Texas – Page 5 – immigrationcourtside.com

🗽OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: FOCUS ON PEOPLE, NOT POLITICAL THUGS USING THEM AS PROPS! — Don’t Allow Cowards Like DeSantis, Abbott, and Ducey To Make America Look Small, Weak, & Petty Before The World!

A Helping Hand.jpg
Image depicts a child coming to the aid of another in need. Once we have climbed it is essential for the sake of humanity that we help others do the same. It is knowing that we all could use, and have used, a helping hand.
Safiyyah Scoggins – PVisions1111
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
White Nationalist Xenophobes like DeSantis, Abbott, & Ducey have abandoned traditional Judeo-Christian values in favor of neo-fascism. But, the rest of us should hold true to our “better angels.”

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

September 16, 2022

There are many “silver linings” surrounding the migrants “orbited” to Martha’s Vineyard as a Jim Crow political stunt. They are in the U.S. exercising their legal rights to apply for asylum. They have not been forced to remain in Mexico in squalid conditions, improperly returned to danger zones without being heard, or imprisoned without trial by DHS in substandard conditions to “punish” them for exercising legal rights.

In Boston, where Immigration Judges grant the majority of asylum cases, they have a much better shot at justice than in disgraceful “Asylum Free Zones” — inexplicably still operated by Garland — like Texas or Georgia. They are also within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, which often takes seriously its responsibility to enforce the legal and Constitutional rights of asylum seekers against Government overreach. By contrast, the generally extreme right 5th and 11th Circuits often disgracefully “tank” on their responsibilities to enforce the law for those seeking refuge.

As asylum seekers from Venezuela, they have about a 50|50 chance of being granted protection of some type, even in a dysfunctional Immigration Court system tilted against them. With effective legal representation, it’s likely that the majority of them will win relief, and the majority of those will become eligible for green cards and eventual citizenship. In plain terms, most of these individuals are part of our nation’s future hopes and chances for success. They are our future fellow citizens, and not incidentally, taxpayers!

It’s overwhelmingly in our best interests and those of the asylum seekers to be compassionate and welcoming, no matter what the eventual outcome of their cases. Getting them out of the toxic environment created by the GOP in places like Texas and Florida is good for them and for America.

The focus of legitimate state and local governments and NGOs should be on 1) providing food and shelter, and 2) getting individuals representation. The latter is the most important factor in not only increasing court appearance rates to nearly 100% but also increasing chances for a favorable result by four to five times. Fostering representation is actually where government entities seriously interested in rational law enforcement would put resources.

To date, the response of the Martha’s Vineyard community in providing temporary support and by the Massachusetts Government and the Biden Administration in finding the asylum seekers with a place to reside on “the mainland” appears to be working. Everyone interested in a better America in the future should focus on replicating the successful response to this albeit limited situation.

As my friend, humanitarian leader Gary Sampliner, said in his recent WashPost OpEd:

The bottom line is this: If we want to continue to live up to our values, many more of us need to step up to assist the new arrivals. And if we can meet this challenge, we will set an example for the rest of our country to follow.

Americans must focus on helping our fellow humans, bringing much needed functionality to our broken asylum system, while putting grandstanding political thugs in the rear view mirror. Focus on the individuals seeking refuge, their humanity, and their needs. Tune out everything else. That’s the key to success — as a nation and as individual humans!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-16-22

GARY SAMPLINER @ WASHPOST — The DMV Can Turn Abbott’s White Nationalist Stunt Into A “Win – Win!” — It Requires A Durable Approach! — Don’t Expect It To Come From The Biden Administration!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/09/dc-grateful-texas-migrants/?utm_campaign=wp_afternoon_buzz&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_buzz&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F37e0c1d%2F631b9b1ff3d9003c58ca5081%2F598a8acf9bbc0f6826fe4cb8%2F50%2F67%2F631b9b1ff3d9003c58ca5081&wp_cu=565797071f2aa4e140538667638665f9%7CC0D6D8DF75AF4203E0430100007FC096

Opinion by Gary Sampliner

September 9, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. ET

Gary Sampliner is a director of JAMAAT (Jews and Muslims and Allies Acting Together) and a member of the Bethesda Jewish Congregation, which with Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church and the Maqaame Ibrahim Islamic Center is working to assist arriving migrants and asylum seekers. JAMAAT is a member organization of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition.

Gratitude might not be the reaction Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was expecting when he began sending frequent busloads of migrants and asylum seekers to the greater D.C. area. But gratitude, warmth and a renewed sense of collective responsibility are the responses I have seen as D.C.-area organizations and faith communities (and, most recently, its government) have stepped up to welcome and support newcomers.

With Abbott’s bus initiative — a costly venture likely to be funded in large part by Texas taxpayers — we’ve seen an apparent strategy to inflict maximum pain on our region and score political points, using vulnerable people as weapons aimed at pressuring the Biden administration into taking more drastic measures to seal our nation’s southern border.

But, despite the deeply cynical nature of Abbott’s plans, we might actually owe him a debt of gratitude.

We know that providing transportation is one part of establishing a dignified reception system for people seeking safety, and we’ve witnessed repeatedly the long-term payoffs to our communities and nation when we offer support to those in need of refuge.

The D.C. area has been generous in welcoming migrants fleeing persecution. With community and government support, Virginia has been the third-highest recipient of recent Afghan refugees to the United States, and Maryland is not far behind. My own synagogue and the church and mosque with whom we share our building have been active in helping welcome Afghan refugees to the area since 2017. The Jewish-Muslim community organization I help to direct has been working to get other interfaith partnerships involved in similar efforts.

Afghan arrivals are not the only ones receiving a warm reception. With the help of some heroic community and faith groups — many of which are part of the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network — our area has mobilized quickly to welcome the migrants being bused here from the southern border. These tremendous efforts have demonstrated, yet again, the area’s commitment to extending welcome and hospitality to those in need.

As with the public-private, multisector approach used in Afghan and other refugee resettlements, we need all hands on deck to welcome new arrivals to the area. We need as many available resources as possible, including the support of local, state and federal governments, faith groups, nonprofit organizations and community volunteers.

It is heartening to see D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) now stepping up to the challenge and opportunity posed by the arriving migrants. On Thursday, she announced the establishment of an Office of Migrant Services, with an initial allocation of $10 million, to meet the needs of the migrants who are moving elsewhere or intending to reside here. As an official “Welcoming City,” D.C. government assistance should be an essential element of the response to welcome migrants to our region — especially considering that, as a majority of the D.C. Council has told Bowser, D.C. is expected to have a surplus of around $500 million in fiscal 2022 — even though D.C. has good reason to request Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement to help satisfy the overriding federal responsibility over immigration matters.

But the need for private and community support for the incoming migrants remains critical for their successful integration into our community. Though my organizations’ work with the Afghan community continues, we’ve begun to provide various types of assistance to the newcomers being bused here. We are pleased to see and strongly encourage fellow faith communities and groups around the area to join us in this important work of welcome and are pleased when they do. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the best of who we are in the face of unprecedented levels of forced dislocations worldwide.

The bottom line is this: If we want to continue to live up to our values, many more of us need to step up to assist the new arrivals. And if we can meet this challenge, we will set an example for the rest of our country to follow.

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

One frequent mistake is to view this situation as “an emergency” or “temporary.” That leads to “short-term thinking” — throw some money at it, energize volunteers, and “hold the fort” until the so-called “crisis” subsides.

Problem is, money runs out, volunteers burn out or get called to pitch in on other issues, and the media turns its attention elsewhere. But, refugees and asylees will continue to come.

And, the better we treat our new arrivals, the more who will develop ties here and choose the DMV as their U.S. residence. While nativists like Abbott view this as a “crisis” and an “invasion,” I agree with Gary that it’s a great opportunity for us and these migrants. We’ve lived the DMV area for almost 50 years. Most of the growth and prosperity over that time can be linked, directly or indirectly, to recent immigrants, both with and without documents!

In many ways, the situations in other countries that drive migration are worse than at any time since the end of the Cold War. And, it’s not getting better, at least in the short run. Meanwhile, our legal refugee and asylum systems remain a shambles, despite the Biden Administration’s promise to do better than the Trump White Nationalist kakistocracy.

For example, one of the largest, probably the largest, flow of refugees in the Western Hemisphere is from Venezuela. And, contrary to the restrictionist blather, the vast majority of the six million who have fled Venezuela are NOT in the U.S. Colombia has received at least 1.8 million, where the U.S. has fewer than 350,000.

But, there is no immediate prospect that most Venezuelans will return or stop coming. Nor is there any chance that countries like Colombia are going to “up their share” so that the U.S. can take fewer!

Yet, the Biden Administration has failed to provide consistent, helpful, guidance on Venezuelan asylum at either DHS or DOJ. An improved and better BIA, with expert judges committed to a proper application of asylum law, should have issued appropriate precedents that could have been a basis for getting tens of thousands of grantable Venezuelan asylum cases off the endless backlogs and on the road to green cards.

But, Garland continues to mismanage asylum law at all levels. He employs unfocused politicos, unqualified Trump-era bureaucrats, and judges who got or retained their jobs under Sessions or Barr because of their actual or perceived willingness to unlawfully deny asylum. Nor has DHS implemented any semblance of the necessary, realistic, robust overseas refugee program for Venezuela, Haiti, and the Northern Triangle!

Mayorkas has “beefed up” the TPS program for Venezuela. But, by its own terms, that’s not a long-term solution. They extended TPS for Haitians while denying recent arrivals their legal rights to seek asylum and inexplicably returning thousands to the dangerous, failed state without any process at all. It’s a farce — but one with ugly racial overtones and a horrible message! To say that Biden’s refugee and asylum programs are screwed up would be an understatement!

Refugee flows, including asylum, are both inevitable and continuing. They are an important, beneficial, and essential component of legal immigration.

Those seeking legal refuge can be forced largely into the underground system, as Trump tried to do; largely admitted in an orderly legal fashion as progressive experts urge; or there can be a haphazard “combination of the two” which is what we have now!

Undoubtedly, refugees and asylees are good from America. They will get jobs, make contributions, and have families of U.S. citizens. The tax base and U.S. institutions will benefit. But, that’s the “long view.”

In the short run, migrants need food, affordable housing, orientation, and education. Kids will need more teachers with specialized skills in a time of nationwide teacher shortage and politicized demonization of educators and administrators. School populations will increase. That takes money. Taxpayers and the politicians answerable to them are notoriously focused on the now, rather than the whenever.

So, the pressing issue is how to institutionalize, regularize, and fund successful migrant resettlement. In other words, how do we get from here to there in the absence of effective government leadership, planning, and funding – often on multiple levels?

I wish I had the answers. But, I don’t. We have to hope that Gary and others like him outside the dysfunctional government structure do! Because, ready or not, migration will continue! See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/09/10/🇺🇸🗽👍🏼-immigrant-nation-teas-truth-wisdom-americans-views-on-immigrants-and-immigration-are-overwhelmingly-positive/.

Meanwhile, Texans might want to give the financial shenanigans of their corrupt, inept, so-called Governor a closer look! According to NBC, he’s spending an average of $1,400+ for each individual bussed from the border to DC. A commercial coach ticket is $200-300! https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/abbotts-border-buses-cost-1400-per-rider-taxpayers-could-be-stuck-with-bills/2993548/

Texans will have a chance to replace Abbott with a real Governor, Democrat Beto O’Rourke in November.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-11-22

🇺🇸⚖️🗽AMERICANS MUST REJECT THE FAR-RIGHT’S FICTIONAL “INVASION” CHARADE & THE REST OF THE BOGUS ANTI-IMMIGRANT AGENDA — It’s Racism, Pure & Simple — There Is No “Invasion,” “Replacement Theory” Is A Racist Trope, The Borders Aren’t “Open,” Asylum Seekers Aren’t Trafficking Fentanyl (the very suggestion is facially absurd), & There Is More Than Enough Detention & Enforcement, Just Not Very Smart, Effective, Or, In Some Cases, Even Legal!☠️

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/01/republican-immigration-ads-invasion/

By Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent in WashPost:

. . . .

But over the airwaves and online, another story is playing out: an absolute torrent of ads meant to frighten and anger voters about immigration.

A new report from the pro-immigration group America’s Voice seeks to document this ongoing phenomenon. One of its key conclusions: “Republicans have made their nativist narrative a top messaging priority.”

In the world of Republican campaign ads, very little has changed since the xenophobic Trump presidency, and some of what’s in these ads is truly repellent.

Three themes dominate these ads, the report finds, and they are all wildly inflammatory and profoundly dishonest: The Biden administration has created “open borders,” undocumented immigrants are responsible for fentanyl overdoses and a full-blown “invasion” is underway.

The borders are anything but open; the Biden administration is pursuing, arresting and deporting people seeking to come to the United States by the thousands. The vast majority of fentanyl that comes in is smuggled through ports of entry in cars, boats and planes, not carried by undocumented immigrants. And as for an “invasion,” that’s no more true now than it was when Trump warned that caravans were about to overrun the country.

But the Republican ads portray horror and chaos — usually with a non-White face. Some ads show pictures of young Black men walking through rivers on their way to “invade” America, with language suggesting this “invasion” brings “terrorists, drugs and crime.”

Other ads say the Biden administration is supposedly “importing 20 million illegals and giving them amnesty” (the image for that one is people in Haiti), which can only be stopped by “a declaration of invasion.”

In some ads it’s not just an open border but a “wide open border” — once again, illustrated with pictures of Haitians. In others we’re told that “human, sex and drug trafficking are out of control because of Democrat governance,” while Democratic candidates “refuse to oppose Biden’s open border policy.”

Of course, there is no open border policy, but why should the fact that it doesn’t exist stop Democrats from opposing it? That just shows how sinister they are, these ads say, because they “want to destroy this country.”

All of this captures something essential about this political moment. For months, Republicans were certain they could spread fears of chaos in order to ride to victory in the midterms. They’d run on crime and immigration, not just to excite the base but also to scare unsettled swing voters.

Yet the dynamic unexpectedly shifted, and now disorder and, dare we say it, crime — as in the potential crimes of Donald Trump and many Jan. 6 defendants — are not necessarily playing in the GOP’s favor. The overturning of Roe v. Wade has unleashed another form of chaos and a host of new dangers threatening women. And all of these things are energizing Democrats.

. . . .

“Republicans are indulging in the worst kind of White nationalist rhetoric,” Frank Sharry, the executive director of America’s Voice, told us. “And an issue they thought would win over swing voters is at best a base mobilizer for voters they already have.”

What makes this all really ugly, however, is that the messaging remaining under the radar — which Democrats bear some blame for, having gone quiet on the issue — allows it to continue mostly unexamined. This, even though its worst incarnations — such as “great replacement theory” — have inspired recent mass shootings.

Along these lines, it’s worth keeping an eye on Blake Masters, the GOP Senate candidate in Arizona. He has trafficked heavily in great replacement theory and has run truly vile ads on immigration, including one that features machine-gun fire at the border. Yet in a place President Biden won by a whisker that’s also a border state, Masters is trailing by a meaningful margin.

As Sharry told us, Masters’s whole “declare an invasion” line “is not working, in a state where one-third of the voters are independents and border security is a top issue.”

Yet whether it works with independents and swing voters, this foul sewage has been flowing unabated. And it will surely continue to do so.

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

Read the complete article at the link.

The idea that individuals seeking to find a U.S. official who will listen to their asylum cases would be trucking along large amounts of fentanyl in their backpacks is facially absurd.

Ending scofflaw Trump failures to follow asylum and refugee laws at the border and beyond would not halt all illegal entries. No policy will do that, nor has there ever been one that even came close, although illegal incursions have risen and fallen over the years.

But, fair refugee and asylum programs that actually interpreted the applicable domestic and international laws correctly (instead of the “any reason to deny, no matter how wrong attitude” still widespread and tolerated at both Mayorkas’s DHS and Garland’s DOJ) and generously granted protection as was the intention behind the UN Refugee Convention in the first place would certainly encourage large segments of those now forced to irregularly cross the border instead to apply abroad or at legal ports of entry.

It would also facilitate the USG working with NGOs, the UNHCR, states, and localities to get individuals needed assistance so that their legal claims could be processed in a fair, efficient, and timely manner. The latter objectives seem to have totally eluded both Mayorkas and particularly Garland. They continue to “blow off the experts” and flounder with mindless, “designed to fail,” “deterrence-focused” gimmicks. Talk about a lose-lose!

Also to state the obvious, if CBP were less focused on apprehending individuals who pose no real threat to the U.S., but merely want a fair shot at applying for legal protection — something our laws require that Trump annihilated, the Federal Courts have flubbed, and Biden has done a substandard job of re-instituting — they would have time to focus more resources on drug and human smugglers.

Instead, in perhaps one of the dumbest and most wasteful juxtapositions in recent American history, the CBP focus is on “apprehending” (a term I use lightly, since many individuals “want” to be “found,” so they can get access to the system otherwise improperly denied to them by CBP) those merely seeking to comply with the law! To do that, CBP ignores or misses many of those who actually pose threats. At the same time, both DHS and DOJ use methods, attitudes, and legal interpretations that themselves undermine fundamental fairness, the rule of law, and humanity itself.

Immigrants are America’s past, present, and future! Indeed, climate change, rising oceans, drought, starvation, transportation improvements, globalized commerce, wars, religious bigotry, pandemics, and other factors beyond the control of any one government will continue to drive worldwide migration.

Building walls, prisons, hate, resentment, and constructing bogus “invasion myths” will not change the reality of human migration and the necessity to adopt to and harness it in a smart, humane, realistic manner. Doing the opposite, will only diminish us as a nation and inhibit our own chances for future prosperity. But, in the end, it won’t stop human migration.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-04-22

📖COURTSIDE HISTORY: BEYOND THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT, RACISM IS AT THE CORE OF U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY — Professor Andrew S. Rosenberg Interviewed On New Book By Isabela Dias @ Mother Jones!

Isabela Dias
Staff Writer, Immigration & Social Issues
Mother Jones
PHOTO: Twitter

https://apple.news/AOMcfZiMFQ0OSgozcppDcjg

“Undesirable Immigrants: Why Racism Persists in International Migration”

. . . .

In the book, you dispute the assumption that the right to border control and to exclude foreigners is an inherent feature of sovereign states. Instead, you frame it as a “modern consequence of racism.” Why do you see it that way?

The nation-state is a relatively modern invention on the scale of human history. Today, we have this conventional wisdom floating around that it is the natural right and duty of nation-states as sovereign entities to be able to restrict foreigners and have these really hard borders—and that it’s that ability that makes a state what it is. Actually, if you go back in time and look at the international legal thought that emerged from the 15th through the 19th centuries on what it actually means to be a state, the commonly held assumption that people like the late Justice [Antonin] Scalia and others talk about, is actually an invention of the 19th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the great thinkers of international legal jurisprudence or of state theory either thought that states had a right or an obligation to be hospitable to foreigners and to allow them free passage into their territory or, at most, it was up for raucous debate. It was only in the 19th century, when immigrant-receiving countries like the United States began receiving a large influx of racially different outsiders like the Chinese, that this presumption that sovereign states have a right and an obligation that can be tied back to their status as sovereign states to restrict outsiders emerged.

People like Texas Governor Greg Abbott seem to invoke that supposed inherent right when they describe migrants at the border as an “invasion.”

Precisely. These types of “declarations of war” are one of the clearest examples of this ideology seeping into public debate, which leads everyday people to create this idea that migrants are undesirable outsiders who are not fit for, or are undeserving of reaping the benefits of living in the United States or participating in our society.

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

Read the complete interview at the link.

The myth of the “undesirable immigrant” — at the heart of the anti-immigrant rabble rousing of Trump, Miller, Bannon, DeSantis, Abbott, Cotton, Hawley, etc. — has deep roots in American racial history.

I’ve said it many times: There will be neither racial justice nor equal justice for all without justice for immigrants (regardless of status). Laws like the Refugee Act of 1980, that very explicitly make arrival status irrelevant to access to a fair legal process, have been intentionally misinterpreted and misapplied by right-wing judges from the Supremes all the way down to the Immigration Courts.

Advocates for civil rights, womens’ rights, LGBTQ+ rights, voting rights, disability rights, and other fundamental rights that have been unlawfully restricted or diminished, usually, but certainly not exclusively, by the right, who continue to ignore the primacy of dealing with the intentional unfair, racially biased treatment of migrants do so at their own peril!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-12-22

⚖️🗽 US JUDGE IN SAN DIEGO EVISCERATES TRUMP’S ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL “TURNBACKS” OF ASYLUM APPLICANTS; MAYORKAS TERMINATES REMAIN IN MEXICO (AGAIN) EVEN AS RED RESTRICTIONIST AGs FILE MORE FRIVOLOUS OBJECTIONS! 🤮

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12R1mt07Z4S7R7xiieRUznueR9DRXrBdq/view?usp=sharing

Al Otro Lado v. Mayorkas

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant minces no words in blasting both the unlawful, cruel, and unconstitutional policy and the Supreme’s toxic decision to look the other way as immigration enforcement runs roughshod over legal, constitutional, and human rights.

In its September 2, 2021 decision, this Court held the right to access the U.S. asylum

process conferred vis a vis § 1158(a)(1) applies extraterritorially to noncitizens who are

arriving at Class A POEs along the U.S.-Mexico border, but who are not yet within the

jurisdiction of the United States, and is of a constitutional dimension. (Op. Granting in

Part and Denying in Part Parties’ Cross-Mots. for Summ. J. (“MSJ Opinion”), ECF No.

742.) It further held that Defendants’ systematic turnbacks of asylum seekers arriving at

Class A POEs (the “Turnback Policy”) amounted to an unlawful withholding by

immigration officials of their mandatory ministerial “inspection and referral duties”

detailed in 8 U.S.C. § 1225 (“§ 1225”), in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act,

5 U.S.C. § 706(1) et seq., and the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause. (MSJ Opinion at

33–34, 37–38); see 8 U.S.C. §§ 1225(a)(3) (mapping out immigration officials’ duty to

inspect asylum seekers), 1225(b)(1)(A)(ii) (mapping out immigration officials’ duty to

refer asylum seekers to the U.S-asylum process).

In casting appropriate equitable relief to rectify the irreparable injury Defendants’

unauthorized and constitutionally violative Turnback Policy has inflicted upon members

of the Plaintiff class,2 this Court ordinarily would be guided by the fundamental principle

that an equitable remedy should be commensurate with the violations it is designed to

vindicate. See Columbus Bd. of Educ. v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 465 (1979) (“[It is an]

accepted rule that the remedy imposed by a court of equity should be commensurate with

the violation ascertained.”). Equitable relief should leave no stone unturned: it should

correct entirely the violations it is aimed at vindicating. That cornerstone of Article III

courts’ equitable powers generally is unfaltering, whether the party against whom an

injunction is sought is a private entity, a state actor, or, as here, a federal official. Thus, in

2 Plaintiffs consist of the named Plaintiffs listed in the case caption, along with a certified class

consisting of “all noncitizens who seek or will seek to access the U.S. asylum process by presenting

themselves at a Class A [POE] on the U.S.-Mexico border, and were or will be denied access to the U.S.

asylum process by or at the instruction of [Customs and Border Protection] officials on or after January 1,

2016.” (Class Certification Order at 18, ECF No. 513.) The Court also certified a subclass consisting of

“all noncitizens who were or will be denied access to the U.S. asylum process at a Class A POE on the

U.S.-Mexico border as a result of Defendants’ metering policy on or after January 1, 2016.” (Id.)

– 3 – 17cv2366

the ordinary course of things, this Court would not hesitate to issue broad, programmatic

relief enjoining Defendants from now, or in the future, turning back asylum seekers in the

process of arriving at Class A POEs, absent a valid statutory basis for doing so.

Yet the circumstances with which this Court is presented are not ordinary because

of the extraordinary, intervening decision of the United States Supreme Court in Garland

v. Aleman Gonzalez, 142 S. Ct. 2057 (2022). That decision takes a sledgehammer to the

premise that immigration enforcement agencies are bound to implement their mandatory

ministerial duties prescribed by Congress, including their obligation to inspect and refer

arriving noncitizens for asylum, and that, when immigration enforcement agencies deviate

from those duties, lower courts have authority to issue equitable relief to enjoin the

resulting violations. It does so through unprecedented expansion of a provision of the

Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1989 (“IIRIRA”), 8

U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1) et seq. (“§ 1252(f)(1)”), which for years the Ninth Circuit has

interpreted as placing a relatively narrow limit on injunctive relief. In essence, Aleman

Gonzalez holds that § 1252(f)(1) prohibits lower courts from issuing class-wide injunctions

that “require officials to take actions that (in the Government’s view) are not required” by

certain removal statutes, including § 1225, or “to refrain from actions that (again in the

Government’s view) are allowed” by those same provisions. Id., 142 S. Ct. at 2065.

Federal courts (except for the Supreme Court) now may only issue injunctions enjoining

federal officials’ unauthorized implementation of the removal statutes in the individual

cases of noncitizens against whom removal proceedings have been initiated. See id.

In no uncertain terms, the logical extension of Aleman Gonzalez appears to bestow

immigration enforcement agencies carte blanche to implement immigration enforcement

policies that clearly are unauthorized by the statutes under which they operate because the

Government need only claim authority to implement to immunize itself from the federal

judiciary’s oversight.

With acknowledgment that its decision will further contribute to the human suffering

of asylum seekers enduring squalid and dangerous conditions in Mexican border

– 4 – 17cv2366

communities as they await entry to POEs, this Court finds the shadow of Aleman Gonzalez

inescapable in this case. Even the most narrow, meaningful equitable relief would have

the effect of interfering with the “operation” of § 1225, as that term is construed by the

Aleman Gonzalez Court, and, thus, would clash with § 1252(f)(1)’s remedy bar. Aleman

Gonzalez not only renders uneconomical vindication of Plaintiff class members’

statutorily- and constitutionally-protected right to apply for asylum, those inefficiencies

inevitably will lead to innumerable instances in which Plaintiff class members will be

unable to vindicate their rights at all. Thus, while the majority and dissent in Aleman

Gonzalez hash out their textual disagreements concerning § 1252(f)(1)’s scope in terms of

remedies, make no mistake, Aleman Gonzalez leaves largely unrestrained immigration

enforcement agencies to rapaciously scale back rights. See Tracy A. Thomas, Ubi Jus, Ibi

Remedium: The Fundamental Right to a Remedy Under Due Process, 41 San Diego L.

Rev. 1633, 1634 (2004) (“Disputes over remedies provide a convenient way for dissenters

to resist conformance to legal guarantees. Courts can declare rights, but then default in the

remedy to avoid a politically unpopular result.” (footnote omitted)).

Although it is no substitute for a permanent injunction, class-wide declaratory relief

is both available and warranted here. In lieu of even a circumscribed injunction enjoining

Defendants from again implementing a policy under which they turn back asylum seekers

presenting themselves at POEs along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Court enters a

declaration in accordance with its MSJ Opinion that turning back asylum seekers

constitutes both an unlawful withholding of Defendants’ mandatory ministerial inspection

and referral duties under § 1158 and § 1225 in violation of both the APA and the Fifth

Amendment Due Process Clause. The Court also issues relief as necessary to named

Plaintiff Beatrice Doe.

. . . .

You can read Judge Bashant’s full opinion at the link.

Meanwhile, Secretary Mayorkas exercised the authority recognized by the Supremes in Biden v. Texas to terminate the reprehensible and illegal “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico”) program engineered by Trump and Miller. Predictably, the same scofflaw, restrictionist “Red AG’s” who had instituted frivolous litigation to block this long overdue action filed more specious objections with the Trump-appointed US District Judge, as advocacy groups like Justice Action Center (“JAC”) pledged to fight the racist right until this vile (and highly ineffective) program is finally ended.

JAC Responds to Official Termination of Remain in Mexico, Attempts by Texas to Delay Wind-Down

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 9, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a victory for immigrants’ rights movement, the Remain in Mexico program has been officially terminated after court proceedings following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Biden v. Texas on June 30. Below is a statement from Justice Action Center founder and director Karen Tumlin:

“The official end to shameful Remain in Mexico program is a victory for the immigrants’ rights movement and the right to asylum. RMX is a stain on the country’s history, having harmed tens of thousands of people fleeing for their lives since the Trump Administration instituted the unlawful and immoral program in 2019.

“Since the Supreme Court’s ruling affirming the authority of the Biden Administration to end the RMX program, the #SafeNotStranded campaign has called on the President and DHS to implement a swift and humane wind-down, including halting all new enrollments and allowing everyone in RMX to safely pursue their asylum claims in the U.S. Yesterday, DHS stated its wind-down has begun and new people will not be enrolled in the program, and that it would disenroll individuals with upcoming RMX hearings. These are important first steps to finally redress just some of the immense harm inflicted by the program.

“This commitment by DHS, following such a significant SCOTUS victory, illustrates the strength and resilience of the immigrants’ rights movement. But even after a clear loss, Texas is continuing its hateful attempts to keep this deadly program in place for as long as possible: After the District Court rightfully vacated its injunction of the RMX wind-down yesterday, Texas unfortunately—yet unsurprisingly—filed an amended complaint challenging the second DHS memo rescinding RMX, as well as a motion asking the District Court to stay the memo’s effective date.

“But we will not be deterred: advocates will continue to fight back against ongoing red state efforts to continue Trump’s racist and xenophobic agenda and work towards a world where all people fleeing danger can be safe, not stranded.”

# # #

Contact: Tasha Moro; 323-450-7269; tasha.moro@justiceactioncenter.org

Justice Action Center (JAC) is a new nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting for greater justice for immigrant communities by combining litigation and storytelling. JAC is committed to bringing additional litigation resources to address unmet needs, empower clients, and change the corrosive narrative around immigrants in the U.S. Learn more at justiceactioncenter.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Related:

8/1/22: JAC Responds to Supreme Court’s Certification of Decision on Remain in Mexico; Encourages Swift and Humane Wind-Down of Deadly Program

6/30/22: Justice Action Center Welcomes Positive Supreme Court Decision on Remain in Mexico in Biden v. Texas

3/21/22: #SafeNotStranded Campaign Launches Ahead of April Supreme Court Arguments in Biden v. Texas

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

We should remember that the Trumpest GOP’s insurrectionist war on American democracy and attack on truth and human decency began with overt lies and racist attacks on migrants of color and non-Christians. It has escalated to become an all out assault on our future as a nation of laws and values.

We can’t go back to a time when liberals and progressives viewed immigration as a tangental or secondary issue. It is THE all-encompassing issue now in preserving American democracy from GOP efforts to destabilize and destroy our nation’s fabric from bottom to top!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-11-22

☠️⚰️🏴‍☠️ TITLE 42 CAUSES DEATH @ THE BORDER: Rachel Monroe @ The New Yorker Sums Up The Jim Crow Cruelty, Stupidity, & Futility Of Title 42 In One Paragraph! — Title 42 “has increased business for smuggling cartels and spurred people to cross in more dangerous places.”

https://apple.news/AX5E8qIWlQYOauANHEV2g3w

. . . .

Between 2015 and 2020, about fifty bodies were recovered each year in Brooks County, according to an S.T.H.R.C. report. Then came Title 42, a policy enacted by the Trump Administration at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that closed ports of entry and blocked most avenues for asylum claims, ostensibly for public-health reasons. The policy, which is still in place in a modified form, has increased business for smuggling cartels and spurred people to cross in more dangerous places. “Before Title 42, the calls we got used to be, like, eighty-per-cent apprehended, twenty-per-cent missing,” Canales said. “Now it’s flipped—it’s more like twenty-per-cent apprehended, eighty-per-cent missing.” So far this year, there have been nearly seventy recoveries of remains in Brooks County, putting 2022 on track to be the deadliest year on record.

. . . .

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

Read Rachel’s entire report, directly from the border, at the link.

So, before the Trump Administration’s bogus, racist “invocation” of Title 42, 80% of migrants came to the border or were easily apprehended close thereto — most probably because they turned themselves in to seek asylum through the legal system. And, lets not forget, this was with an already badly broken, fundamentally unfair, asylum legal adjudication system intentionally biased and “loaded” against legitimate refugees seeking protection!

Smart, honest public policy would have improved asylum adjudication at USCIS and at EOIR to quickly recognize and grant, with the assistance of NGOs and legal assistance groups, the many cases of legitimate refugees so that they could take their rightful, legal places in our society.

Additionally, by taking refugees seeking legal determinations “out of the equation,” enforcement against those seeking to evade legal processing — certainly a much, much smaller “universe” than is “out there now” — would have been enhanced. Business would have declined for smugglers, as those seeking protection would have been motivated to use a humane, fair, functioning legal system rather than being forced into “do it yourself” refuge!

You don’t have a genius to figure this out — just not be motivated solely by racism like Stephen Miller and his Trump regime cronies! Better qualified — non-Jim Crow righty — Federal Judges would also produce more humane, honest, and rational results.

Additionally, by running a legitimate asylum system, and complementing it with an honest, robust, legal refugee system for Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, we would finally have sound data on how many of those seeking to enter at the Southern Border are entitled to immigrate as legal refugees and how many are non-refugees. That’s something on which we now have no reliable information — just myths and anecdotes, many provided by racist restrictionists and nativists with neither expertise in asylum law nor any real interest in the rule of law at the border.

As a result of Title 42, and the unqualified “Jim Crow” Federal Judges, GOP nativist AGs, and their apologists (including some in the media who repeat or republish, without critical examination, GOP racist lies about the border), we now have a deadlier than ever border; the legal immigration system at the border has been functionally abolished and replaced with an underground, extralegal system; the U.S. Government has ceded control of border migration policy to cartels and smugglers; and the job of the Border Patrol — forced to spend time apprehending legal refugees who seek only the protection to which they are legally entitled — has become impossible.

That’s what happens when we let GOP nativist pols, overt racists, and bad, right wing Federal Judges take over the immigration policies that were actually enacted by Congress — a key part of which are legitimate refugee and asylum systems and a fair, functioning, expert Immigration Court. Right now, we have NONE of the foregoing. And, innocent migrants at the border are too often paying the price — with their lives!

Border Death — This is a monument for those who have died attempting to cross the US-Mexican border. Each coffin represents a year and the number of dead. It is a protest against the effects of Operation Guardian. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border.
Tomas Castelazo
To comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

“Enforcing the law” does NOT mean unfairly, unwisely, and illegally abrogating the legal asylum system and fair adjudications in Immigration Court at the border. It means fixing the legal asylum system including USCIS Asylum Offices. Perhaps most of all, it means reforming and replacing where necessary the broken, dysfunctional, leaderless, and non-expert Immigration Courts and a BIA that continues to misinterpret asylum and protection laws on a daily basis. We need a BIA of real judges with the expertise and guts to establish fair, humane, correct, positive precedents and to rein in or remove from asylum cases those Immigration Judges who are “programmed to reject, not protect!”

I, along with many others, watched the Brittney Griner travesty unfold. I saw the irony. President Biden was rightfully blasting the outrageous “kangaroo court” show trial that passes for justice in Russia. But, at the same time, he, Harris, and Garland are basically running a farcical “Russian style” dysfunctional immigrant “justice” system at EOIR and calling it a “court!”

Kangaroos — Perhaps, in addition to blasting the Griner farce, President Biden, VP Harris, and AG Garland need to take a closer look at the “Russian-style” justice being inflicted on migrants in their wholly-owned Immigration “Courts” — which particularly target women, children, and migrants of color seeking justice under US laws. Indeed, many are still being arbitrarily returned without ANY process at all! Others get “off the wall” denials of their valid claims. Its this REALLY any way for a self-proclaimed “nation of laws” to operate?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever

PWS

08-05-22

⚖️🗽NDPA: CAIR COALITION RIPS MAYOR BOWSER’S CALL FOR NATIONAL GUARD — Humanitarian Situations Require Sensible Government Support, Not Mindless Militarization!

Adina Appelbaum
Director, Immigration Impact Lab
CAIR Coalition
PHOTO: “30 Under 30” from Forbes

https://www.facebook.com/CAIRCoalitionDC

Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition – CAIR Coalition

July 29 at 8:00 PM

·

Shared with Public

Last week, Mayor Bowser made a request for National Guard troops to be deployed to DC to help with the thousands of migrants arriving on charter buses from Texas and Arizona.

CAIR Coalition condemns this militarized response and calls for our government leaders to support and listen to the local groups that have consistently done the work on the ground to support the immigrant community in DC. There are other alternatives like providing additional funding to community groups to help with temporary lodging and other basic needs.

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

Bowser’s semi-nonsensical “emergency request” seems to be nothing more than a “cheap publicity stunt” at the expense of vulnerable asylum applicants and those in the community who are assisting them! And, it worked! She got lots of “play” in the news media.

But, just how would the National Guard actually assist in this largely “manufactured” and unnecessary humanitarian “crisis?”

Will they be transporting migrants from DC to their final destinations? Helping them find lawyers? Explaining their reporting obligations to DHS and EOIR? Finding them shelter in the area? Providing meals and caring for children?

Gimmie a break! Misusing the National Guard like this would also make them less available for real crises where they could help — like the flooding disaster in Kentucky!

What’s needed, as pointed out by CAIR, is sensible supplemental funding for community organizations and others who have been helping migrants resettle and process their cases. Also, shame on the Biden Administration for not getting “ahead of the curve” to provide Federal Government support to counter this entirely predictable and wholly avoidable publicity stunt created by Texas’s White Nationalist, scofflaw Governor Greg Abbott and mindlessly advanced by Mayor Browser’s misguided request!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-02-22

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼FINALLY A “MAGA” MOVEMENT THAT IS GREAT FOR AMERICA — “Mothers Against Greg Abbott” (“MAGA”) Takes On Horrible White Nationalist Gov!

From My San Antonio:

Mothers Against Greg Abbott release new ad opposing the Texas governor

The group, Mothers Against Greg Abbott, released a new ad opposing the Republican Texas Governor on social media on Friday, July 15. The nonprofit organization also endorsed Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who faces Abbott in the gubernatorial race in November.

Read in My San Antonio: https://apple.news/A_lU8udxURiCBw955sksDTQ

Shared from Apple News

***********

Hard to see how Abbot —an inept executive with no values who picks on the most vulnerable — has gotten as far as he has. This is a chance for Texas to get out of the funk and get a governor who is actually interested in representing all Texans and governing competently.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-20-22

WENDY YOUNG @ KIND ON SAN ANTONIO TRAGEDY

Dear Paul –

The entire team at Kids In Need of Defense is devastated by the news that at least 46 people were found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in Texas and more than a dozen others in the truck, including children, were taken to local hospitals for treatment. While we wait for more details to emerge, we wanted to share the following statement from our President, Wendy Young.

“As rising violence, natural disasters, and other threats force migrants to make impossible choices in their quest to find safety, our nation’s response cannot be to place families and children in further harm by indefinitely closing our borders to people seeking protection and ignoring the dangers they face in their home countries. This most recent tragedy and the disturbing rise in migrant deaths globally underscore the need to create safer pathways to protection for refugees. The Biden Administration should see this heartbreaking tragedy for what it is, a clarion call to abandon deeply flawed and dangerous immigration policies. It must reinstate humane and orderly processing, including reopening official ports of entry, hiring child welfare experts to care for and screen children, and provide fair adjudication of protection claims. It is time for the United States to regain its footing as a leader in the protection of migrant families and children.”

– The KIND Team

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

The key part of Wendy’s statement: “including reopening official ports of entry, hiring child welfare experts to care for and screen children, and provide fair adjudication of protection claims.”

Denial rates for recent arrivals who manage to get hearings (see, e.g., Garland’s bogus “dedicated dockets,” — actually “dedicated to denial” and nothing else), many of them children and unrepresented, hover around 100%. They are “guided” by a “largely holdover,” anti-asylum BIA that lacks true asylum expertise and issues no positive precedents instructing judges on how to consistently and legally grant asylum. Consequently, there is no “fair adjudication” of asylum claims. That feeds the toxic nativist myth that nobody at the Southern Border is a “legitimate” asylum seeker.

Unless and until Garland tosses the unqualified jurists at EOIR and replaces them with experts committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and correct, generous, practical precedents and proper applications of asylum law, the system will remain in failure. It’s a monumental mistake by the Biden Administration not to fix that which they absolutely control — starting with the Immigration Courts at EOIR.

Refugees will continue to die at the hands of smugglers who were given control of our immigration system by the Trump Administration and remain empowered by Garland’s & Mayorkas’s poor performance combined with biased, White Nationalist, Federal Judges appointed by Trump at all levels of our failing justice system!

Today’s WashPost editorial described how far-right nativists have basically turned our immigration system over to smugglers:

The absence of any workable legal system that would admit migrants systematically, in numbers that would meet the U.S. labor market’s demand, is the original sin of the chaos at the border. That is Congress’s bipartisan failure, a symptom of systemic paralysis for many years. More recently, a public health rule has had the effect of incentivizing unauthorized migrants to make multiple attempts to cross the border. The rule, imposed by the Trump administration, retained for more than a year by the Biden administration, and now frozen in place by Republican judges, allows border authorities to swiftly expel migrants, but with no asylum hearings or criminal consequences for repeated attempts to cross the border. That has been a boon to migrant smuggling networks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/san-antonio-migrants-deaths-solutions/

I take issue with the term “bipartisan failure” in the legislative context. It’s true that the Dems inexplicably squandered a golden chance to fix many immigration problems when they had 60 votes in the Senate in Obama’s first two years. But, before and after that time, the failure to achieve realistic, humane, robust legal immigration reform legislation has been on the nativist right of the GOP that now dominates the party. Pretending otherwise is useless and dishonest.

Democrats have made numerous reasonable legislative proposals to bring Dreamers and other long-term productive residents of America out of the underground and into the legal mainstream of our society. Additionally, Veteran Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) has introduced the Refugee Protection Act. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/11/24/professor-karen-musalo-la-times-we-can-restore-legality-humanity-to-u-s-asylum-law-thats-why-the-refugee-protection-act-deserves-everyones-support/ Also, Chairman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has sponsored the “Real Courts Rule of Law Act of 2022.” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/05/16/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8fimmigration-courts-article-i-bill-passes-out-of-house-judiciary-on-party-line-vote/.

All of these proposals would have made long-overdue, common sense reforms to eliminate hopeless backlogs, benefit our economy, strengthen our legal system, and facilitate better allocation of Government resources. Yet, there has been scant GOP interest in improving the system. The GOP appears to believe that promoting a dysfunctional immigration system, denying human rights, and guaranteeing a large “extralegal population” available as scapegoats and exploitable labor best serves their parochial political interests.

And, speaking of useless and dishonest, here’s Leon Krausze, WashPost Global Opinions Contributor, on how the disingenuous performance of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has helped fuel both resurgent Mexican migration and unnecessary deaths at or near the border. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/san-antonio-migrant-deaths-trailer-mexico-amlo/.

The “good guys” — those committed to due process, fundamental fairness, individual rights, equal justice, scholarship, and human dignity — need to fight back at every level of our political and judicial systems — while they still exist! Because if the GOP has its way, that won’t be for long!🏴‍☠️

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-30-22

☠️ MORE THAN 40 MIGRANTS DEAD IN TEXAS TRAGEDY!

Arelis Hernandez and Nick Miroff report for WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/27/migrants-dead-texas/

SAN ANTONIO — At least 40 migrants were found dead in the back of a tractor-trailer in San Antonio Monday, according to two federal law enforcement officials briefed on the horrific finding.

Rescuers pulled at least 15 others from the vehicle and they were taken for medical treatment, said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide preliminary information.

The truck was found by agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that specializes in human trafficking cases, one of the officials said. HSI agents are leading the investigation.

. . . .

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

Developing story. Read the complete version at the above link.

PWS

06-27-22

🏴‍☠️ DYSFUNCTIONAL COURTS: HIGH DENYING IJ IN HOUSTON REJECTS BIA REMAND, LECTURES HIGHER COURT JUDGES ON HOW TO DENY ASYLUM TO REFUGEE WOMAN — Parties Given No Input In Garland’s Zany, Topsy-Turvy, Out Of Control, Asylum Denial Machine! — Who’s On First In This Deadly ☠️ “Ongoing Clown Show” 🤡 That Degrades Human Rights & Mocks Judicial Competence & Best Practices?

Woman Tortured — “Nexus? What nexus? These “just happen to be” women facing a little “random violence!”
Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Here are the redacted decisions:

BIA Remand Maria Delmy Andasol-Parada_20220531_0001_Redacted IJ Ceritification Maria Delmy Andasol-Parada_20220531_0001_Redacted

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

Not rocket science 🚀 here:

With credible testimony and harm that rises to the level of persecution for a woman in El Salvador, who was the victim multiple rapes, on its face, this should have been an easy grant for a competent IJ.

- - Essentially, this judge argues that harm rising to the level of persecution — multiple rapes — inflicted on a woman in El Salvador, where femicide and misogyny run rampant, has nothing to do with her being a woman. Such a conclusion is unlikely — some experts would say facially absurd!
  - Indeed, the IJ’s apparent view that multiple rapes had nothing to do with a gender-based protected ground of being a woman would be totally “off the wall” for any experienced asylum adjudicator who truly understood the well-documented nature of violence against women as a widespread form of persecution worldwide!
  - According to the UN Handbook for Determining Refugee Status, adjudicators should give credible applicants “the benefit of the doubt.” “It is therefore frequently necessary to give the applicant the benefit of the doubt.” (Par. 203). That’s not what this IJ did!
  - Also, in the remand order, the BIA specifically rejected the IJ’s finding that this gross harm to the respondent was “individualized” and “personalized” and therefore not a basis for an asylum claim — something not mentioned by the IJ in his “certification.”

Another, better qualified Immigration Judge in the 5th Circuit recently granted a similar case for a Honduran woman. https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Immigration-Judge-Asylum-Decision-5-6-2022-Redacted.pdf.

- - Counsel for the applicant is well aware of this “better analysis” and could have argued it. But, in his snarky haste to prejudge and deny needed protection, this Houston IJ didn’t even give the parties a chance to participate in his “return to sender” (“certification”) nonsense.
  - A better functioning expert BIA would have long ago provided precedential guidance granting cases like this — adopting and amplifying the rationale of the IJ in the Honduran case.
  - Additionally, the BIA remand instructed the IJ to inquire of the DHS as to whether this victim of multiple rapes with no apparent criminal record or other adverse factors was and “enforcement priority” under applicable DHS guidelines — something that the IJ contemptuously and improperly did not do! Indeed, he didn’t seek any input from the parties despite being instructed to do so.

Unquestionably, being an El Salvadoran woman is a) immutable or fundamental to identity; b) highly particularized, and c) socially visible, as recognized by the Salvadoran government and everyone in El Salvador, thereby clearly qualifying as a “particular social group.”
Like the rest of the Northern Triangle, femicide, and abuse of women because they are women is endemic in El Salvador. Five minutes of internet research by a competent judge, assisted by good lawyers, would have turn up mountains of compelling, actually irrefutable, evidence of such uncontrolled abuse. Try the research yourself. See, e.g., https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867945; https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/06/05/🇺🇸🗽⚖%EF%B8%8Fgeorge-w-bush-institute-report-gender-violence-☠%EF%B8%8F⚰%EF%B8%8Fdrives-continuing-refugee-flow-to-u-s-dishonesty-o/ (this is from the George W. Bush Institute, no less).
There is also plenty of reliable evidence that El Salvador, like the rest of the Northern and Triangle Governments, is basically a failed state — something publicly admitted by some Administration officials, including Special Envoy to the Northern Triangle Ricardo Zuniga. https://apple.news/A9FpzsjRAQ2OoAyQZzHZm1A (“democracy, the rule of law and the security situation continue to deteriorate”). The Salvadoran government is neither willing nor able to provide a reasonable level of protection to women like this applicant. Indeed, there is likely sufficient evidence for a better BIA to establish a “rebuttable presumption of failure of state protection” in El Salvador and the rest of the Northern Triangle.
Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge Gabe Gonzalez, author of the remand, is one of the better BIA judges. But, his remand could have been even stronger. He could have reversed this IJ and granted asylum on this record. Why “beat around the bush” on grantable cases that are being mishandled by “chronically over-denying IJs” below? At this point, removal of this particular judge from the case would be more than justified. Cases like this certainly raise the legitimate question of why IJs who sit around inventing reasons to deny relief to those in need of protection are on the Immigration Bench in the first place. There are certainly better-qualified judicial choices — many of them located in Texas — who could bring legitimacy, quality, and efficiency to Garland’s dysfunctional courts!
“Bogus lack of nexus” is one of the most overused grounds for improper denials of protection by EOIR judges at all levels. It’s part of the “any reason to deny” approach enabled by EOIR’s current “anti-asylum culture” — one that was overtly encouraged and promoted by the Trump DOJ.

- - Recently, a BIA panel led by Judge Ellen Liebowitz rebuked another high-denying IJ’s bogus nexus denial in a Houston, 5th Circuit case. See https://immigrationcourtside.com/category/department-of-justice/executive-office-for-immigration-review-eoir/board-of-immigration-appeals-bia/judge-ellen-liebowitz/. So, what isn’t THAT case a precedent — which would end the anti-asylum nonsense and intentionally wrong analysis employed by this judge? “Houston, we’ve got a problem!” What is Garland doing to solve it?
  - Inexplicably selecting Houston as one of the “test locations” for the new asylum regulations is “built to fail.” Without expert, positive guidance from qualified IJs in Houston (and the BIA) on granting asylum — something that this “denial centered court” simply doesn’t possess — there is every reason to believe that asylum seekers will not receive professional treatment or correct decisions from either the Asylum Office or the Immigration Court in Houston. And, relying on the BIA or, worse yet the “over the top” 5th Circuit,” to guarantee fairness and justice for asylum seekers? That’s a sick joke under current conditions!

8) Poorly reasoned, legally incorrect asylum denials and frivolous actions like the IJ’s “certification” in this case are a major factor in generating a 1.8 million case EOIR backlog and enabling a lawless, non-expert, anti-immigrant “culture of denial” at EOIR. Many grantable asylum cases languish in the backlog, are subjected to “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” and then are wrongfully denied by poorly performing judges at both levels of EOIR.

9) EOIR suffers from poor leadership, a poorly performing BIA that overall lacks the expertise and courage to grant the large number of deserving asylum cases currently languishing in the EOIR backlog, and to set proper legal standards that will guide Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers in efficiently granting deserving cases at the first level of the system.

10) Garland should remove or reassign the “under-performers” and “non-performers” at EOIR and replace them with qualified experts committed to best practices and “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all” (EOIR’s now long-forgotten and dishonored mission).

11) Lives and the future of democracy are at stake here! America simply can’t afford the “institutionalized nonsense” still rampant at EOIR as illustrated by this case!

12) Also, EOIR’s performance in this cases is inconsistent with almost every sentence of the recent “LA Declaration.” Issuing statements of principle that are directly contradicted by your actual practices is a bad idea!

This has been a bad week for individual rights and particularly the rights and humanity of women in America. Garland can’t fix the out of control, “fringe-right,” Supremes’ majority. But, he can fix EOIR! And, that would be a long overdue and desperately needed first step toward fixing the entire broken and foundering Federal Court system. Start “at the retail level” with what you have the power to fix and work from there!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-24-22

🏴‍☠️TRUMPY U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE DREW TIPTON BLOCKS MAYORKAS MEMO ON DHS ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIES — Immigration Enforcement Careens Out-Of-Control As Garland’s “Rational Policy Defense Team” Falters Once Again In The Face Of All-Out Assault By Nativist GOP AGs!

Grim Reaper — American Justice takes a grim turn as righty Trump judges take over immigration enforcement! Reaper Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-voids-biden-administration-restrictions-on-immigration-arrests-and-deportations/

From CBS News:

U.S.

Judge voids Biden administration restrictions on immigration arrests and deportations

BY CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ

UPDATED ON: JUNE 11, 2022 / 10:35 AM / CBS NEWS

A federal judge in Texas on Friday granted a request by Republican-led states to throw out Biden administration rules that placed limits on whom federal immigration agents should seek to arrest and deport from the U.S., declaring the directive unlawful.

U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did not have the authority to issue a September 2021 memo that directed immigration officials to focus on arresting immigrants deemed to threaten public safety or national security and migrants who recently crossed a U.S. border illegally.

Tipton, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, agreed to void Mayorkas’ memo, which was challenged by Republican officials in Texas and Louisiana. But he paused his ruling for seven days to give the Biden administration time to appeal.

Friday’s ruling is the latest setback in federal court for the Biden administration’s immigration agenda, which has faced more than a dozen lawsuits by Texas and other Republican-controlled states.

Federal judges appointed by Mr. Trump have blocked the Biden administration from ending a policy that requires asylum-seekers to wait for their court hearings in Mexico and a pandemic-era measure that allows border officials to quickly expel migrants. Tipton himself halted an 100-day moratorium on deportations during Mr. Biden’s first month in office, as well as an earlier directive that limited immigration arrests.

. . . .

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

Read the entire report at the link. Many thanks to Nolan Rappaport, Contributor to The Hill, for sending this my way!

So, righty U.S. District Judges and GOP State AG’s have figured out a way to take over basic immigration enforcement from the Feds. I assume that they will “waive” any claims to immunity from suits against themselves as the inevitable human rights and legal abuses caused by unbridled, uncontrolled, and often irrational and wasteful, DHS Enforcement pile up. These judges and AGs have now become part of the problem. We’ll see how they solve it.

I also find it interesting that righty U.S. District Judges, part of a court system that only just barely manages to keep its head above water because the vast, vast majority of Federal crimes and violations are never fully investigated or prosecuted, have such unbridled enthusiasm for unaccountable, unlimited immigration enforcement.

Part of this right-wing “judicial scam” is to grotesquely exaggerate the “harm” to states and to minimize or ignore the well-documented legal, human rights, and practical problems with “out of control” immigration enforcement that was intentionally used by the Trump regime to “terrorize” ethnic communities. These communities contain “mixed populations” of citizens, legal residents, those living here with legal permission to work, and the undocumented.

I also find it notable that the so-called “plenary power” over immigration appears to have passed from the AWOL Congress and the fumbling Executive, where it historically resided, to the Federal Judiciary, often those serving at the lowest levels — U.S. District Judges, the BIA, and Immigration Judges (although to be fair, the latter two groups are Executive Branch employees operating in a dysfunctional system that often appears to have no rhyme, reason, or defined mission.)

This is an unusual development in the right-wing conservative world of (bogus) “judicial restraint” to be sure. I guess the doctrine of “judicial restraint” is limited to stopping liberal judges from correcting egregious legal mistakes that ruin individual human lives. That’s sure how it looks to me!

The “Tipton Gang” might have a harder time taking over the dysfunctional, out of control, and backlogged Immigration Courts where the results of poor enforcement decisions often go to die in the 1.8 million plus backlog.

The Immigration Courts could prove more of a challenge because Republicans have stuffed the law with various jurisdiction-limiting and jurisdiction-stripping provisions intended to make it difficult or impossible to challenge individual immigration enforcement decisions outside the context of a petition to review a final order of removal in the Courts of Appeals.

Arguing “no jurisdiction/no review” in immigration cases is one thing that DOJ attorneys are very good at and, more often than not, successful.

Otherwise, Garland’s DOJ legal team has been less than stellar at defending changes meant to undo portions of the Trump regime’s misguided, often White Nationalist inspired, anti-immigrant agenda. Perhaps it’s time for the Biden Administration to “reshuffle the deck.” Maybe they should bring in some of the progressive litigation experts who succeeded in blocking some of the worst parts of the Trump-Miller assault on the rule of law and humanity to aggressively defend the job of restoring at least some modicum of due process, fundamental fairness, and rationality to the broken and reeling immigration enforcement system.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-11-22

JULIA EDWARDS AINSLEY @ NBC NEWS REPORTS ON ADMINISTRATION’S “SECRET” PLAN TO RELOCATE ASYLUM SEEKERS!

Here’s Julia’s video report from NBC Nightly News:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/biden-administration-plans-to-bus-migrants-to-shelters-deeper-in-the-u-s-141815877904

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

OBSERVATION: The Biden Administration has been in office for 17 months. During that time the could have established a realistic, robust refugee program, working with UNHCR and NGOs, to screen and process those waiting in Mexico.

Those who qualified would be admitted in legal status, with permanent work authorization, on their way to green cards and eventual citizenship. No CBP, no Asylum Office Backlogs, no backlogged Immigration Courts, no arbitrary, capricious, wildly inconsistent decisions from EOIR and the 5th Circuit, no expensive and inhumane detention, no ankle bracelets. Those legally admitted would also be eligible immediately for refugee resettlement assistance! America is something like 11 million workers “short” — the answer is staring us in the face! See, e.g., https://www.newsweek.com/us-hits-cap-temporary-work-visas-employers-seek-11-million-workers-1713948

Instead, we get secrecy, fumbling, bumbling, and more “
”gimmicks” guaranteed to stir up litigation and controversy without solving problems, facing reality, and harnessing the great power of human migration.

Also, why on earth would the Administration relocate migrants to Texas — a move guaranteed to generate more racist posturing and pushback from Abbott? Why not work with states, localities, NGOs, religious, and legal aid groups in many localities prepared to welcome immigrants and where their skills could be used in the job market?

It’s also worth noting that the so-called “record numbers” at the border often count the same person over and over — a phenomenon aggravated by arbitrary use of Title 42 to return many individuals without proper legal screening.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-09-22

🗽🧑🏻‍⚖️ BIA APPELLATE JUDGES LIEBOWITZ, BROWN, MANUEL WITH STRONG REVERSAL OF HIGH-DENYING IJ IN FIFTH — Nexis, PSG — Roberto Blum Reports! — “This makes the need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament even more urgent,” Says Says Brooklyn Law Associate Dean Stacey Caplow!

Roberto writes:

Hello Judge,

Here’s another remand you might like to read. This time it was Nexus and PSG with IJ Monique Harris (previously in Houston). According to TRAC she has a 96.5 asylum denial rate. The prior remand I shared was IJ Khan who is at 97% denial rate. Clearly these IJs are getting a lot of “matter of life and death” decisions wrong. As you say, haste makes waste. This case (like the previous one) should have been easy grants with all of the supporting documents that were included. I appeared at the individual hearing and my colleague Bryan Russell Terhune (from the same office) worked on the BIA Brief.

P.S. you can see this news article: https://sv.usembassy.gov/court-inaugurated-memory-pnc-agent/ , from our own U.S. Embassy in El Salvador where they inaugurated an athletic court in the Usulutan Police Delegation, named after the PNC officer Nelson Panameño, who was killed. Panameño was one of the instructors from the Gang Resistance Education and Training Program (GREAT) which my client closely worked with for many years helping him and the PNC gain trust with the community and local youth. This was part of the record, plus a lot more evidence showing this specific connection and the specific and imminent warnings that Panameno gave to my client before his own murder. This was just one of the many great things this client did in El Salvador to try and make his country a better place. We are lucky to have him and his family in this country now.

Best,

DPF!

RB

Here’s the panel decision:

BIA APPEAL REMAND (Redacted)

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

Thanks, Roberto.

As Roberto says:

This was just one of the many great things this client did in El Salvador to try and make his country a better place. We are lucky to have him and his family in this country now.

That this respondent is here to contribute to our country is due to Roberto and his colleagues in the Law Office of Juan Reyes, Houston, and to this particular panel of BIA Appellate Judges. But it is “no thanks” to the IJ who got this case egregiously wrong below!

Nor, is it thanks to an Attorney General who has allowed injustice, bad judgment, and poor quality decision-making to flourish at the “retail level” of his wholly-owned “court” system. What about the many folks who don’t have Roberto or someone like him for a lawyer or who get members of the “BIA asylum deniers club” appointed under Trump to “pack the BIA for an anti-asylum agenda” instead of this panel of conscientious appellate judges?

I note that Judge Elise Manuel and Judge Denise Brown are currently denominated “Temporary” Appellate Judges. At least in this case, along with Judge Ellen Liebowitz, they “got it” at a level at odds with the work of too many of their so-called “permanent” colleagues. Why has Garland allowed this obviously problematic situation to continue to fester with human lives at stake?

Judge Ellen Liebowitz’s compact, cogent, powerful opinion is a terrific “mini-primer” on how PSG and “one central reason” nexus cases properly should be decided! As Judge Liebowitz demonstrates, you don’t have to write a lot to say a lot. You just have to know what you’re doing!

The gross, fundamental errors in the application of basic statutory terms by the IJ below in this case are, unfortunately, repeated on a regular basis by many of her colleagues across America who are improperly “programmed to deny” clearly grantable asylum cases.

It belies the bogus claim that EOIR is an “expert subject matter tribunal!” That expertise is, at least in part, what the questionable doctrines of “Chevron deference” and “Brand X abdication” by the Supremes rest upon. Shouldn’t it make a difference that in EOIR’s case, it’s a lie?

Why is Garland allowing this to happen when it could be remedied? Make this case a precedent and start removing, retraining, or reassigning so-called “judges” who don’t follow it and who continue to disregard the law and the rights of asylum seekers!

Why isn’t this case a precedent? Why is an IJ who is so clearly unqualified to decide asylum cases still on the Immigration Bench under Garland? Why aren’t cases like this being used to end the “asylum free zone” improperly established by some Houston IJs?

These are the “tough questions” that Garland should have addressed. Why hasn’t he? Why is “refugee roulette” still plaguing EOIR and American justice — 15 years after the problem was first “outed” by my Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Schrag, Schoenholtz, and Ramji-Nogales? How is this “good government,” or even “minimally competent government?”

When compelling, well-documented cases like this are turned down at the trial level, something clearly is rotten in the system! Make no mistake about it, lack of expertise, bad judicial attitudes, widespread anti-asylum bias, counterproductive “haste makes waste gimmicks,” and way, way too many denials are significant “drivers” of the backlog that continues to mushroom under Garland.

The arbitrary and often grotesquely unfair, unprofessional, and results-driven state of “justice” in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts was recently highlighted by Brooklyn Law Associate Dean Stacey Caplow in her lament about the Supremes’ abdication of responsibility in Patel v Garland.

Stacy Caplow
Associate Dean of Experiential Education & Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law
PHOTO: Brooklyn Law website

As Dean Caplow cogently points out:

Patel shuts the door firmly and unequivocally, preventing independent review of fact-finding by Immigration Judges, however irrational and indefensible once the Board of Immigration Appeals has affirmed. This makes the need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament even more urgent. Perhaps this case will provide new impetus for reform such as Real Courts, Rule of Law Act of 2022 voted by the House Judiciary Committee in May just days before the Supreme Court’s decision.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/the-pathos-of-patel-v-garland

While an independent, subject matter expert Article I Immigration Court is the obvious answer, unfortunately, it’s not immediately on the horizon. Meanwhile, the innocent and vulnerable continue to suffer daily injustices, sometimes gratuitous humiliation or dehumanization, in Garland’s broken system. It DOESN’T have to be this way!

As Dean Caplow says, we “need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament.” It’s not “rocket science” 🚀— just intellectual excellence, courage, and a fair-minded approach to justice!

There are literally hundreds of extraordinarily well-qualified individuals out there in the private sector who could outperform the IJ in this case in every critical aspect of the job! Why hasn’t Garland actively recruited them for his courts? Why isn’t his system functioning correctly “on the retail level?”

Garland has the authority to take the bold action necessary to redirect, refocus, and re-populate his current parody of a court system to laser-focus on due process, fundamental fairness, judicial expertise in immigration and human rights, and efficiency (without sacrificing due process or decisional excellence). All of us who care about the future of American justice should be asking why he isn’t doing his job!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-31-22

🔫WELL, ACTUALLY, TOTALLY CONTRARY TO THE GOP BS, GUN CONTROL LAWS DO SAVE LIVES! — “The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=e8e45d47-c3b3-4b69-862f-6cc848e9bb43

David Lauter in the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Time was — not that long ago — that after a mass shooting, gun rights advocates would nod to the possibility of compromise before waiting for memories to fade and opposing any new legislation to regulate firearms.

This time, they skipped the preliminaries and jumped directly to opposition.

“The most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said to MSNBC a few hours after a shooter killed at least 21 people in Uvalde, Texas. “Inevitably, when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it. You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work.”

The speed of that negative reaction provides the latest example of how, on one issue after another, the gap between blue America and red America has widened so much that even the idea of national agreement appears far-fetched. Many political figures no longer bother pretending to look for it.

Broad agreement

on some measures

And yet, significant agreement does exist.

Poll after poll has shown for years that large majorities of the public agree on at least some limited steps to further regulate firearms.

A survey last year by the Pew Research Center, for example, showed that, by 87% to 12%, Americans supported “preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.” By 81% to 18% they backed “making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.” And by a smaller but still healthy 64% to 36% they favored “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.”

The gunman in Uvalde appears to have carried seven 30-round magazines, authorities in Texas have said.

So why, in the face of such large majorities, does Congress repeatedly do nothing?

One powerful factor is the belief among many Americans that nothing lawmakers do will help the problem.

Asked in that same Pew survey whether mass shootings would decline if guns were harder to obtain, about half of Americans said they would go down, but 42% said it would make no difference. Other surveys have found much the same feeling among a large swath of Americans.

The argument about futility is one that opponents of change quickly turn to after a catastrophe. It’s a powerful rhetorical weapon against action.

“It wouldn’t prevent these shootings,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN on Wednesday when asked about banning the sort of semiautomatic weapons used by the killer in Uvalde and by a gunman who killed 10 at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket 10 days earlier. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes — whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.”

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a similar claim at his news conference on Wednesday: “People who think that, ‘well, maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it’s gonna solve it’ — Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”

The facts powerfully suggest that’s not true.

Go back 15 years: In 2005, California had almost the same rate of deaths from guns as Florida or Texas. California had 9.5 firearms deaths per 100,000 people that year, Florida had 10 and Texas 11, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Since then, California repeatedly has tightened its gun laws, while Florida and Texas have moved in the opposite direction.

California’s rate of gun deaths has declined by 10% since 2005, even as the national rate has climbed in recent years. And Texas and Florida? Their rates of gun deaths have climbed 28% and 37% respectively. California now has one of the 10 lowest rates of gun deaths in the nation. Texas and Florida are headed in the wrong direction.

Obviously, factors beyond a state’s laws can affect the rate of firearms deaths. The national health statistics take into account differences in the age distribution of state populations, but they don’t control for every factor that might affect gun deaths.

Equally clearly, no law stops all shootings.

California’s strict laws didn’t stop the shooting at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods this month, and there’s no question that Chicago suffers from a large number of gun-related homicides despite strict gun control laws in Illinois. A large percentage of the guns used in those crimes come across the border from neighboring states with loose gun laws, research has shown.

The overall pattern is clear, and it reinforces the lesson from other countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, which have tightened gun laws after horrific mass shootings: The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.

Fear of futility isn’t the only barrier to passage of national gun legislation.

Gun law opponents harden positions

Hard-core opponents of gun regulation have become more entrenched in their positions over the last decade.

Mostly conservative and Republican and especially prevalent in rural parts of the U.S., staunch opponents of any new legislation restricting firearms generally don’t see gun violence as a major problem but do see the weapons as a major part of their identity. In the Pew survey last year, just 18% of Republicans rated gun violence as one of the top problems facing the country, compared with 73% of Democrats. Other surveys have found much the same.

Strong opponents of gun control turn out in large numbers in Republican primaries, and they make any vote in favor of new restrictions politically toxic for Republican officeholders. In American politics today, where most congressional districts are gerrymandered to be safe for one party and only a few states swing back and forth politically, primaries matter far more to most lawmakers than do general elections.

Even in general elections, gun issues aren’t the top priority for most voters. Background checks and similar measures have wide support, but not necessarily urgent support.

. . . .

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

Read David’s complete article at the link.

Unfortunately, the much ballyhooed polls on this issue turn out to be highly misleading. The polls showing widespread support for gun control suggest that there should be a heavy political price to pay for GOP gun zealots who mock the need for rational measures to protect kids, worshippers, shoppers, and others from mass firearms’ assaults.

However, the exact opposite is true. As Chuck Todd recently pointed out on NBC News, even in the “post-Sandy-Hook” era, no incumbent politician has lost his or her position for opposing reasonable firearms controls. The converse is not true.

Todd also pointed out that we now have more guns than people in the U.S., a situation that didn’t exist a decade ago. The irrational response to more gun deaths, lead by the NRA and GOP politicos, has been more guns — NOT common sense, concern for the common good, or courageous bipartisan problem solving.

That perhaps explains how sleazy immoral characters like Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz, VA Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and a host of other corrupt “guns are the answer to all problems” GOP politicos remain in office as innocent kids and others die and the problem gets worse.

As the article suggests, lack of urgency and priority also might be a reason why the polls are so completely misleading on this issue. For the “guns trump human lives crowd,” adhering to positions promoting irresponsible “absolutist” firearms agendas are a “litmus test.” Apparently, for too many of those in the “majority,” saving some kids and other human lives is in the “nice to have, but not essential” category.

So, despite their immoral and irrational stand on guns, the GOP controls a majority of state and local Governments. Nationally, thanks to the electoral college, gerrymandering, and local control of national voting, the GOP appears poised to sweep back into power on the national level and impose their anti-individual-liberty, anti-democracy, anti-humanity, pro-guns and big corporations agenda on all until the last shadow of American liberal democracy is wiped out.

It’s clear from the “in your face” reactions of Cruz and other GOP pols that they expect no fallout from their latest, deadly policy failures. Indeed, I think they fully anticipate a political boost from their ridiculous and widely-panned suggestions and their ever more outrageous fact-free “shoot ‘em up — ignore the real problem” proposals. Kid deaths and grieving parents who can be fobbed off or ignored have become a “gold mine” for valueless GOP politicos to exploit and demean.

Sadly, they probably are correct. Despite the perhaps “over coverage” by the media obsessed with public demonstrations, the GOP has little to fear politically from outraged parents of dead kids, students walking out of classes, newspaper editorials, or demonstrators outside the NRA Convention.

Unless and until gun control proponents can find a way to make arrogant GOP pols on all levels “pay a price” for their immoral actions and horrible positions, the latest “surge in public sentiment” will be just as meaningless as the polls they engender. That means reaching out to the rural Americans who drive the GOP’s pro-gun agenda and changing at least some minds with facts. That’s something that Dems as a whole have failed to do over decades, as the GOP developed a stranglehold over rural America.

While GOP politicos like Abbott and Cruz (who, let’s remember, fled with his family to a resort in Mexico while ordinary Texans suffered through Abbott’s mismanagement of the power grid) babble nonsense, parents who have lost children understand exactly who is to blame for preventable mass murders:

“There’s no reason for just an average citizen to have these types of weapons,” she said. Adding, “What for? What do you need them for? Is it worth my kid? These kids?”

https://apple.news/ABvfx3I_pRjubQAjtOz4c-A

Of course, as the article acknowledges, gun control won’t solve all problems or prevent all mass shootings. But, contrary to widely promoted GOP myths, such laws would be a major step in the right direction that demonstrably would preserve some human lives.

The GOP gun lobby’s outrageous “expand the universe of gun ownership and military-style firepower” agenda clearly results in more unnecessary deaths. Even more significantly, there is no case for the proposition that reasonable firearms restrictions and limitations on military assault-type weapons place any unreasonable burden on sportsmen, target shooters, or other types of legitimate gun owners.

No private citizen in America needs an assault weapon for self defense or sporting purposes! Pro-gun commercials suggesting that assault weapons are necessary for self-defense at home or to “protect America” are the pure BS! But, they apparently are much more effective than angry demonstrations, school walkouts, or tearful testimonials from those deprived of their loved ones and colleagues by preventable mass gun violence.

Tougher laws might, however, stop at least a few kids or angry folks from getting their hands on military-grade weapons of mass destruction and murder.

Significantly, it now appears that about the only folks who “did the right thing at the right time” during the Uvalde mass murder were the unarmed kids who, risking their lives, called, sometimes repeatedly, those authorized to use deadly force and assault-style weapons for public protection. But, it was largely to no avail, as the so-called “good guys with guns” stood around as kids died — they were afraid they might get shot by an 18-year-old kid armed like a combat soldier. Their teachers, not the “good guys with guns” were the ones willing to sacrifice their lives in an attempt to save others.

Also, while Texas seems to revel in “anti-Federalism,” it’s worth noting that the slaughter only stopped when Federal Border Patrol Officers ignored local police leaders and confronted the shooter.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-29-22

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

September 16, 2022

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Opinion by Gary Sampliner

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

“Undesirable Immigrants: Why Racism Persists in International Migration”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Al Otro Lado v. Mayorkas

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever

Related posts:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

From My San Antonio:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Arelis Hernandez and Nick Miroff report for WashPost:

Related posts:

Here are the redacted decisions:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

From CBS News:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Here’s Julia’s video report from NBC Nightly News:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Roberto writes:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

David Lauter in the LA Times:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts: