supreme Court tps Trump unpublished USCIS visa bulletin

More

CA6 on Exceptional Circumstances:

E.A.C.A. v. Rosen

“[W]e conclude that the BIA abused its discretion by denying E.A.’s motion to reopen. E.A.’s mother’s recent childbirth is a serious medical event, which coupled with E.A.’s minor age, her difficulty obtaining transportation, and her difficulty navigating the immigration system without assistance, constitute “exceptional circumstances” necessitating rescission of the in absentia removal order. … The BIA’s decision was also contrary to law, and therefore an abuse of discretion. … First, the BIA improperly considered E.A.’s age separately, rather than considering age alongside other factors, when determining that she had not shown that exceptional circumstances justified her failure to appear. Second, the BIA erred when it dismissed without adequate explanation E.A.’s evidence that she is eligible for SIJS. Finally, the BIA improperly stated that E.A. was required to present prima facie evidence that she was eligible for immigration relief as part of her motion to reopen. … For the foregoing reasons, we GRANT the petition for review, VACATE the removal order, and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats way off to Rachel Naggar! Here is a link to the audio of the oral argument.]

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-asylum-u-s-army-contractor-al-amiri-v-rosen

CA1 on Asylum, U.S. Army Contractor: Al Amiri v. Rosen

Al Amiri v. Rosen

“Salim Al Amiri, an Iraqi citizen, seeks relief from removal on the grounds of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). He premises his requests for such relief on the harm that he fears that he would be subjected to in Iraq at the hands of members of Iraq’s military or civilian insurgents operating in that country. Al Amiri contends that he has reason to fear he would be subjected to that harm on account of his work as a paid contractor for the United States Army during the war in Iraq, as in that role he educated U.S. soldiers about Iraqi customs and practices as they prepared for their deployment. We vacate and remand the ruling of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying his claims for asylum and withholding of removal, but we deny his petition insofar as it challenges the BIA’s ruling rejecting his CAT claim.”

[Hats off to J. Christopher Llinas!]

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

Congrats to all involved!
Think how much better this system would function with expert judges who treated asylum applicants fairly from the “git go,” granted protection wherever possible in accordance with the the Refugee Act of 1980 and the (more “woke”) Supremes’ precedent in Cardoza-Fonseca, provided clear, positive guidance on how valid claims could be documented and granted, and promoted and consistently applied best practices to achieve efficiency with maximum due process.
At first glance, although the issue is reopening rather than a continuance, E.A.C.A. undercuts McHenry’s nativist, insanely wasteful, and totally dishonest attempt to “raise the bar” for routine continuances for asylum applicants who need time to properly document and prepare their cases.
The “Deny – Deny Program” — deny due process, deny relief — that infects EOIR’s “Star Chambers” (impersonating “courts”) is a huge backlog builder that kills people and screws up Court of Appeals dockets in the process.
Reopening cases that should be reopened, getting to the merits, and getting the many properly grantable asylum cases represented, documented, and prioritized would be a huge step in reducing EOIR’s largely self-created and unnecessary “bogus backlog.”
Ultimately, many of the clearly grantable asylum cases being mishandled and wrongly denied at EOIR, at great waste of time and resources, not to mention unnecessary human trauma, could, with real expert judges at EOIR setting and consistently enforcing the precedents, be granted more efficiently and expeditiously at the Asylum Office and ultimately shifted to a more robust and properly run Refugee Program.
In the longer run, once EOIR is redesigned and rebuilt as a proper court with real, independent, expert judges, it might be appropriate to place the Asylum Offices under judicial supervision, given the grotesque abuses and corrupt, perhaps criminal, mismanagement of the Asylum Offices by USCIS toadies carrying out the regime’s racist, White Nationalist, unconstitutional agenda of hate and waste.
NOTE TO JUDGE GARLAND👨🏻‍⚖️: Please fix the EOIR mess, Your Honor, before it brings you and the entire US justice system crashing down with it! This is a national emergency, and a damaging national disgrace, NOT a “back burner” issue!

Here’s some additional E.A.C.A. analysis by my good friend and NDPA “warrior queen” 👸🏽Michelle Mendez @ CLINIC!

Subject: CLINIC MTR In Absentia Win at the CA6 on behalf of SIJS-Seeking UC (E. A. C. A. v. Jeffrey Rosen)

Greetings,

Sharing this win, E. A. C. A. v. Jeffrey Rosen, out of the CA6 by my amazing colleague Rachel Naggar who manages our BIA Pro Bono Project. This was an appeal of an IJ (Memphis) denial of an in absentia motion to reopen for a 13-year old unaccompanied child.

Interestingly, after oral argument, OIL filed a motion to remand the case (which Rachel opposed) and the CA6 denied that motion. Seems the CA6 really wanted to issue a decision on the merits and we are grateful for the decision. Here are some highlights from the decision:

SIJS

·       “Notably, the IJ’s decision does not mention E.A.’s claims that she was eligible for SIJS.”

·       FN 1: “As of the December 2020 Visa Bulletin, visas are available for special immigrants (category EB4) from El Salvador to adjust their status if their priority date is prior to February 2018. If DHS removes E.A. prior to approving her visa, she will be unable to apply for adjustment of status. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J).”

Totality of the Circumstances

·       “Based on the totality of the circumstances, including E.A. mother’s recent childbirth, E.A.’s young age, E.A.’s mother’s failed attempts to obtain counsel to help change the address of E.A.’s hearing, and E.A.’s inability to travel from New York to Memphis for the hearing, we hold that E.A. established exceptional circumstances.”

·       “Under the totality of the circumstances, E.A.’s young age is an important factor in determining whether exceptional circumstances exist.”

Exceptional Circumstances

·       “E.A.’s mother’s recent childbirth is a serious medical condition that supports reopening. The statute defining ‘exceptional circumstances’ that justify reopening an immigration proceeding lists the ‘serious illness of the alien, or serious illness or death of the spouse, child, or parent of the alien’ as an example. 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(e)(1). Childbirth is a serious medical event that necessitates a recovery period.”

·       “Instead of recognizing that childbirth is a serious medical condition, the BIA minimized the seriousness of childbirth and its impact on E.A.’s mother’s ability to bring E.A. to Memphis. […] Recovery from childbirth is exactly the type of circumstance that § 1229a(e)(1) was intended to cover.”

Prima Facie Eligibility

·       “Finally, the BIA erred by stating that E.A. was required to prove prima facie eligibility for immigration relief. The BIA’s decision improperly states that E.A. is required to show at this stage prima facie eligibility for relief. The statute governing motions to reopen removal orders entered in absentia provides that the petitioner must ‘demonstrate[] that the failure to appear was because of exceptional circumstances.’ 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(C). In general, we have stated that ‘[a] prima facie showing of eligibility for relief is required in motions to reopen.’ Alizoti, 477 F.3d at 451–52. In the case of a motion to rescind a removal order entered in absentia, however, the BIA has held that ‘an alien is not required to show prejudice in order to rescind an order of deportation” or removal. In re Grijalva-Barrera, 21 I. & N. Dec. 472, 473 n.2 (BIA 1996); see also In re Rivera-Claros, 21 I. & N. Dec. 599, 603 n.1 (BIA 1996). This is consistent with the statute governing motions to rescind removal orders entered in absentia, 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(C), which does not list a showing of prima facie eligibility for relief from removal as a requirement to rescind in absentia removal orders. Rivera-Claros, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 603 n.1; see also Galvez-Vergara v. Gonzales, 484 F.3d 798, 803 n.6 (5th Cir. 2007) (declining ‘to affirm the IJ’s decision on the grounds that [the petitioner] has not shown that he was prejudiced by his counsel’s performance’ because ‘In re Grijalva-Barrera, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 473 n.2, provides that an alien need not demonstrate prejudice for his counsel’s erroneous advice to constitute an ‘exceptional circumstance’ justifying rescission of an in absentia removal order’); Lo v. Ashcroft, 341 F.3d 934, 939 n.6 (9th Cir. 2003) (‘follow[ing] the BIA’s usual practice of not requiring a showing of prejudice’ to rescind an in absentia order of removal). We now join our sister circuits and hold that E.A. is not required to make a prima facie showing of eligibility for relief in order to obtain rescission under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5) of the in absentia order of removal.”

Thanks to our entire Defending Vulnerable Populations team for supporting Rachel on the briefing, oral argument, and negotiations with OIL.

Gratefully,

Michelle N. Mendez | she/her/ella/elle

Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations Program

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)

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

In addition to the “normal” overall White Nationalist, racist agenda that EOIR “management” has carried out under the defeated regime, there was a good deal of misogyny 🤮 involved in the BIA’s gross mishandling of the “pregnancy issue,” as described by the Sixth Circuit. This misogynistic trend can be traced back directly to the unconstitutional and unethical actions of mysogynist White Nationalist AG Jeff Sessions 🤮 🦹🏿‍♂️🤡in the “Matter of A-B- Abomination.” ☠️⚰️🏴‍☠️👎🏻

Biased, anti-migrant decision-making in support of bogus enforcement gimmicks and White Nationalist anti-democracy agendas builds backlogs and kills, maims, and tortures “real” people! Migrants are people and persons, not “threats” and “bogus statistics.”

The “dehumanization” and “de-personification” of migrants, with the connivance of the tone-deaf and spineless GOP Supremes’ majority, is a serious, continuing threat to American democracy! It must stop! Justices who won’t treat migrants physically present in the U.S. or at our borders as “persons” under our Constitution — which they clearly are — do not belong on the Supremes! ⚖️🗽🇺🇸

I can also draw the lines connecting George Floyd, institutionalized racial injustice, voter suppression, riots at the Capitol, and the “Dred Scottification” of asylum seekers and other migrants by EOIR!

HINT TO JUDGE GARLAND: Michelle Mendez would be an outstanding choice to lead the “clean up and rebuild” program at EOIR and the BIA once the “Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ is removed!🪠🧹 Put experts with practical experience like Rachel Nagger and Christopher Linas onto the bench, on the BIA, the Immigration Courts, and the Article III Judiciary to get the American Justice system functioning again!

The “judicial selection system” for the Immigration Courts and the Article III Judiciary has failed American democracy — big time — over the past four years. Fixing it must be part of your legacy!

The folks who preserved due process and our Constitution in the face of tyranny are mostly “on the outside looking in.” You need to get them “inside Government” — on the bench and in other key policy positions — and empower them to start cleaning up the ungodly mess left by four years of regime kakistocracy🤮☠️🤡⚰️👎🏻. “Same old, same old” (sadly, a tradition of Dem Administrations) won’t get the job done, now any more than it has in the past! New faces for a new start!

And, it starts with better judges @ EOIR, which is entirely under YOUR control! An EOIR that actually fulfills its noble, one-time vision of “Through teamwork and innovation being the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” will be a model for fixing our failing Federal Courts — all the way up to the leaderless and complicit Supremes who failed, particularly in immigration, human rights, voting rights, and racial justice, to effectively and courageously stand up to the Trump-Miller White Nationalist agenda of hate and tyranny!

We are where we are today as a nation, to a large extent, because of the Supremes’ majority’s gross mishandling of the “Muslim Ban” cases which set a sorry standard for complicity and total lack of accountability for unconstitutional actions, racism, dishonesty, cowardly official bullying, and abandonment of ethics by the Executive that has brought our nation to the precipice! Life tenure was actually supposed to protect us from judges who wouldn’t protect our individual rights. In this case, it hasn’t gotten the job done! Better judges for a better America!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼Due Process Forever! The EOIR Clown Show🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ ☠️⚰️Never!

PWS

01-13-21

“POPPYCOCK!” — Conservative U.S. District Judge Richard Leon “Zeroes In” On Racist, Disingenuous, BS Presented In Court By Trump Regime To Justify “Crimes Against Humanity” Committed Against Asylum Seekers By USG! — Contrasts With Disingenuous Enabling Of Racist Immigration Agenda By Supremes’ Majority! — As Reported By “Legal Clairvoyant” 🔮 Jacqueline Thomsen @ NLJ!

“POPPYCOCK!” — U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s Characterization Of Trump Regime’s Defense Of Asylum Seeker Abuse By DHS & Barr’s Unethical & Frivolous Arguments!

Jacqueline Thomsen
Courts Reporter
National Law Journal & Legal Clairvoyant

https://link.law.com/click/21370303.6876//5162eb9334b9b0a8048a6907C27093cdb

Due Process “Legal Eagle” Jacqueline Thompsen reports for the National Law Journal’:

. . . .

The federal immigration law requires that officers who conduct the interviews—in which migrants must show they face at least a 10% chance of persecution due to certain factors in order to be eligible for asylum—receive significant training on handling the applications

In responding to the administration’s claims that the border patrol agents received similar training as asylum officers, Leon wrote, “Poppycock! The training requirements cited in the government’s declaration do not come close to being ‘comparable’ to the training requirements of full asylum officers.”

“To make matters worse, the January MOA precludes any individual CBP agent from conducting credible fear interviews for longer than 180 days, meaning that CBP agents cannot gain the experience necessary to appropriately apply the complex asylum laws and regulations,” the judge added. “These procedures plainly violate Congress’s requirements.”

The Trump administration has administered a widespread crackdown on asylum proceedings, adopting a slew of policies that make it more difficult for migrants fleeing persecution in other countries to obtain protections in the United States.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by attorneys with Tahirih Justice Center and the Constitutional Accountability Center, on behalf of four mothers and their seven children from Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico seeking asylum in the U.S. All of the migrants failed to pass the credible fear assessment conducted by CBP agents, which were upheld by immigration judges.

Leon also found in Monday’s ruling that it “would certainly seem unlikely” that CBP agent interviews of migrants could be considered to be “nonadversarial proceedings with a neutral decision-maker,” as required under federal regulations and guidelines. He noted that border patrol agents are considered law enforcement, and said federal authorities’ statements on measures they have taken to minimize the possibility of the interviews becoming adversarial “hardly seems sufficient.”

Leon wrote the training requirements for those conducting the credible fear assessments “are essential for a functioning asylum process, which is why Congress required them,” describing the legal framework surrounding U.S. immigration, asylum, and other similar processes as “complex, to say the least.”

“After all, an asylum officer who is not adequately trained in the applicable legal requirements is less likely to ask the right questions of an asylum seeker, or for that matter, to gather the facts necessary to make an accurate determination of whether an asylum seeker has a credible fear of persecution,” he continued. “Indeed, the record here contains several examples of the effects of inadequate training: one CBP agent failed to follow up with questions about an asylum-seeking plaintiff’s sexual abuse, and another failed to inquire into another asylum-seeking plaintiffs husband’s murder investigation.”

Leon also found the immigrants in the case would face irreparable harm, if he did not issue a preliminary injunction to block their removal from the U.S.

***********

Why isn’t it an ethical and professional problem for “Billy the Bigot’s” DOJ to make nonsense arguments to a Federal Judge in support of unlawful actions? Private members of the bar arguing “poppycock” in a civil case could well find themselves referred for disciplinary action. Why are Cabinet Officials and their attorneys exempt from normal professional and ethical considerations?

You can read Judge Leon’s clearly written and cogently reasoned 22-page decision in A.B.-B. v. Morgan here: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.216698/gov.uscourts.dcd.216698.32.0.pdf.

If only more judges at all levels could write with such clarity and in plain English!

The rejection at the “credible fear” stage of the bona fide asylum claims described by Judge Leon is beyond appalling! These are essentially totally and intentionally unqualified and biased U.S. Government employees committing “crimes against humanity” and getting away with it! These aren’t “legal errors.” It’s systemic malfeasance, otherwise known as “malicious incompetence” with a heavy dose of racism and misogyny thrown in for a good measure!

If substantiated during the immigration hearing process that should have taken place, all these applicants should have been “slam dunk” grants of asylum, withholding of removal, and/or relief under the Convention Against Torture in a properly functioning justice system. Instead, but for the efforts of pro bono counsel, they would have been illegally returned to harm, torture, and/or death with no legitimate process at all!

No wonder “Billy the Bigot’s” Immigration Courts are out of control and the borders are a deadly mess when individuals who with proper screening and access to competent counsel should have been quickly legally admitted to the U.S. under protection laws are instead being “rejected” by biased and unqualified Border Patrol Agents impersonating Asylum Officers!

Here’s my favorite quote (among many) from Judge Leon’s decision:

Of course, the Government has a strong interest in the “prompt execution of removal orders.” Nken,556 U.S. at 436. However, the Government and public can have little interest in executing removal orders that are based on statutory violations, League of Women Voters of U.S. v. I,{ewby,838 F.3d l,12 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (“There is generally no public interest in the perpetuation of unlawful agency action.”), especially where those statutory violations may compromise the accuracy of such removal orders. R.I.L.-R. v Johnson, 80 F. Supp. 3d 164, 191 (D.D.C. 2015); Grace, 344 F. Supp. 3d at 14144 Indeed, the public has an interest “in preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm.” Nken,556 U.S. at 436. As such, the balance of interests here weighs in favor of preliminary injunctive relief.

The last point, “the public has an interest ‘in preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm,’” Nken,556 U.S. at 436, has basically been ignored by the Supremes’ majority recently in sending refugees to their death or into harm’s way without any semblance of due process, based on various lies, distortions, and racist schemes by the Trump regime intentionally mischaracterizing “national security” and “national emergency.” As Judge Leon would say: “Poppycock!”

Perversely, the Trump regime and the Supremes’ have made execution of illegal removal orders, resulting from racist White Nationalist schemes, a “national priority.” Truly, this is a system broken from the top down in need of immediate repair and injections of intellectually honesty, moral courage, and ethics — something that seems “out of vogue” in all three branches of our failing democracy these days

I recently had a conversation with Jacqueline in which she basically predicted this decision based on her study of the arguments and trends among U.S. District Judges, regardless of philosophy or appointing party, in DC. Nice going Jacqueline! Congrats on your clairvoyance!

Those with NLJ access (anyone can get “three free” per month by registering) can read the complete article at the link.

Judge Leon’s linear, straightforward, and “no BS” treatment of the regime’s absurdist, unethical, and scofflaw legal “defense” of essentially “crimes against humanity” contrasts sharply with the disingenuous and essentially “brain dead” treatment of similar BS by the “JR Five” on the Supremes. There, the patently unconstitutional and illegal (not to mention immoral) agenda of neo-Nazi racist Stephen Miller and the unethical maneuvers of SG Noel Francisco are often wrongfully rewarded. By contrast, the the Supremes’ majority routinely trashes the legal and constitutional rights of vulnerable people of color, particularly asylum seekers, migrants, and voters beneath an avalanche of bogus “Dred Scottification” jurisprudence.

Additionally, Judge Leon is “onto something” that has been swept under the carpet by the Supremes and the Circuit Courts when he questions “whether CBP agents could ever lawfully be given authority to conduct asylum interviews and adjudicate asylum claims, see Compl. ‘]Tfl 108-09, it would certainly seem unlikely under these circumstances. After all, law enforcement officers typically “function as adversaries” whose role is “to investigate criminal activity, to locate and arrest those who violate our laws, and to facilitate the charging and bringing of such persons to trial.” New Jersey v T.L.O.,469 U.S. 325,349 (1985) (Powell, J., concurring).”

Similarly, many of us have argued that Immigration “Judges” who work for uber-enforcer and Trump shill “Billy the Bigot” and have been “repurposed” and “weaponized” into DHS enforcement support staff can not possibly be the “fair and impartial” quasi-judicial adjudicators required by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment!

Better Justices and better Federal Judges for a better America, particularly for people of color and other minorities. It’s actually quite simple and straightforward. It starts with throwing Trump and the GOP out of every political office this Fall.

Then, we need some real Justices and Federal Judges who will stand against systemic racism and enforce equal justice in America! Not, rocket science! Just knowledge of the Constitution, awareness of human rights and immigrants’ rights, a focus on racial justice, courage to speak truth to power, and a demonstrated commitment to human dignity and human decency. One could easily wonder why those haven’t been the minimal requirements for Federal judicial service in the past.

Past is past, particularly for life-tenured judges. But, America can’t afford any more disastrous judicial appointments, at any level, who lack the guts and human decency to stand up to scofflaw, neo-fascist racists like Trump, Miller, and their cronies.

The top to bottom overall failure of the American judiciary to put an end to unconstitutional and unfair racism and “Dred Scottification” of “the other” in our society is aiding and abetting the dark, lawless forces aligned with the regime destabilizing our country and ripping it apart! No more!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-31-20

⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️SOURCE OF RACIAL TENSION & ENDEMIC INEQUALITY 🤮: U.S. COURTS: Nan Aron Of Alliance For Justice Speaks Out On Why We Need Progressive Judges!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-biden-supreme-court/2020/08/28/0f0a8158-e937-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html

By Seung Min Kim in the WashPost:

. . . .

But Democrats all but ignored the Supreme Court in their four-day convention earlier this month, even after the party spent Trump’s first term reckoning with the consequences of Republicans confirming two justices, including a reliably conservative justice who replaced the court’s swing vote.

The contrast worries liberal activists who see it as further evidence that the Democratic Party isn’t paying enough attention to an area where conservatives have made big inroads in recent years: control of the courts.

“The fact that Democrats spent so little to no time discussing the federal bench failed to take into account that their critically important goals for the future will be challenged in the courts,” said Nan Aron, the president of the liberal judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice.

She added: “It’s a major misstep, given the fact that these 200 judges will make it very difficult, if not impossible in many cases, for the Democrats to accomplish their worthy goals going forward.”

. . . .

************************
Read the full article at the link,

Thanks, Nan, for speaking out! I’ve always been astounded by the Dems’ failure to recognize the importance of getting demonstrated advocates for due process, fundamental fairness, human rights, equal justice under law, and best practices on the Federal Bench.

Heck, look at the Dems beyond disastrous and just plain incompetent approach to the Immigration Bench in the Obama Administration — an administrative court controlled entirely by the Attorney General. Can’t blame Mitch and the GOP for:

- Ridiculously convoluted and entirely unnecessary 2-year hiring process (under former Director Anthony C. Moscato, the Clinton Administration could sometimes do it in a fraction of that time with better, or at least no worse, results);
- Eschewing progressive judicial candidates, including well-qualified underrepresented groups, with scholarly credentials and practical expertise in immigration, asylum, human rights, and due process in favor of an endless stream of largely “insider only, don’t rock the boat” picks;
- Leaving numerous positions unfilled at the end of the Administration for White Nationalist xenophobe Jeff Sessions to fill;
- Ignoring obvious, achievable management reforms like e-filing!

The Trump Administration is teeming with malicious incompetents, particularly in the Immigration-related agencies. Notwithstanding that, they immediately figured out how to expedite Immigration Judge hiring and to load the bench with some of the worst, most unqualified, and biased so-called “judges” in modern American legal history!

In other words, Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr shamelessly and rapidly weaponized the Immigration Courts and made them subservient shills and zealots for DHS enforcement and Stephen Miller’s White Supremacist agenda. And feckless Article III Courts, now also stuffed with Trump judges, have, with a few notable exceptions, looked the other way as the slaughter of Constitutional due process and vulnerable humans (including kids) unfolds. You couldn’t write a worse script for the rule of law and future of humanity!

Democrats pretended that the Immigration Courts existed merely to “go along to get along with the policy flavor of the day.” They did not reinforce due process, fundamental fairness, or view the Immigration Bench as a source of expertise, creativity, progressive legal thinking, or creative legal problem solving. The backlogs grew, morale slid (although admittedly not at the breakneck pace under the Trump regime), and the bodies of those who should have been saved but weren’t started to pile up. Simple reforms — try e-filing, for example — were left unaccomplished!

It wasn’t “malicious incompetence” — just good old fashioned “administrative incompetence.” But the latter paved the way for the former to “go on steroids” during the Trump regime. This isn’t just political malpractice and academic debate! Real people have lost their lives, families, or futures because of the Dems’ diddling approach to justice — including America’s largest and perhaps most significant court system over which they had total control!

It’s actually pretty simple: Better judges (from the Supremes to the Immigration Courts) for a better America! And, time for the immigration/human rights community to wake up, join the NDPA, and demand that the Dems do better next time around!

Due Process Forever! Repeating past mistakes, never!

PWS

08-30-20

OUTLAW REGIME/COMPLICIT JUDGES/NATION WITHOUT SOUL: Nicaraguan Gov. Pulled Refugee’s Toenails Out: Trump, Miller, & Wolf, Aided By Roberts, Sent Her Back To For More Torture & Perhaps Death Without Any Process!

Star Chamber Justice — The U.S.Asylum System
As Redesigned By Trump, Miller, Wolfman, & Roberts

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/nicaragua-asylum-us-border/2020/08/27/9aaba414-e561-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html

Kevin Sieff reports for WashPost:

She was one of the most recognizable activists in Nicaragua, protesting a government that has jailed and killed its opponents. Her photo ran in national newspapers; one called her the “face of the rebellion.” Her video of police firing at student protesters went viral. Her confrontations with the government were cited by the U.S. State Department.

Valeska Alemán, 22, paid a price for that notoriety. She was detained twice. Interrogators pried off her toenails. When she decided to leave the country, the United States seemed a natural destination: The Trump administration has been vocal in its opposition to Nicaragua’s crackdown — and its support of the country’s young protesters.

‘They took my humanity’: Pro-government paramilitaries terrorize Nicaraguan protesters

But by the time Alemán arrived at the U.S. border in July, the administration had launched a pandemic-era policy that sends Nicaraguans directly back to their country without letting them apply for asylum. Seventeen days after crossing into Texas, she was put on a plane back to Managua with more than 100 other Nicaraguans, almost all of them opponents of President Daniel Ortega.

Her backpack was full of documents to show U.S. immigration officials that the government appeared ready to kill her. The officials wouldn’t look at them. When she landed back in Nicaragua, it felt as if she was carrying a ticking bomb, proof that she was trying to flee and accuse the government of abuse.

“I thought, ‘Okay, so they’re going to throw me straight back in jail,’ ” Alemán said. “ ‘I’m going to be tortured all over again.’ ”

Another expelled asylum seeker, Moises Alberto Ortega Valdivia, 38, swallowed five pages of his asylum paperwork, panicked that Nicaraguan police would find it.

Since taking control in 2017, the Trump administration has narrowed the pool of people who qualify for asylum and sent tens of thousands of applicants back to Mexico to await their hearings from squalid tent camps and shelters.

In squalid Mexico tent city, asylum seekers are growing so desperate they’re sending their children over the border alone

During the coronavirus pandemic, the administration has gone further, effectively shutting the asylum system down. Most Central American applicants are simply escorted back to Mexico. But Nicaraguans — including political protesters to whom the United States has given rhetorical support — are flown back to the country they tried to escape.

The administration is using a public health order known as 42 U.S.C. that cites “the danger to the public health” of migrants to justify the asylum system’s closure. Mexico has agreed to accept Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans. Other nations, such as Cuba and Venezuela, have refused to accept chartered U.S. deportation flights of their own citizens.

The U.S. is putting asylum seekers on planes to Guatemala — often without telling them where they’re going

In the case of Nicaragua, the United States is sending asylum seekers back to a country the State Department describes as violently repressive.

“Throughout Nicaragua, armed and violent uniformed police or civilians in plain clothes acting as police (‘para-police’) continue to target anyone considered to be in opposition to the rule of President Ortega,” the department says in a travel warning. “The government and its affiliated armed groups have been reported to arbitrarily detain pro-democracy protestors, with credible claims of torture and disappearances.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In a statement, the State Department said it “condemns all forms of political oppression, especially that orchestrated by the corrupt Ortega regime.” But it would not comment on the expulsion of Nicaraguan asylum seekers.

Alemán traveled with a family of Nicaraguan asylum seekers to the Texas border. All were university graduates and students of international affairs. Before they left, they reviewed the asylum laws on a U.S. government website.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Kevin’s article at the link.

Section 208 of the Immigration & Nationality Act says:

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 in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.

Very clear. What happened to refugee Valeska Alemán and other asylum seekers at the hands of the Trump regime was totally illegal (not to mention immoral); essentially a “crime against humanity” for which Trump, Miller, Wolfman, and the other “perps” should be held accountable.

But, this is Trump’s America where a majority of the Roberts’ Court favors White Supremacy, racism, and crimes against humanity over the Constitutional, statutory, and human rights of people of color. It’s called “Dred Scottification.” It’s a national and international disgrace that will stain our nation forever!

Think racial justice and equal justice in America will be achieved without a better Executive, throwing the GOP out of legislative power, and better Federal Judges? Guess again!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-28-30

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️👎🏻DEATH IN THE GULAG: DHS Racks Up 17th Detainee Kill Of Fiscal Year — Doubling Previous Year’s Body Count ⚰️ With Months To Go As “DUD” Program Hits High Gear! — Death Either Here Or Upon Return To Danger Without Fair Hearings Is The “Ultimate Deterrent” For America’s White Nationalist Regime!

DUD = “Detain Until Dead”

https://apple.news/AEJpCWSaJQMyWS9vMdp33bQ

Danielle Silva reports for NBC News:

More than twice as many immigrants have died in the custody of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement this fiscal year than last after two detainees died this week. That brought this year’s total to 17, compared with eight deaths last year.

A 72-year-old Canadian man who had tested positive for the coronavirus died in ICE custody on Wednesday night at a Virginia hospital, the agency said Friday in a statement.

James Thomas Hill reported feeling shortness of breath to staff at an ICE detention facility in Farmville, Virginia, on July 10 and was admitted to Centra Southside Community Hospital before being transferred to Lynchburg General Hospital the following day, ICE said.

A COVID-19 test administered by hospital staff came back positive on July 11, the agency said.

Hill entered ICE custody on April 11 following his release from the Rivers Federal Correctional Institute in North Carolina after serving 13 years of a 26-year prison sentence for health care fraud and distributing a controlled substance, according to ICE. An immigration judge had ordered his removal on May 12, ICE said. At the time of his death, Hill was in ICE custody pending his removal to Canada, the agency said.

The agency said it had notified the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility, the Canadian consulate and Hill’s next of kin. His death was first reported by BuzzFeed News.

A 51-year-old Taiwanese man died Wednesday afternoon at a Florida hospital after being a diagnosed with a “massive intercranial hemorrhage,” ICE said in a separate statement Thursday.

Kuan Hui Lee was found unresponsive at the Krome Service Processing Center in Florida on July 31 and taken to the Kendall Regional Medical Center.

. . . .

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

I think this is just the beginning of the true carnage that advocates have been predicting for months. And that doesn’t even count those killed after being “orbited” by DHS in violation of the statute and due process as a complicit Supremes majority egged them on.

The shame of our nation’s intentional dehumanization and mistreatment of asylum seekers and other migrants under the Trump regime won’t be eradicated. What kind of “democracy” runs a “Gulag” for non-criminals where all “sentences” are arbitrary and indefinite and the there is no readily available impartial review of detention by a neutral and detached magistrate? Where Supreme Court Justices worry more about the impact of “nationwide injunctions” and “bogus emergencies” declared by an patently unqualified and invidiously biased Executive than they do about the lives, health, and freedom of individuals whose “crime” is to assert their legal and Constitutional rights?

While the problem starts with a White Nationalist, racist regime and a feckless GOP-controlled Senate under Moscow Mitch, those Federal Judges at all levels who could have put an end to these “crimes against humanity,” but failed to do so, also bear responsibility for the death and destruction of human lives by the regime.

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts, Never (Again). Better Justices & Judges For A Better America!

PWS

08-08-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻 “PERP NATION” — DHS’S “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” IS A DEATH TRAP FOR MIGRANTS SEEKING JUSTICE — So Why Haven’t Congress & The Federal Courts Required DHS To Comply With The Constitution? — Because We Have The Wrong Folks In Congress & The Federal Courts!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/migrants-at-ice-detention-centers-are-sitting-ducks-because-of-an-inhumane-policy/2020/08/04/578c668c-c2f7-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html

From WashPost Editorial Board:

Opinion by the Editorial Board August 4 at 6:20 PM ET

COVID-19 has exploded at migrant detention centers nationwide, infecting detainees and employees alike and seeding the disease aboard deportation flights to countries ill-equipped to respond, especially in Latin America. The facilities, run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are petri dishes of contagion, and the residents — many of whom have no serious criminal record — are sitting ducks in the crosshairs of an inhumane policy. A federal judge has ordered the release of migrant children at two ICE family detention centers in Texas and one in Pennsylvania, having found them at risk to the virus and to spotty enforcement of safety measures. But across the country, scores more facilities have been hit hard by the pandemic, and ICE has been unable to contain it. [Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic] Roughly 1,000 new covid-19 cases have been diagnosed in ICE facilities since early July, bringing the number who have tested positive for the disease since March to roughly 4,000. That’s roughly a fifth of all those who have been tested, though some were infected before ICE took them into custody. Courts have ordered more than 500 at-risk detainees released, and ICE has released an additional 900 at its own initiative. Those reductions, along with ongoing deportations, have cut the detainee population by 40 percent since March, to roughly 22,000 now. That’s good, but it is clear that the agency’s steps to mitigate the outbreak have been inadequate. It is also clear that testing at the facilities has lagged, proper distancing at some is insufficient, and health care is not equal to the task of containment. At the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia, west of Richmond, nearly two-thirds of 400 detainees have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks. Moreover, ICE has been complicit in accelerating the pandemic’s reach into Central America, the Caribbean and elsewhere, by deporting tens of thousands of migrants since the spring, including some who were infected. At least a dozen countries assert that deportees arrived with the virus. Many were not tested before boarding the flights. On one deportation flight to India in May, 22 passengers — about 15 percent of those onboard — tested positive upon arriving in India. In Guatemala, authorities say more than 160 deportees who have arrived since April tested positive for the virus. “We understand the United States wants to deport people,” said Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei in May. “What we don’t understand is why they send us all these contaminated flights.” [We are interested in hearing about how the struggle to reopen amid the pandemic is affecting people’s lives. Please tell us yours.] Advocates and public health officials have urged ICE to accelerate the release of at-risk detainees, who can be fitted with ankle monitors to encourage their appearance at immigration court proceedings. ICE has done some of that; it is critical that it do more. To continue detaining nonviolent detainees as the virus tightens its grip on ICE facilities is pointless and dangerous — for detainees and for employees, scores of whom have been infected with covid-19. It’s past time for ICE to intensify the fight against covid-19, and reassess a policy that has failed to contain a pandemic behind bars.

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ICE is a White Nationalist enabler operating within a White Nationalist kakistocracy.

Expecting ICE to do the right thing without being ordered to do so by Congress or the Federal Courts is absurd. We’re in the middle of a deadly meltdown of our democratic institutions.

And, led by the Roberts’ Court’s spineless complicity in the face of clear unconstitutionality, illegality, immorality, and inhumanity from the Trump regime, the failure of the Federal Courts to take a strong, unified approach against the “crimes against humanity” committed by the Trump regime on migrants and others is a national disgrace. Something we have to consider as a nation moving forward.

Better judges for a better America! Time to stop appointing “Dred Scottifyers” and non-believers in due process, human rights, and equal justice for all to our life-tenured courts! The damage they have done will take decades to repair. We can’t afford to continue the GOP’s recent tradition of elevating bad judges who won’t stand up for and don’t believe in American democracy.

When our nation is experiencing massive and deadly institutional failure and a failure of legal and moral leadership, we must start looking at the qualifications and values (or in some cases the rather obvious lack thereof) of the folks in those failing institutions! In a democracy, bad leadership doesn’t “drop out of the sky.” It’s a product of bad decisions and apathy among those with the power to select our leaders. That means all of us who can vote or encourage others to vote.

This November, vote like your life and the future of our democracy depend on it! Because they do!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-05-20

🏴‍☠️🤮👎🏻⚰️”PERP NATION” — Cowardly Regime Uses COVID-19 As Pretext For Grotesque Abuses Of Migrant Children, As Congress, Federal Courts Spinelessly Allow It To Happen! — “Crimes Against Humanity” Have Consequences For “Perp Nations!”

Lomi Kriel
Immigration Reporter
Texas Tribune & Pro Publica

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/04/border-migrant-children-hotels/

Federal agents are expelling asylum seekers as young as 8 months from the border, citing COVID-19 risks

Thousands of migrant children have been expelled by the Trump administration since March. Some have been held in hotels without access to lawyers or family. Advocates say many are now “virtually impossible” to find.

BY LOMI KRIEL, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA AUG. 4, 20208 HOURS AGO

A teenage girl carrying her baby arrived at the U.S. border this summer and begged for help. She told federal agents that she feared returning to Guatemala. The man who raped her she said had threatened to make her “disappear.”

Then, advocates say, the child briefly vanished — into the custody of the U.S. government, which held her and her baby for days in a hotel with almost no outside contact before federal officers summarily expelled them from the country.

Similar actions have played out along the border for months under an emergency health order the Trump administration issued in March. Citing the threat of COVID-19, it granted federal agents sweeping powers to almost immediately return anyone at the border, including infants as young as 8 months. Children are typically entitled to special protections under the law, including the right to have their asylum claims adjudicated by a judge.

Under this new policy, the administration is not deporting children — a proceeding based on years of established law that requires a formal hearing in immigration court.

It is instead expelling them — without a judge’s ruling and after only a cursory government screening and no access to social workers or lawyers, sometimes not even their family, while in U.S. custody. The children are not even granted the primary registration number by which the Department of Homeland Security tracks all immigrants in its care, making it “virtually impossible” to find them, Efrén C. Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, wrote in a court declaration arguing that the practice is illegal.

Little is known about how the process works, but published government figures suggest almost all children arriving at the border are being rapidly returned.

. . . .

A sense of deja vu

Thirty-five years ago, a 15-year-old Salvadoran girl fleeing a civil war in her homeland was also imprisoned in an American hotel under the care of unlicensed private security guards. Jenny Flores’ case forced the most significant overhaul yet of how U.S. authorities can detain migrant children. In fact, the 1997 federal settlement is named for her.

Carlos Holguín, who began litigating that case in 1985, said there is now a sense of “deja vu … but the degree of lawlessness is even beyond what was going on then.”

Since taking office, the Trump administration has tried to end the Flores Settlement, arguing that it and a 2008 trafficking law work as “loopholes” encouraging families to send children here alone. The government has attempted to undo the settlement through regulations and requested Congress curtail the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which requires certain safeguards for children arriving alone at the border.

So far, both efforts have failed.

The administration tried separating parents and children at the border, but a federal judge largely ruled against the practice in 2018, allowing it only in narrow circumstances such as if the adult poses a danger.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, who is in charge of the Flores Settlement, has determined the administration must quickly release children locked up with their parents in immigrant detention centers, most recently citing the risk of coronavirus spreading.

“The family residential centers are on fire and there is no more time for half measures,” she wrote in a June 26 order.

The government is now arguing it can force detained parents to choose between freeing their children or staying indefinitely imprisoned with them.

But none of the administration’s attempts to undo either the settlement or the law have been as effective as the expulsion order, which is “eviscerating every single protection mechanism outlined by Congress and the courts with one sweeping gesture,” said Podkul of KIND.

Late last month, the ACLU sued to allow its lawyers access to children detained in the McAllen Hampton Inn after a video went viral showing a Texas Civil Rights Project lawyer forcibly pushed away.

“The children are in imminent danger of unlawful removal,” the attorneys wrote.

Facing a public relations scandal, Hilton quickly announced that all three hotels had canceled reservations with MVM.

“We expect all Hilton properties to reject business that would use a hotel in this way,” a Hilton spokesperson said.

Government attorneys agreed to pause the expulsion of the migrants who they said remained in the McAllen hotel on the date of the lawsuit — once again, ACLU attorneys said, mooting litigation on the broader policy. A separate suit involving a 13-year-old Salvadoran girl who was expelled this summer is still pending in a Washington, D.C., federal court.

By the time the administration stopped the removal of the migrants detained at the Hampton Inn, most who had been held there had already been expelled or transferred elsewhere — some, advocates said, just before the ACLU filed its lawsuit. Only 17 family members, including one unaccompanied child, remained in that hotel.

What happened to the rest? No one would say.

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

It might be “below the radar screen” during COVID-19. After all, that’s what criminals like the Trump kakistocracy and their DHS accomplices count on — a diversion so that they can abuse children and violate human rights and human dignity to the content of their evil, White Nationalist hearts.

But, eventually, the truth about the “crimes against humanity” by the regime’s cowards as well as the complicity of legislators, the Roberts Court, and a host of others will come out.

How will we explain to future generations what we have done to our fellow humans, particularly the most vulnerable who have sought our legal protection and found only cruelty, racism, and lawlessness? How will we justify racist-driven institutionalized child abuse and “Dred Scottification” of “the other” on our watch? We have become “Perp Nation!”

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-05-20

DRED SCOTTIFICATION OF “THE OTHER” — Supremes’ Anti-Constitutional “De-Personification” Of Asylum Applicants of Color With Lives At Stake Shows Why America Is In A Constitutional & Racial Mess Right Now — Analysis of Thuraissigiam By Professor Elliott Young!

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/176454

Elliott Young is a professor of History at Lewis & Clark College and the author of a forthcoming book Forever Prisoners: How the United States Made the Largest Immigrant Detention System in the World (Oxford University Press).

. . . .

For more than one hundred years, the entry fiction has enabled the US government to deny immigrants due process protections that the 14th Amendment clearly indicates apply “to any person within its jurisdiction.” Although Justice Alito seems to restrict the ruling to people who entered the country within the previous 24 hours and within 25 yards of the border, the logic of the decision poses a more ominous threat to all immigrants who were not lawfully admitted.

As Justice Sotomayor writes in her dissent, “Taken to its extreme, a rule conditioning due process rights on lawful entry would permit Congress to constitutionally eliminate all procedural protections for any noncitizen the Government deems unlawfully admitted and summarily deport them no matter how many decades they have lived here, how settled and integrated they are in their communities, or how many members of their family are U. S. citizens or residents.”

It is this threat to more than 10 million immigrants living in the United States without authorization that makes the Thuraissigiam decision such a blow to the basic principles of freedom and justice. It would be odd for a country that imagines itself to be a beacon of hope for people around the world to deny basic constitutional protections to asylum seekers when they finally cross our threshold.

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

Read the full article at the link.

It’s not rocket science. The Constitution is clear. The “fog” here has to do with the disingenuous “reasoning” and legal gobbledygook cooked up by the majority Justices to deny Constitutional rights to people of color. Better judges for a better America! From voting rights to immigration, the current Supremes’ majority has too often undermined the right of all persons in America to equal justice under law. That’s exactly what institutionalized racism looks like.

Without major changes in all three branches of our failing Federal Government, equal justice for all in America will remain as much of an illusion as it has been since the inception of our nation. We have the power to do more than talk about equal justice — to start taking the necessary political action that will make it a reality. But, do we have the will and the moral courage to make it happen?

This November vote like your life and the life of our nation depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

07-21-20

“Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien’s lawful entry into this country and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the due process clause.”

By Rowaida Abdelaziz in HuffPost:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Now, let’s hear more “simple truth” from Suzanne Gamboa over at NBC News:

Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration

By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt

“Courtside” Exclusive

March 26, 2021

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

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Quoting Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “This is not justice!” Not even close!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Justice @ Justice Can’t Wait! Fix The EOIR Clown Show 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ Now! Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸🗽⚖️👍🏼Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽👎🏻Due Process Forever! Cowardly thugs, 🥷🏻magamorons, 🦹🏿‍♂️ and their enablers, never!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Allowing the “killer kakistocracy of scofflaws” to control the agenda while the incoming Administration “ruminates” and “hems and haws,” never!

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🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼Due Process Forever! The EOIR Clown Show🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ ☠️⚰️Never!

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“POPPYCOCK!” — U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s Characterization Of Trump Regime’s Defense Of Asylum Seeker Abuse By DHS & Barr’s Unethical & Frivolous Arguments!

Due Process Forever!

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Due Process Forever! Repeating past mistakes, never!

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Due Process Forever!

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DUD = “Detain Until Dead”

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts, Never (Again). Better Justices & Judges For A Better America!

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This November, vote like your life and the future of our democracy depend on it! Because they do!

Due Process Forever!

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Due Process Forever!

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This November vote like your life and the life of our nation depend on it! Because they do!

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