Technology – Page 2 – immigrationcourtside.com

Will Wilkinson In The WashPost: American Cities Are Much Better Places To Live & Work Than The “Trump Crowd” Will Admit — And They Outproduce “Red America” By Almost 2-1!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/17/why-does-donald-trump-demonize-cities/?utm_term=.f0beb0764db5

Will Wilkinson writes:

“But this is just to repeat that more and more of America’s dynamism and growth flow from the open city. It’s difficult to predict who will bear the downside burden of disruptive innovation — it could be Rust Belt autoworkers one day and educated, urban members of the elite mainstream media the next — which is why dynamic economies need robust safety nets to protect citizens from the risks of economic dislocation. The denizens of Trump country have borne too much of the disruption and too little of the benefit from innovation. But the redistribution-loving multicultural urban majority can’t be blamed for the inadequacy of the safety net when the party of rural whites has fought for decades to roll it back. Low-density America didn’t vote to be knocked on its heels by capitalist creative destruction, but it has voted time and again against softening the blow.

Political scientists say that countries where the middle class does not culturally identify with the working and lower classes tend to spend less on redistributive social programs. We’re more generous, as a rule, when we recognize ourselves in those who need help. You might argue that this just goes to show that diversity strains solidarity. Or you might argue that, because we need solidarity, we must learn to recognize America in other accents, other complexions, other kitchen aromas.

Honduran cooks in Chicago, Iranian engineers in Seattle, Chinese cardiologists in Atlanta, their children and grandchildren, all of them, are bedrock members of the American community. There is no “us” that excludes them. There is no American national identity apart from the dynamic hybrid culture we have always been creating together. America’s big cities accept this and grow healthier and more productive by the day, while the rest of the country does not accept this, and struggles.

In a multicultural country like ours, an inclusive national identity makes solidarity possible. An exclusive, nostalgic national identity acts like a cancer in the body politic, eating away at the bonds of affinity and cooperation that hold our interests together.

Bannon is right. A country is more than an economy. The United States is a nation with a culture and a purpose. That’s why Americans of every heritage and hue will fight to keep our cities sanctuaries of the American idea — of openness, tolerance and trade — until our country has been made safe for freedom again.”

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And, how have the cities and “urban elites” which support and help keep the rest of America afloat been rewarded?

PWS

03/20/17

My Message To Cornell Law — “Fight For Due Process” — Join The “New Due Process Army” — Due Process In Peril At The U.S. Immigration Court!

I spoke to an audience of approximately 120 members of the Cornell University community in Ithaca on Wednesday, March 8, 2017, as part of the Berger International Programs Lecture Series at Cornell Law. Many thanks to Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr for inviting me.

Read my entire speech

“EXISTENTIALISM AND THE MEANING OF LIFE AT THE U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT – CORNELL LAW VERSION”

here:

EXISTENTIALISM — Cornell — AND THE MEANING OF LIFE AT THE U

Here are a few “Highlights:”

“Sadly, the Immigration Court System is moving further away from that due process vision. Instead, years of neglect, misunderstanding, mismanagement, and misguided priorities imposed by the U.S. Department of Justice have created judicial chaos with an expanding backlog now exceeding an astounding one half million cases and no clear plan for resolving them in the foreseeable future.”

“Nobody has been hit harder by this preventable disaster than asylum seekers, particularly scared women and children fleeing for their lives from the Northern Triangle of Central America. In Immigration Court, notwithstanding the life or death issues at stake, unlike criminal court there is no right to an appointed lawyer.”

“First, and foremost, the Immigration Courts must return to the focus on due process as the one and only mission. The improper use of our due process court system by political officials to advance enforcement priorities and/or send “don’t come” messages to asylum seekers, which are highly ineffective in any event, must end. That’s unlikely to happen under the DOJ – as proved by over three decades of history, particularly recent history.”

“This is hardly “through teamwork and innovation being the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” These unusually low asylum grant rates are impossible to justify in light of the generous standard for well-founded fear established by the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca and the BIA in Mogharrabi, and the regulatory presumption of future fear arising out of past persecution that applies in many asylum cases. Yet, the BIA has only recently and fairly timidly addressed the manifest lack of respect for asylum seekers and failure to guarantee fairness and due process for such vulnerable individuals in some cases arising in Atlanta and other courts with unrealistically low grant rates.”

“Over the past 16 years, the BIA’s inability or unwillingness to aggressively stand up for the due process rights of asylum seekers and to enforce the fair and generous standards required by American law have robbed our Immigration Court System of credibility and public support, as well as ruined the lives of many who were denied protection that should have been granted. We need a BIA which functions like a Federal Appellate Court and whose overriding mission is to ensure that the due process vision of the Immigration Courts becomes a reality rather than an unfulfilled promise.”

“So, do we abandon all hope? No, of course not! Because there are hundreds of newer lawyers out there who are former Arlington JLCs, interns, my former student, and those who have practiced before the Arlington Immigration Court.”

“They form what I call the “New Due Process Army!” And, while my time on the battlefield is winding down, they are just beginning the fight! They will keep at it for years, decades, or generations — whatever it takes to force the U.S. immigration judicial system to live up to its promise of “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!”

“Folks, the U.S Immigration Court system is on the verge of collapse. And, there is every reason to believe that the misguided “enforce and detain to the max” policies being pursued by this Administration will drive the Immigration Courts over the edge. When that happens, a large chunk of the entire American justice system and the due process guarantees that make American great and different from most of the rest of the world will go down with it.”

“Now is the time to take a stand for fundamental fairness! Join the New Due Process Army! Due process forever!”

PWS

03/10/17

Zoe Tillman on BuzzFeed: U.S. Immigration Courts Are Overwhelmed — Administration’s New Enforcement Priorities Could Spell Disaster! (I’m Quoted In This Article, Along With Other Current & Former U.S. Immigration Judges)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/zoetillman/backlogged-immigration-courts-pose-problems-for-trumps-plans?utm_term=.pokrzE6BW#.wcMKevdYG

Zoe Tillman reports:

“ARLINGTON, Va. — In a small, windowless courtroom on the second floor of an office building, Judge Rodger Harris heard a string of bond requests on Tuesday morning from immigrants held in jail as they faced deportation.
The detainees appeared by video from detention facilities elsewhere in the state. Harris, an immigration judge since 2007, used a remote control to move the camera around in his courtroom so the detainees could see their lawyers appearing in-person before the judge, if they had one. The lawyers spoke about their clients’ family ties, job history, and forthcoming asylum petitions, and downplayed any previous criminal record.
In cases where Harris agreed to set bond — the amounts ranged from $8,000 to $20,000 — he had the same message for the detainees: if they paid bond and were set free until their next court date, it would mean a delay in their case. Hearings set for March or April would be pushed back until at least the summer, he said.
But a couple of months is nothing compared to timelines that some immigration cases are on now. Judges and lawyers interviewed by BuzzFeed News described hearings scheduled four, five, or even six years out. Already facing a crushing caseload, immigration judges are bracing for more strain as the Trump administration pushes ahead with an aggressive ramp-up of immigration enforcement with no public commitment so far to aid backlogged courts.
Immigration courts, despite their name, are actually an arm of the US Department of Justice. The DOJ seal — with the Latin motto “qui pro domina justitia sequitur,” which roughly translates to, “who prosecutes on behalf of justice” — hung on the wall behind Harris in his courtroom in Virginia. Lawyers from the US Department of Homeland Security prosecute cases. Rulings can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is also part of the Justice Department, and then to a federal appeals court.
As of the end of January, there were more than 540,000 cases pending in immigration courts. President Trump signed executive orders in late January that expanded immigration enforcement priorities and called for thousands of additional enforcement officers and border patrol officers. But the orders are largely silent on immigration courts, where there are dozens of vacant judgeships. And beyond filling the vacancies, the union of immigration judges says more judges are needed to handle the caseload, as well as more space, technological upgrades, and other resources.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly acknowledged the immigration court backlog in a memorandum released this week that provided new details about how the department would carry out Trump’s orders. Kelly lamented the “unacceptable delay” in immigration court cases that allowed individuals who illegally entered the United States to remain here for years.
The administration hasn’t announced plans to increase the number of immigration judges or to provide more funding and resources. It also isn’t clear yet if immigration judges and court staff are exempt from a government-wide hiring freeze that Trump signed shortly after he took office. There are 73 vacancies in immigration courts, out of 374 judgeships authorized by Congress.
“Everybody’s pretty stressed,” said Paul Schmidt, who retired as an immigration judge in June. “How are you going to throw more cases into a court with 530,000 pending cases? It isn’t going to work.”

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Zoe Tillman provides a well-reaserched and accurate description of the dire situation of justice in the U.S. Immigration Courts and the poorly conceived and uncoordinated enforcement initiatives of the Trump Administration. Sadly, lives and futures of “real life human beings” are at stake here.

Here’s a “shout out” to my good friend and former colleague Judge Rodger Harris who always does a great job of providing due process and justice on the highly stressful Televideo detained docket at the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, VA. Thanks for all you do for our system of justice and the cause of due process, Judge Harris.

PWS

02/24/17

World Trade: As the U.S. Disengages, Africa Turns To China!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/africa/africa-china-train.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Andrew Jacobs writes in the NYT:

“DJIBOUTI — The 10:24 a.m. train out of Djibouti’s capital drew some of the biggest names in the Horn of Africa last month. Serenaded by a chorus of tribal singers, the crush of African leaders, European diplomats and pop icons climbed the stairs of the newly built train station and merrily jostled their way into the pristine, air-conditioned carriages making their inaugural run.

“It is indeed a historic moment, a pride for our nations and peoples,” said Hailemariam Desalegn, the prime minister of Ethiopia, shortly before the train — the first electric, transnational railway in Africa — headed toward Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. “This line will change the social and economic landscape of our two countries.”

But perhaps the biggest star of the day was China, which designed the system, supplied the trains and imported hundreds of engineers for the six years it took to plan and build the 466-mile line. And the $4 billion cost? Chinese banks provided nearly all the financing.

. . . .

Mr. Hadi praised the Chinese for going all in after Western banks declined to help finance the nation’s glaring infrastructure needs.

“We approached the U.S., and they didn’t have the vision,” he said. “They are not thinking ahead 30 years. They only have a vision of Africa from the past, as a continent of war and famine. The Chinese have vision.”

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PWS

02/07/17

Post Editorial Slams Total Due Process Meltdown In U.S. Immigration Courts! Why We Need An Independent Article I Immigration Court — Now!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-immigration-courts-are-a-diorama-of-dysfunction/2017/01/09/38c59cf6-ceda-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.2597096ea1d8

“The nation’s 58 immigration courts, administered not by the judiciary but by the Justice Department, are places of Dickensian impenetrability, operating under comically antiquated conditions. Case files are scarcely digitized. Clerks are outmatched by mountains of paper files. Translators struggle to convey evidence and legal concepts across linguistic and cultural barriers.
Disgracefully, wild disparities in outcomes and legal standards characterize the various courts, meaning that asylum seekers who appear before immigration judges in Atlanta face almost impossibly long odds and are generally ordered deported, while those in New York are usually granted relief and allowed to remain in the country.

In these courts, the idea of justice itself is so degraded, and the burnout rate so high, that some immigration lawyers have simply thrown in the towel. One of them, movingly profiled by The Post’s Chico Harlan, got sick of the charade and finally quit. “I genuinely believed these people could die if they’re sent back” to their home countries, said Elizabeth Matherne, who once represented asylum seekers. “And you’re talking to somebody” — the judge — “who is not listening.”

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Why We Need An Independent Article I Immigration Court — Now!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Not a pretty picture of Due Process in America, especially for a Court System whose noble, but forgotten, “Vision” is supposed to be “though teamwork and innovation be the world’s best administrative tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

Undoubtedly, this downward spiral into judicial dysfunction started with the politically-motivated manipulation of the Immigration Courts and the selection system for Immigration Judges and Board of Immigration Appeals Members during the Bush Administration.

But, the Obama Administration had eight years to clean up this mess. Not only has it failed to act, but in some ways has made it even worse. Even in the disastrous Bush years, the backlog of pending cases never approached today’s level of more than 530,000, and it’s growing every day.

The Justice Department has no plausible plan for dealing with this morass, which directly affects the lives and futures of millions of “real people.” Nor is there even a rudimentary plan in place to implement an e-filing system — a staple of virtually every other Federal Court System. Under the Department of Justice, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”), which is charged with administering the Immigration Courts, began “studying” the process for e-filing more than 15 years ago — so far, without achieving any visible success.

Yes, Congress has failed to pass practical, badly needed reforms of the immigration system, unnecessarily compounding the Immigration Courts’ burdens. And, yes, the Congressional approach to appropriating needed resources for the Immigration Courts has been inconsistent and all too often has lagged far beyond funding for immigration enforcement.

But, for the most part, the Immigration Courts are the responsibility of the Executive Branch and the Justice Department. The structure, supervision, and operation of the Immigration Courts is almost entirely a matter of Justice Department regulations. Judicial selections do not have to go through the cumbersome Senate confirmation process.

The Justice Department has shown neither enthusiasm nor the ability to promptly fill existing judicial vacancies through a transparent merit selection system, nor has sufficient attention been paid to locating the necessary courtroom space or planning for painfully obvious expansion needs. Even if all the existing judicial vacancies were filled, as of today there is no place to put the extra Immigration Judges. Effective judicial administration, never a point of expertise for the Justice Department, has completely disintegrated over the past decade and one-half under Administrations of both parties and a succession of Attorneys General who simply failed in their duty to run a fair, efficient, highly professional Immigration Court system.

We have not yet seen the Trump Administration’s and Attorney General Sessions’s plans for how to restore justice to the Immigration Court system. But, the preliminary rhetoric isn’t encouraging — lots of tough talk about immigration enforcement, but neither acknowledgement of nor emphasis on the accompanying equally important need for achieving and protecting due process in the Immigration Courts.

After more than three decades in the Justice Department, the Immigration Courts have not developed in a way that fulfills their essential role in insuring fairness and guaranteeing due process in the removal hearing process. Waiting for the Justice Department to appropriately reform the system is like “Waiting for Godot.” It’s more than time for bipartisan action in Congress to remove the Immigration Courts from the Department of Justice and create an independent, well-functioning Article I Immigration Court. Only then, will the Immigration Courts be able to achieve their “noble vision” of “through teamwork and innovation be the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”

PWS

01/10/17

Will There Be a Beer Cooler on Wheels in Your Future?

As long as it’s loaded with beer, can’t be all bad!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/when-a-beer-cooler-rolls-up-to-your-doorstep-the-future-has-arrived/2016/12/30/c1e6ad38-cc67-11e6-a747-d03044780a02_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.fd835eae100f

“Designers of futuristic cityscapes envision airborne drones dropping off your packages and driverless cars taking you to work. But the robotic-delivery invasion already has begun — in the form of machines that look like wheeled beer coolers scooting along the sidewalks.

The robots — developed by a company with a name straight out of science fiction, Starship Technologies — will be showing up any day in Washington and in Redwood City, Calif. They may soon be found in up to 10 U.S. cities, ferrying groceries and other packages from a neighborhood delivery hub to your front door for as little as $1 a trip.”

Happy New Year!🍻🍾🏈😎

PWS

12/31/16

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