Category: National Security

THE GIBSON REPORT — 04-11-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, Managing Attorney, National Immigrant Justice Center — FEATURE: Fifth Circuit 🏴‍☠️ Attacks Refugee Women With Absurdist “Analysis” In Sanchez-Amador v. Garland! 🤮  

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

 

Weekly Briefing

 

This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • PRACTICE ALERTS
  • NEWS
  • LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • RESOURCES
  • EVENTS

 

PRACTICE ALERTS

 

EAD Rules Fully Vacated

NIJC: On Friday (4/8) we learned from the government that it would not file an appeal in AsylumWorks v. Mayorkas.  This means, happily, that the EAD Rules that delayed and in some cases denied access to EADs for asylum seekers are fully vacated.  The vacatur applies to both the 30-day adjudication rule and the larger rule that had more than a dozen changes to EAD eligibility for asylum seekers.

 

NY EOIR Asks ICE to Submit PD Stance 3 Days Before Hearings

EOIR: In an effort to reduce our interpreter non-usage and our continuance rates, the New York – Federal Plaza Immigration Court has asked DHS that PD positions be provided to the court on matters scheduled for a hearing at least three days before the hearing. This would allow cancellation of the interpreter order without cost to the court, and would permit another previously scheduled case to be advanced into the open hearing slot. In addition, the court is endeavoring to identify cases already scheduled which are likely to be granted PD based upon DHS guidelines. We have requested DHS’s assistance in this endeavor. [It is unclear whether other courts will request the same.]

 

Social Security Administration to Resume In-Person Services at Local Social Security Offices

 

NEWS

 

Disagreement and Delay: How Infighting Over the Border Divided the White House

NYT: The C.D.C. finally announced at the beginning of April that it would lift its public health border restrictions on May 23, around the time of the year when migration typically increases. But this past week, the issue of Title 42 flared up again as Senate Republicans and some Democrats in Congress held up Covid funding in an effort to protest the administration’s decision to lift the health rule and tensions over the issue flared in both parties. See also The Democratic revolt over Biden’s border policy.

 

Senators to restart bipartisan immigration reform talks

Hill: Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told The Hill that they want to bring together a group of senators interested in trying to revive immigration discussions — a perennial policy white whale for Congress — after a two-week recess.

 

Immigrant rights groups say ICE’s no visitation policy taking toll on detainees’ mental health

NPR: Visitations at federal and state prisons have largely resumed. Last year, for example, the Washington state Department of Corrections determined it was safe to reinstate visitations. But those who want to talk to loved ones in ICE detention must still rely on old-fashioned phone calls or video.

 

As Haitian migration routes change, compassion is tested in Florida Keys

WaPo: Although the Florida Keys have been an entry point for refugees fleeing communist Cuba since the 1960s, officials say the increase in arrivals of migrants by boat represents a shift in migration patterns. Since the start of the year, more than 800 Haitians have landed in the 113-mile-long Florida Keys, made up 1,700 small islands. Two of the landings occurred in Ocean Reef, an exclusive gated community near Key Largo that is home to some of nation’s wealthiest residents, officials said.

 

Cubans arriving in record numbers along Mexico border

WaPo: Cuban migrants are coming to the United States in the highest numbers since the 1980 Mariel boatlift, arriving this time across the U.S. southern land border, not by sea.

 

Thousands of Ukrainian refugees arrive at U.S.-Mexico Border

NPR: Thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war have come to the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana, where immigration agents are letting them into the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. See also Even with ties, Ukrainian families struggle to reach the United States.

 

Texas takes new border action; ex-Trump officials want more

AP: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday delivered new orders along the U.S.-Mexico border and promised more to come as former Trump administration officials press him to declare an “invasion” and give state troopers and National Guard members authority to turn back migrants.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

CA2 blocks disclosure of docs on immigrant terrorist screenings

Reuters: U.S. appeals court on Wednesday said federal agencies properly withheld documents related to how they vet applicants for immigration benefits with the aim of uncovering possible terrorist ties, reversing a judge who ordered their disclosure.

 

3rd Circ. Says India Native’s Persecution Claims Inconsistent

Law360: The Third Circuit declined to halt the deportation of a man from India claiming he suffered political persecution there, reasoning that the immigration judge was correctly skeptical of his inconsistent accounts of the violence he claimed to have experienced.

 

CA5 on Unable or Unwilling to Control Persecutors

CA5: [W]hether an applicant’s subjective belief that authorities would be unwilling or unable to help them is sufficient for asylum eligibility when paired with country condition evidence supporting that belief, notwithstanding that the underlying events do not support that conclusion. We think not… When  she checked in, the police informed her “that the process would take at least two weeks.” She fled before those two weeks expired, and there is no evidence of  what  happened  with  the  claim.  Thus,  the  evidence  supports  the  BIA’s  finding  that  Sanchez-Amador  “successfully  reported  one  incident  with  the  gang member to the police, but did not pursue the issue.”

 

CA5 Equitable Tolling Remand: Boch-Saban V. Garland

LexisNexis: “Petitioner Jose Santos Boch-Saban, a citizen of Guatemala, seeks review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision dismissing, as untimely, his appeal of an immigration judge’s order denying, as time and number barred, his motion to reopen and dismiss. We VACATE the Board’s decision and REMAND the case for consideration in the first instance of the issue of equitable tolling.”

 

Al Otro Lado Class Action Notice of Preliminary Injunction

DHS: Al Otro Lado v. Mayorkas is a lawsuit that relates to the U.S. government’s use of “metering” at land  ports  of  entry  on  the  U.S.-Mexico  border.    The  Court  in  this  lawsuit  issued a Preliminary Injunction(PI) prohibiting the U.S. government from applying a rule known as the “third-country transit rule”(TCT)to certain people who were subject to “metering” before the rule took effect on July 16, 2019.

 

Pennsylvania State Police settle profiling, immigration suit

AP: Pennsylvania State Police settled a federal lawsuit alleging troopers routinely and improperly tried to enforce federal immigration law by pulling over Hispanic motorists on the basis of how they looked and detaining those suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, officials announced Wednesday.

 

11 Set Up Hundreds of Sham Marriages for Green Card Seekers, U.S. Says

NYT: Clients paid fees up to $30,000 as part of the yearslong scheme, an affidavit said. Some applications falsely claimed the clients had been abused by their spouses, prosecutors said.

 

San Antonio To Pay Texas $300K To End ‘Sanctuary City’ Fight

Law360: The city of San Antonio, Texas, has agreed to pay the state $300,000 to settle both allegations lodged by the state’s attorney general that it was violating the state’s “anti-sanctuary city law,” and a subsequent lawsuit seeking to remove the police chief from office for the alleged violations.

 

Banned Travelers Ask Judge To Revisit Dead Visa Applications

Law360: People who were banned from the U.S. under now-defunct Trump-era travel restrictions urged a California federal judge to order the Biden administration to revisit their denied visa applications, saying the administration’s attempts to redress the harm don’t go far enough.

 

Feds Keep Diversity Visa Order Paused, But Must Update Tech

Law360: A D.C. federal judge extended the stay of his order directing the State Department to issue more than 9,000 diversity visas while the Biden administration appeals to the D.C. Circuit, but he unfroze his directive for the department to update the technology for processing the visas.

 

House Committee Advances Bill Slashing Visa Country Caps

Law360: The House Judiciary Committee voted to advance a bill that would eliminate the Immigration and Nationality Act’s per-country cap for employment-based visas and raise similar caps on family-based visas, aimed at trimming immigration backlogs.

 

CDC Provides Public Health Determination and Order on Termination of Title 42

AILA: On 4/1/22, CDC released an order to terminate its Title 42 public health order on 5/23/22. The document assesses the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic, provides legal considerations, and describes plans for DHS to mitigate COVID-19 and resume use of Title 8. (87 FR 19941, 4/6/22)

 

CBP Issues Memo on Title 42 Exceptions for Ukrainian Nationals

AILA: On 3/11/22, CBP issued a memo to its Office of Field Operations stating that noncitizens in possession of a valid Ukrainian passport or other valid Ukrainian identity document, and absent national security or public safety risk factors, may be considered for exception from Title 42.

 

USCIS Extends EADs for Certain TPS Syria Beneficiaries

AILA: USCIS is issuing individual notices to certain TPS Syria beneficiaries whose applications to renew Form I-766 are pending. The notices extend the validity of their EADs until September 24, 2022. Guidance on filing Form I-9 is available.

 

DHS/CBP/PIA-072 Unified Immigration Portal (UIP)

DHS: The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Unified Immigration Portal (UIP) provides agencies involved in the immigration process a means to view and access certain information from each of the respective agencies from a single portal in near real time (as the information is entered into the source systems). CBP is publishing this Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) to provide notice of implementation of the UIP and assess the privacy risks and mitigations for the UIP.

 

USCIS Implements Risk-Based Approach for Conditional Permanent Resident Interviews

USCIS: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced a policy update to adopt a risk-based approach when waiving interviews for conditional permanent residents (CPR) who have filed a petition to remove the conditions on their permanent resident status.

 

Request for Comments: Form G-639; Online FOIA Request: Due 5/5/22.

 

RESOURCES

 

GENERAL RESOURCES

 

EVENTS

 

NIJC EVENTS

 

GENERAL EVENTS

 

To sign up for additional NIJC newsletters, visit:  https://immigrantjustice.org/subscribe.

 

You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added.

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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

As always, thanks Elizabeth. 

Sanchez-Amador v. Garland — The 5th Circuit Goes Off The Rails Again To Threaten Refugee Women of Color!

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-60367-CV0.pdf

The issue in Sanchez-Amador is whether a reasonable person in her position would believe that the Government of Honduras is “unwilling or unable” to protect her. On the facts set forth in the court’s decision, any reasonable person in her position would hold such a objectively reasonable view. Therefore asylum should have been granted.

For some context, Honduras has one of the highest femicide rates in the world. Indeed, it is “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman.” See, e.g., https://news.sky.com/story/the-most-dangerous-place-in-the-world-to-be-a-woman-11950981

The Honduran Government is so totally corrupt, inept, and disinterested in protecting its citizens, particularly women, that recent past “President Juan Orlando Hernandez [is] on the United States’ Corrupt and Undemocratic Actors list, under Section 353 of the United States–Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act.” https://www.state.gov/u-s-actions-against-former-honduran-president-juan-orlando-hernandez-for-corruption/

Ricardo Zuniga, the U.S. Special Envoy to Central America recently said: “‘All we’re trying to do now is halt the slide’ of democracy and accountability, Zúniga said in an interview with The [L.A.] Times, ‘so that we can have some place to build from.’” https://apple.news/A9FpzsjRAQ2OoAyQZzHZm1A. 

In other words, any a semblance of the rule of law and honest, minimally effective government in the Northern Triangle has long disappeared. Conditions are rapidly getting worse, rather than better. Conditions are so bad, that a better Administration or a better BIA could probably establish a “rebuttable presumption of failure of state protection in the Northern Triangle,” thus properly shifting to the DHS the burden of establishing, against all odds, that “state protection” against gangs and other basically uncontrolled third-party actors would actually be effective in a particular case.

This common sense action would also facilitate rapid, efficient, consistent, and correct approval of many credible, valid asylum claims now stuck in the endless, largely self-inflicted, backlogs at the Asylum Office and in Garland’s dysfunctional courts, not to mention at the border following two years of illegal suspension of our asylum laws. That’s as opposed to the unseemly “Institutionalized Refugee Roulette” now being played by Garland and his subordinates.

According to the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca and the BIA itself in Matter of Mogharrabi, asylum law is supposed to be generously applied to grant protection even where persecution, although reasonably possible, is significantly less than likely. But, in Garland’s dysfunctional “courts,” the current reality for vulnerable asylum seekers has moved far, far away from those supposed “norms.”

Although most asylum applicants come from nations with well-established records of serious endemic human rights abuses, “asylum denial rates” at EOIR range from 10% or less to a beyond outrageous 98% or more denials! Cases with basically the same facts might be routinely granted in one courtroom while being uniformly denied, usually for specious reasons, in the next.

Moreover, while the overall nationwide grant rate of around 37% appears unreasonably low but perhaps still within the outer bounds of “plausibility,” most of those grants are “concentrated” in a relatively small number of Immigration Courts, basically in the Northeast and in California. A disturbing number of IJs and courts are allowed, perhaps even encouraged, by Garland and his denial-oriented, Trump-holdover BIA to establish “asylum free zones.” In other words, Garland has looked the other way while some of “his courts” have basically become de facto “asylum death squads.”

Back to Ms. Sanchez-Amador. Under the circumstances shown by Ms. Sanchez-Amador, a “reasonable woman” would not expect any effective protection from the Honduran Government. The respondent has shown that her “expectation of no protection” was “fulfilled” in this case.

The respondent credibly testified that a gang member said she had a week to either pay him money or become “his woman,” join the gang, and have involuntary sex with him, that is, he threatened to rape her. When she dutifully reported this to the police (despite their well-deserved reputation for indifference to attacks on women), she was told that they would investigate but that it would take two weeks, and offered her no other protection or options in the interim.

In other words, in response to an imminent, credible threat of harm, the police told the respondent that they would do nothing to stop the harm that would be inflicted upon her in a week. By the time the police “investigated,” assuming they ever did which seems doubtful in light of conditions in Honduras, the respondent would be either extorted or raped and forced to join a gang against her will. While police in Honduras might have a well-deserved reputation for corruption and ineffectiveness, gangs, on the other hand, have a reputation for being ready, willing, and able to carry out their threats against women, usually with impunity.

Elementary asylum law tells us that it is neither reasonable nor required that a refugee wait to actually be persecuted before fleeing to safety. That’s exactly what a “well-founded fear” is!

Yet a panel of male, right-wing judges of the Fifth Circuit nonsensically and disingenuously concludes that “one would be hard-pressed to find that the authorities were unable or unwilling to help her [because] she never gave them the opportunity to do so.” Poppycock! 

The police failed to offer the respondent any semblance of effective protection. Given the conditions in Honduras, and the credible threats the respondent had received, a reasonable woman in the respondent’s position would flee to safety at the first opportunity rather than waiting for the gang to carry out its credible threat of harm and for the police to, perhaps, but likely not, investigate after the fact!

Indeed, it’s no stretch to say that under the facts of this case, NO reasonable woman would have remained in Honduras if able to escape.  Moreover, NO reasonable factfinder would conclude that she lacked a reasonable possibility of persecution there!

The panel judges have perverted, perhaps intentionally, the criteria for asylum, the standard for review, and misconstrued the record to deny legal protection to this refugee woman. But, there is an even deeper problem here. And, it goes to Attorney General Garland and his mismanagement of the entire, broken Immigration Court system.

I daresay that NO asylum expert would have handled this potentially perfectly grantable case the way this Immigration Judge and the BIA did. This whole process documents an ongoing, biased, unprofessional, designed-to-deny asylum system that unfairly attacks and threatens “the most vulnerable among us” — targeting women of color in a particularly racist-misogynistic way!

I hope that this particular example of injustice, inhumanity, and unprofessionalism at all levels of the judiciary isn’t what awaits long suffering asylum seekers if and when the Administration finally lifts the illegal “Title 42 Blockade/Charade” on May 23. But, I have little reason for optimism. 

Beyond long overdue reversals of several Sessions/Barr bogus anti-asylum, anti-immigrant “precedents,” neither Garland or Mayorkas has shown much inclination to actually get asylum law right. Nor have they empowered or employed the human rights and due process experts who could lead them out of the wilderness in which their entire “denial and deterrence-oriented” system now wanders.

Perhaps ironically, the all-too-often lawless Fifth Circuit refuses to acknowledge even those modest actions by Garland to correct the law, notwithstanding the supposed “great deference” they claim to show the Executive in the area of immigration. Like much that the Fifth Circuit does these days, that “deference” appears reserved for White men and is not applied to vindicate the rights of “persons” who happen to be migrants, women, or people of color.

“Dred Scottification” of “the other” is NOT a legitimate legal theory. No, it’s part of the “anti-democracy activism” that threatens to destroy our legal system and take our nation down with it! ☠️

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-12-22

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  4. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️👍🏾🤗 D.C. VALUES COALITION’S GREAT RESPONSE TO ABBOTT’S 🤮🏴‍☠️ LATEST RACIST STUNT: “DC welcomes all immigrants, including DACA recipients, TPS holders, refugees and asylum seekers from all nations to our area, offering them help and support.”

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

https://www.caircoalition.org/news-clip/dc-values-coalition-statement-response-governor-abbotts-announcement

DC Values Coalition Statement in Response to Governor Abbott’s Announcement

Apr 08, 2022

On Wednesday, April 6, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas announced he will start busing immigrants to Washington, DC in response to the decision by the government to end Title 42. Title 42 is a cruel policy, which used the pandemic as an excuse to expel families and individuals from the United States under the guise of public health.

We as the DC Values Coalition condemn Governor Abbott’s announcement. We do not believe in using human beings to make political statements. Regardless of what happens next, DC welcomes all immigrants, including DACA recipients, TPS holders, refugees and asylum seekers from all nations to our area, offering them help and support.

Organizations in the DC Values Coalition will support these individuals with their needs and make sure that DC remains a place that is welcoming and safe for immigrants. We will also push to guarantee they are not detained and we will continue to advocate for ICE to exercise discretion in detention and deportation efforts.

The DC Values Coalition is a coalition of DC-based immigration legal and social service providers that seeks to defend immigrants’ rights.

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

Many thanks to all concerned for this terrific response! I particularly appreciate the efforts of my friend Adina Appelbaum of CAIR Coalition, my former star student in Refugee Law & Policy at Georgetown Law, a former Arlington Immigration Court Legal Intern, and a “charter member” of the NDPA.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-08-22

 

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. 🗽⚖️🇺🇸LEE GELERNT @ ACLU SAYS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “cannot farm out the asylum system.” Yet, That Appears To Be Largely What They Are Doing Under New, Previously Unpublicized Program!
  4. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯

🏴‍☠️☠️👎🏽GROUPS EXPOSE RACISM, MYTHS IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S ABUSE OF HAITIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS! — “Each day that the Title 42 policy remains in effect, it places Haitians directly in harm’s way.”

 

Karen Musalo
Professor Karen Musalo
Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/sites/default/files/Tijuana%20Factsheet_2022.04.07%20FINAL%20v2_0.pdf

Protection Delayed is Protection Denied:i Factsheet on Title 42 Expulsions, Haitian Asylum Seekers in Tijuana, and the U.S. Government’s Ongoing Evasion of Duty

April 7, 2022

An estimated 10,000 Black migrants, predominantly asylum seekers from Haiti, currently reside in Tijuana where they face discrimination and violence.ii Since the imposition of Title 42, the United States has refused to permit nearly all individuals their legal right to seek asylum and has instead conducted mass expulsions.iii Title 42 has had a particularly devastating impact on Haitians, who have been expelled en masse without being screened for their fear of harm in Haiti despite “obligations under both domestic and international law that prohibit return of individuals to persecution and torture.”iv

Most Haitians arrive in Mexico following a dangerous overland route from Brazil or Chile; these countries took in Haitian nationals in the wake of Haiti’s devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010.v The aftermath of the 2010 earthquake remains significant: it claimed between 200,000- 300,000 lives, left over a million people homeless, and set in motion a decade of political instability, impunity, and violence.vi

In July 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.vii In August 2021, another magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the country.viii A devastating tropical storm followed just two days later. The destruction from the powerful natural disasters overlayed onto the political power vacuum, exacerbating the already dire conditions. 4.3 million Haitians are experiencing acute food insecurity, fuel shortages and blackouts are the norm, and 1.5 million Haitians have been affected by gang violence.ix Complicity between state officials and criminal gangs has been documented, including incidents where “perpetrators raped and tortured residents based on political associations.”x According to Human Rights Watch, “the justice system can barely operate in a context of security and institutional breakdowns” and thus people in Haiti “face a high risk of violence and have no effective access to protection or justice.”xi

The United States recognized the dangers posed to people if they are returned to Haiti and granted an 18-month Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to prevent deportations of any Haitian people already present in the country before July 29, 2021.xii Despite this limited protection, over 20,000 people have been returned to Haiti during the first year of the Biden administration.xiii Many of those expelled had been in a makeshift encampment in Del Rio, Texas in September 2021, where they were denied access to sufficient food, water, and medical care.xiv Many were also subjected to physical violence and intimidation. The last several months have seen expulsions occur unabated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) conducting “near daily flights to Haiti.”xv Additional flights of adults and families with babies and young children are scheduled for April. The majority of these returns occur under Title 42, denying individuals the chance to apply for asylum, even if they requested it and face dangers which would qualify them for protection.xvi

1

The information in this factsheet was compiled from interviews conducted from March 7-11, 2022, by a delegation from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law’s Hastings-to-Haiti Partnership (HHP) organization in collaboration with the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS), the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), and the École Supérieure Catholique de Droit de Jérémie (ESCDROJ). The delegation interviewed 123 Haitians across six different shelters in Tijuana. Interviewees were asked about why they left Haiti and what they have experienced as Black Kreyol-speakers traveling through Mexico and other Latin American countries.

There is a common misconception that Haitians are “economic migrants” and not refugees entitled to protection. But the stories revealed in these interviews belie such assertions. Haitians face imminent threats to their physical safety, and even death, should they be returned to the country—and face further dangers in Mexico—and they should have the opportunity to claim their legal right to asylum and reunify with family members in the United States.xvii Each day that the Title 42 policy remains in effect, it places Haitians directly in harm’s way.

. . . .

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

Read the complete report at the link.

The conclusions and recommendations are, not surprisingly, similar to some I have made. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-admin/about.php

But, given the extraordinarily poor performance of the Biden Administration on racial justice issues relating to asylum at the border, I’m afraid that the preparation to make the asylum system function in a fair and orderly manner come May 23 is going to fall largely to NGOs and advocates. 

Of particularly disturbing note is the Garland DOJ’s total failure to intervene to stop the blatant and illegal racism at our border and to vindicate the rule of law! Indeed, Garland’s failure to reorganize EOIR and hire competent, expert administrators and judges to take charge of his broken, backlogged, and biased asylum system is likely to be a “stone around the neck of justice” as we move forward. 

But, expecting the Biden Administration to stand up for racial justice for Haitians and other non-White asylum seekers at the border unfortunately appears to be wishful thinking. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-08-22

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. 🗽⚖️🇺🇸LEE GELERNT @ ACLU SAYS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “cannot farm out the asylum system.” Yet, That Appears To Be Largely What They Are Doing Under New, Previously Unpublicized Program!
  4. ICRC: “Migration is not going to stop. If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”

DAN RATHER & ELLIOTT KIRSCHNER: 🇺🇸⚖️🗽👩🏾‍⚖️CELEBRATING JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON: “As much as the Republicans tried to undermine Justice Jackson with epithets of being an extremist, it is they who I believe history will judge as out of touch with the heart of this nation, and especially its future.” YUP!

Justice Katenji Brown Jackson
Judge (now Justice) Ketanji Brown Jackson, honoree at the Third Annual Judge James B. Parsons Legacy Dinner, February 24, 2020, University of Chicago Law School. Photographer Lloyd DeGrane.
Creative Commons License

A New Justice

Welcome Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner
Apr 7 pastedGraphic.png pastedGraphic_1.png pastedGraphic_2.png

It is official. There is a new justice on the United States Supreme Court, and a justice unlike any in our nation’s history.Despite all the problems this nation faces, despite the sordidness of the confirmation process, despite the rank hypocrisy, bombast, and lies Republican senators and their media echo chambers employed, let us not allow any of this to distract from a celebration of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and her moment.

Justice Jackson is not only a symbol, she is a person. And like so many trailblazers before her, she has had to weather attacks on her character, her values, her intelligence, her right to be part of a society still plagued by the legacy of centuries of oppression and injustice.

If ever there were a live demonstration of judicial temperament, it was Justice Jackson’s testimony in her confirmation hearings. She was in a position known all too well to marginalized segments of American society, particularly Black women. She had to be better, do better, be more poised, absorb more outrage, and bite her tongue while those with privilege are given benefits of doubt she will never be offered and allowed to act in ways that never would have been tolerated from her. Indeed, we have seen exactly this double standard in recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Justice Jackson persevered. And she did so in a way that should give us confidence as to what kind of justice she will be. In a court that has been highly politicized by the actions of Republicans in the Senate and the White House, her voice will represent a very different perspective: an America of diversity, of obstacles and opportunity, of the rule of law, of humility, and of justice broadly defined.

Every Supreme Court justice represents to some extent a leap into the unknown. But recently, we have seen the entire judicial system increasingly become a competition between teams of judges whose actions are highly predictable. This is regrettable. The act of judgment should be one of listening, reading, and weighing the arguments. Everything we saw from Justice Jackson suggests she will embrace this role.

Even with the addition of Justice Jackson, we will still have a Supreme Court out of balance. It tilts heavily toward a far-right worldview that, if the polling is to be believed, is out of step with the majority of the American public.

As much as the Republicans tried to undermine Justice Jackson with epithets of being an extremist, it is they who I believe history will judge as out of touch with the heart of this nation, and especially its future.

Now, going forward, Justice Jackson will bring a new voice to those marbled halls, one who can bear witness to what this nation is, and where it is going.

Her presence itself will not fix the myriad problems we face; our challenges defy easy answers or simple remedies. But Justice Jackson personifies the hope that change is possible, that progress can be our path going forward. We celebrate her today as a unique legal mind and as someone whose service to this nation and its best traditions can give us a reason for new flickers of optimism. If she hasn’t given up on what America can be, then neither should we.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

pastedGraphic.png

Like

 pastedGraphic_1.png

Comment

 pastedGraphic_2.png

Share

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

Many, many congrats to Justice Jackson, one of our greatest living jurists, whose career exemplifies that to which the Federal Judiciary should aspire!

Justice Jackson is exactly the type of judge we need not only on the Supremes and the lower Article III Courts, but also on the Board of Immigration Appeals and on the nation’s Immigration Courts!

But, in this case, the obstacle isn’t Republicans! No, it’s the Dems — the Biden Administration and AG Garland! They stubbornly refuse to treat the U.S. Immigration Courts, which they control 100%, as if THEIR lives and futures depended upon it! 

I fear that in the Biden Administration’s rather half-hearted effort to restore asylum law at the border, we will see the consequences of not having acted timely to appoint a BIA of “real judges.” That is, asylum experts with the credibility, courage, independence, scholarly credentials, and practical experience in Immigration Court to establish fair, practical precedents to guide both Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers in the fair, consistent, and timely adjudication of claims for protection at the border and in the interior. They are also necessary to bring due process and best practices to a system that for years has openly mocked both — and largely gotten away with it, at the expense of the rule of law and the good of humanity.    

You can be sure that the next GOP AG won’t new so hesitant and stumbling about finishing the job of “weaponizing” the Immigration Courts as a tool to be used to “Dred Scottify the other” in American society!

I have no doubt that in the future, Justice Jackson will speak out against “Dred Scottification” when it comes before her on the Court — albeit likely in dissent, given the Supremes’ far right swing. Ironically, however, the appointment of “more Justice Jacksons” to the U.S. Immigration Courts would have a much greater substantive effect than her appointment to the Supremes! Not only would such “real judges” upgrade the practice of law — throughout the nation and in all Federal Courts — but they would stop the practice of “Dred Scottification” at the retail level — where it literally affects millions of lives. It would be “outcome determinative” in thousands of cases now being incorrectly decided — or not decided at all.

That Garland is too blind and/or disinterested to understand the cosmic importance of the Immigration Courts to American justice and the need to act boldly and rapidly to reform his dysfunctional and flagrantly unfair “courts” is nothing short of a national tragedy — one for which the most vulnerable and those fearlessly assisting them continue to pay a high price! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-07-22

Related posts:

  1. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  4. 🤮👎🏽ULTIMATE HIPOCRACY: EVEN AS AMERICA FINALLY CELEBRATES JUNETEENTH HOLIDAY, DRED SCOTT & INSTITUTIONALIZED RACIST DEHUMANIZATION REMAIN REALITIES FOR BLACKS & OTHER MIGRANTS OF COLOR AT EOIR & DHS — Imprisonment Without Trial, Bogus Bonds, Mistreatment In The New American Gulag, Jim Crow “Courts,” No Rule Of Law,  Still Realities For Those Of Color Exercising Legal Rights In Broken System!

🗽“RAPID PROCESSING” BY DHS WORKING FOR WHITE REFUGEES @ SOUTHERN BORDER! — WHY NOT ALSO FOR REFUGEES OF COLOR WHO HAVE WAITED MONTHS OR YEARS FOR JUSTICE?⚖️

 

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/story/2022-04-06/cbp-ukrainians-pedwest

Roughly 2,300 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion are currently waiting in Tijuana, according to the mayor’s office

BY KATE MORRISSEY, ALEXANDRA MENDOZA

Kate Morrissey
Kate Morrissey
Immigration & Human Rights Reporter
San Diego Union Tribune

APRIL 6, 2022 1:33 PM PT

Customs and Border Protection officials are now processing Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion of their country at the San Diego-Tijuana border through a pedestrian crossing that remains closed to the general public.

The move, according to volunteers helping the Ukrainians and the Tijuana mayor’s office, is to speed up how many Ukrainians border officials can process in a day. PedWest, the pedestrian crossing at the western end of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, has been closed to general traffic for the past two years.

At around 6 a.m. Wednesday morning, a busload of Ukrainians arrived at El Chaparral plaza on the south side of the crossing. That is where a camp of hundreds of mostly Central American and Mexican asylum seekers were camped for months, waiting for the Biden administration to open processing for refugee screenings. Mexican authorities bulldozed the camp in February, and the Biden administration has said that asylum processing won’t resume until May 23, with the exception of the Ukrainians.

. . . .

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

The rest of the story is at the link.

I’ve been advocating (obviously unsuccessfully) for this type of preferred processing of asylum applicants to be applied to ALL NATIONALITIES, regardless of race or ethnicity, in advance of the May 23 date for the end of the Title 42 charade. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/04/02/%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f-cdc-announces-end-of-covid-bar-but-only-7-weeks-from-now-compare-what-dhs-should-have-said-with-what-they-did-say-with-51/

DHS, with the assistance of NGOs, UNHCR, and other volunteers from the human rights community can screen those waiting over the next six weeks to insure that applicants with the strongest claims are moved to the front of the line in advance or even admitted under an “exception” (DHS seems to be able to invent these at their whim) before May 23.

That’s the way to establish an orderly, fair, and humane transition back to the rule of law at all border ports of entry!  

Additionally, because Garland has basically abdicated his duty to restructure and restaff the Immigration Courts to provide fair, positive interpretations of what asylum cases should be granted and to establish practical evidentiary and proof standards, the Asylum Office can work with the UNHCR and asylum experts to fill the gap. 

While the BIA might be intentionally short on positive asylum guidance, there are plenty of decent Circuit decisions and some unpublished IJ decisions out there that point the way toward a fair, generous, functional legal asylum system that will actually fulfill the humanitarian promise of older precedents. Cases such as the Supreme’s decision in Cardoza Fonseca; the BIA’s complimentary positive guidance in cases like Matter of Mogharrabi, Matter of Kasinga, Matter of O-Z- & I-Z-, and Matter of A-R-C-G-; and the regulations establishing a “presumption of future persecution” based on past persecution all point the way toward a much more generous, practical, and humane interpretation and application of U.S. asylum law. 

Honest interpretations of asylum law disgracefully fell into disuse as the Trump regime improperly “weaponized” the Immigration Courts against asylum seekers and attempted to replace qualified Asylum Officers with patently unqualified Border Patrol Agents. But, despite a lackadaisical performance to date, the Biden Administration still has a golden opportunity to reverse the mistakes of the past and to lead the way to a better future. Whether they will take that opportunity remains to be seen! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-07-22

Related posts:

  1. 👍🏼🗽⚖️🙂🇺🇸BREAKING: IN A STUNNING REVERSAL, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL BEGIN DISMANTLING “REMAIN IN MEXICO” PROGRAM BY SCREENING & ADMITTING THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN AWAITING ASYLUM HEARINGS! — Processing To Begin On Feb. 19!
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. ☹️”TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE” — Asylum Seekers Stranded In Mexico See Promise To Lift Title 42 Blockade With Mixture Of Hope, Skepticism, & Confusion! — Under Trump, & Now Biden, U.S. Human Rights Laws & Our Constitution Have Become “Game Of Whack A Mole!” — Human Lives & The Rule Of Law A “Joke” To Border Patrol Agents!
  4. 😰NO HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR FAMILIES IN “THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG”☠️⚰️ — As Kakistocracy Of War Criminals 🤮🏴‍☠️ Departs, Will President Biden Have The Wisdom & Guts To Move Beyond “The Dem Border Alarmists” & Get The Progressive Leaders 🦸🏽‍♂️⚖️ From The NDPA In Place To Bring Due Process & Order To The Border?🗽🇺🇸

☹️”TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE” — Asylum Seekers Stranded In Mexico See Promise To Lift Title 42 Blockade With Mixture Of Hope, Skepticism, & Confusion! — Under Trump, & Now Biden, U.S. Human Rights Laws & Our Constitution Have Become “Game Of Whack A Mole!” — Human Lives & The Rule Of Law A “Joke” To Border Patrol Agents!

Whack-A-Mole
The Biden Administration’s vision for asylum seekers is a game of chance with the odds rigged heavily against them.
Circus Circus Reno – 2021-11-14 – Sarah Stierch 05.jpg
Creative Commons License
Emily Green
Emily Green
Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist
PHOTO: Twitter

 

Emily Green reports for Vice News:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3abwb9/title-42-mexico-migrants-stuck

REYNOSA, Mexico — A 2-1/2 year old boy dragged an oversized suitcase along the sidewalk excitedly, on the edge of a cramped migrant encampment straddling the U.S.-Mexico border. Every few seconds, he looked behind him to make sure his parents were still there. But the boy wasn’t going anywhere, and the suitcase was empty, much like the yearned-for promise of being finally allowed to enter the United States. The boy, born in Brazil, and his parents, from Haiti, have spent five months living in a tent just feet from the U.S. border.

“We will stay here until we can go to the other side,” the boy’s father said.

On April 1, the Biden administration announced that on May 23, it will rescind Title 42, the pandemic-era, public-health policy that allowed for the automatic expulsion of more than a million migrants to Mexico and other countries. The policy is why the little boy and his parents hadn’t sought asylum. They’re scared that if they crossed into the U.S. and asked for protection, they’ll be deported to Haiti. They instead opted to wait in Reynosa, despite its reputation as one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.

World News

The US Admitted a Group of Russians at the Border Under Secret Deal With Mexico

DAVID NORIEGA, DAVID MORA

03.28.22

The repeal of the Trump-era rule is expected to trigger an influx of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border. Already, around 2,500 people are living in the public plaza here at the edge of the border, their tents packed together so tightly there’s barely room to walk. While the policy change won’t take effect for a month and a half, the response on both sides of the international line couldn’t be more different.

In the U.S., officials are busy expanding border facilities and sending more personnel to staff emergency operations. In Mexico meanwhile, most of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who’ve been waiting for months to cross legally at a port of entry have received no information from authorities and seem completely in the dark about what’s to come. There are no guidelines for who gets to enter first, nor instructions about when and where to cross, or even a line to sign up for.

Compounding the confusion, many of the migrants have no idea why they were denied entry to the U.S to request asylum in the first place. They have only the vaguest notion of Title 42, and what its repeal could mean for them. The information they have largely comes via word of mouth, which human smugglers frequently spin to sell their services.

But migrants may be headed towards disappointment as Title 42 winds down and another restrictive immigration policy is likely ramped up.

World News

The US Admitted a Group of Russians at the Border Under Secret Deal With Mexico

DAVID NORIEGA, DAVID MORA

03.28.22

Jacki, a Honduran woman who has spent six months in the encampment with her four-year-old daughter, learned of Title 42’s end through a reporter (not this one). Jacki and the other migrants interviewed for this story declined to provide their last names. “We are all excited… but… I don’t know,” Jacki said. “It’s too good to be true.”

She may be right. Department of Homeland Security officials said that in the wake of winding down Title 42, it will increase its use of the policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols, or “Remain in Mexico,” which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are decided. It’s possible that asylum seekers stranded in some of Mexico’s most dangerous border cities by Title 42 could finally enter the U.S. and ask for protection, only to be returned to Mexico under Remain in Mexico.

The Biden administration has also expanded “Remain in Mexico” to include Haitians, who make up the fastest-growing group of migrants in Reynosa. Even with Title 42 gone, gaining legal entry into the U.S. is uncertain at best.

For migrants, U.S. immigration policy can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. From Feb. 2021 to Dec. 2021, during Biden’s first year in office, immigration agents allowed roughly 29 percent of migrants encountered at the southern border to enter the U.S. and plead their case before an immigration judge, according to the American Immigration Council, which advocates on behalf of migrants. The rest were summarily expelled under Title 42 to Mexico or another country, or sent to ICE detention.

. . . .

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

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

The way to start breaking backlogs and restoring confidence in the rule of law is to identify and prioritize asylum grants! 

That’s precisely the opposite of the misguided border policies that Administrations of both parties have followed for the past two decades: Move unrepresented individuals to the front of the line and issue lots of bogus in absentias and hasty denials in a perverted, and highly ineffective, attempt to use our legal system as a “deterrent” and to “send don’t come messages.”

The Biden Administration should have a team of trained Refugee Officers and Asylum Officers in Mexico, now, working with pro bono advocates and NGOs to identify and “pre-process/pre-approve” asylum cases that can be granted on May 23 or shortly thereafter. That would start clearing out the camps in Mexico, reducing processing backlogs, and lessening pressure on the Immigration Courts. Incidentally, it would also provide needed potential legal workers for the U.S. economy.

It would also establish the credibility of the asylum processing program (something now in tatters) at legal ports of entry. That, in turn, would incentivize individuals to use orderly asylum processing rather than being lured by smugglers into attempting dangerous irregular entries. 

A major overlooked fact in the restrictionist babble (disgustingly repeated even by some Administration officials and Dem politicos) about “illegal border crossings” is that the U.S. has had no transparent legal asylum system at ports of entry for years. Our Government’s failure, has empowered smugglers, encouraged irregular entry, and endangered asylum seekers. Amazingly, despite years of bad faith, dishonesty, and insulting “die elsewhere” racist messages, tens of thousands of individuals have waited patiently on the Mexican side of the Southern Border, in horrid and life-threatening conditions, for appointments, hearings, and adjudications that have never happened and that are often biased and unfair on those occasions when they did take place.  

The Biden Administration should also be working in Mexico with NGOs to provide accurate information (NOT “stay home and die” propaganda) about the U.S. Asylum program, the legal documentation requirements, opportunities for representation and counseling, and what will happen after May 23. Given the lack of honesty, transparency, accuracy, and humanity in many “official” USG pronouncements, it’s no wonder desperate folks seek information and guidance elsewhere.

An essential part of the foregoing is to establish officially-maintained prioritized processing lists for ports of entry. As noted in Emily’s article, informal “do it yourself” lists are being maintained by unofficial and unregulated “gatekeepers.” This has been a key reason why the U.S. system lacks credibility and orderliness.

It’s not “rocket science.” 🚀 But, as usual, when it comes to immigration, human rights, and equal justice, the Biden Administration lacks dynamic expert leadership, a positive vision of immigration, and the ability to “pick off the low hanging fruit.”  

As I have pointed out before, in the absence of a plan, the best hope for an orderly transition to a restored legal asylum program might well be NGOs and volunteers who could step in where the Administration is failing! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/04/02/%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f-cdc-announces-end-of-covid-bar-but-only-7-weeks-from-now-compare-what-dhs-should-have-said-with-what-they-did-say-with-51/

🗽🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-06-22

Related posts:

  1. 👍🏼🗽⚖️🙂🇺🇸BREAKING: IN A STUNNING REVERSAL, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL BEGIN DISMANTLING “REMAIN IN MEXICO” PROGRAM BY SCREENING & ADMITTING THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN AWAITING ASYLUM HEARINGS! — Processing To Begin On Feb. 19!
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  4. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies

🏴‍☠️⚰️BIDEN’S BORDER RACISM: Whites Secretly Allowed In To Apply For Asylum, While Blacks Rounded Up, Abused, Returned To Danger And/Or Death Without Any Chance To Apply!

 

Two recent news items illustrate the rampant racism at work in the Biden Administration’s Illegal use of the Title 42 charade to eliminate the rule of law at the border:

#VICENews #NewsInitially Rejected by the US, Russians Are Secretly Hustled Over the Border:

https://youtu.be/ARgTwHv9vSA

Blacks and other folks of color seeking asylum — dehumanized and deported without regard to the rule of law:

Beyond the Bridge: Documented Human Rights Abuses and Civil Rights Violations Against Haitian Migrants in the Del Rio, Texas Encampment

RFK Human Rights, Haitian Bridge Alliance, March 2022

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

On  Garland’s watch:

    • Racism runs rampant in immigration enforcement and policy;
    • Backlogs continue to grow and fester across the immigration system;
    • Immigration Courts remain dysfunctional, inept, and biased toward DHS Enforcement; and
    • There is no accountability for anything.

Maybe Trump did win that second term, at least as far as Garland’s DOJ is concerned!

After more than a year of not getting the job done, politicos and some border legislators of both parties are debating whether to continue to violate the law, the Constitution, and human rights of asylum seekers of color because Garland and Mayorkas have failed to get a legal asylum system in place at the border — despite having a number of “blueprints” on how it could successfully be done.

Clearly, there is NO public health justification whatsoever for the continued Title 42 farce — it has become an obvious pretext for violating the law because some politicos think it’s convenient and expedient to do so. Those like Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke who are supposed to stand up for equal justice, racial justice, the rule of law, and protections for the most vulnerable among us have “taken a dive!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-30-22

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  2. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. ICRC: “Migration is not going to stop. If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”

⚖️ JUDGE TARA NASELOW-NAHAS “JUST SAYS NO” TO ICE’s ATTEMPTED IRAQI DEPORTATION! — Ruling Comes After U.S. Magistrate Judge Found DOJ’s Failed Extradition Attempt Based On Bogus Evidence!

Bob Egelko
Bob Egelko
Courts Reporter
SF Chronicle
PHOTO: SF Chron

Bob Egelko reports for the SF Chron:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Immigration-judge-blocks-deportation-of-17035086.php

An immigration judge has blocked the deportation of a Sacramento man to his native Iraq where he would face trial, and likely execution, for a terrorist murder — a murder that, according to a U.S. magistrate, took place while the man was in another country.

Omar Ameen was granted U.S. refugee status in 2014 by immigration officials who said he would face persecution in Iraq. But the U.S. government jailed him in August 2018 while Iraq sought to extradite him on a murder charge.

Last April, U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund Brennan found that the crime Iraq accused Ameen of committing, the fatal shooting of a police officer in 2014 before his departure for the U.S., had taken place while Ameen was 600 miles away in Turkey, where he had fled from Iraq more than two years earlier.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement then sought to deport Ameen to Iraq, saying he had lied about his alleged terrorist connections and other subjects, and kept him in custody. But Immigration Judge Tara Naselow-Nahas of Van Nuys (Los Angeles County) ruled last week that Ameen could not be deported to Iraq because he was likely to be jailed and tortured there. She did not dismiss ICE’s claim that Ameen had made false statements, but said she found no evidence of terrorist connections.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Immigration Judges make critical life or death decisions every day. Yet the system suffers from gross inconsistencies, huge backlogs, lack of discipline, poor intellectual leadership, an appellate board mired in leftover Trumpism, and an Attorney General who generally has been slow to recognize the importance of Immigration Court reform and a focus on due process, fundamental fairness, expertise, and quality in his “wholly owned” system.

One of the lead attorneys for Mr. Ameen is Round Table stalwart and former Immigration Judge Ilyce Shugall!  Congrats to Ilyce and her team!

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Member Rounds Table of Former Immigration Judges

Here’s more on the case from KCRA News:  https://www.kcra.com/article/omar-ameen-cannot-be-sent-to-iraq-what-happens-next/39566797

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-29-22

 

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  2. ☹️HE BEAT THE GOVERNMENT TWICE IN COURT — But, After Three Years In Jail Without Being Charged With Any Crime, Omar Ameen Still Can’t Get A Bond From Garland’s Courts —  How Can A System Where The Prosecutor Makes The Rules & Picks The Judges, Mostly From The Ranks Of Former Prosecutors, Provide The “Fair & Impartial Judging” Required By Due Process?
  3. FACT: THE ROUND TABLE 🛡⚔️ HELPS LEAD THE FIGHT AGAINST EOIR CLOWN 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ SHOW’S “DYING GASP” ASSAULTS 🤮 ON THE MOST VULNERABLE AMONG US! — “Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere!” — Rev. MLK, Jr.
  4. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🇺🇸MUST-READ FOR TEAM GARLAND @ DOJ: ABA COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION JOINS CALL FOR INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I IMMIGRATION COURT, MAJOR DUE PROCESS REFORMS, END OF WHITE NATIONALIST KAKISTOCRACY @ EOIR! 

🗽⚖️👍🏼😎😉SAVED BY UDC LAW! — Associate Dean Lindsay Harris & Immigration & Human Rights Clinic (“IHRC”) Score A Win For Justice, Nigerian Asylum Seeker!

Professor Lindsay Muir Harris
Professor Lindsay Muir Harris
Associate Dean
UDC Law

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/law-students-win-asylum-for-nigerian-voting-rights-activist

Law Students Win Asylum for Nigerian Voting Rights Activist

IHRC, Mar. 25, 2022

“Students in the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) worked to obtain asylum for a voting rights activist from Nigeria. This case prompted the Clinic to develop a resource to assist asylees in understanding their rights.

The clinic took on the case of a Nigerian woman, Chioma*, who had been active in organizing women and youth in the Delta region to vote against corrupt political candidates. She drew crowds of women and youth as an effective organizer, simultaneously drawing the ire of incumbent politicians. Armed thugs targeted Chioma in her home in 2019, resulting in her hospitalization. Refusing to back down, she later attended a political event where she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. Deciding she would rather stay alive for her children – even if far away – Chioma fled to the U.S. and left her family behind.

Clinic students Forrest Lindelof and Chizoba Kagha, both 3Ls, picked up Chioma’s case in the fall semester and worked under the supervision of Associate Dean of Clinical and Experiential Programs Lindsay M. Harris to complete her declaration, a detailed narrative of what she had endured in Nigeria and what she feared. The students crafted a legal brief with supporting evidence they obtained through working with a country conditions expert, a therapist and a medical doctor. The legal arguments were challenging because of the client’s dual citizenship in Cameroon and Nigeria; they needed to argue she would face persecution in both nations. The students had to become experts in the complex political dynamics at play in both countries, along with the citizenship laws.

This case also hit close to home for both students. Kagha shared, “I am the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who relocated to the United States in hopes of a better opportunity for their future children. When we began working with our client, I immediately felt a connection to her.”

As well, Lindelof related the client’s story to that of his immigrant mother. “As the son of an immigrant, it was not difficult to imagine my mother experiencing similar maltreatment and vulnerability. We worked that much harder, knowing that our work would have a meaningful impact on our client and her future.”

Moreover, the students got to know their client and were inspired by Chioma’s strength, resilience and personality. Lindelof described her as “jolly and good-humored” and the case as “a great source of pride.” Kagha added, “Her personality lit up a room, and her passion for helping others was inspiring.”

After working diligently with the client to prepare for the asylum interview, the students accompanied her to the asylum interview in November. After extensive questioning, Kagha delivered the closing statement, drawing together all the key issues in the case.

In January, Lindelof, Kagha and Harris received word that Chioma’s asylum application had been approved. The client was ecstatic, as was the UDC Law team. “To be able to sit in the asylum office as a Nigerian female student attorney delivering the closing statement for a Nigerian female client is a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life,” said Kagha.

Chioma was eager to be reunited with her spouse and children as soon as possible, but she was worried about accessing the asylee benefits to which she is entitled. Dean Harris has written about these benefits in depth in a 2016 article, From Surviving to Thriving: An Examination of Asylee Integration in the United States. Due to Chioma’s questions and concerns about her accessing public benefits rendering her a “public charge,” Dean Harris brought on 1L Clinical Associate Kendra Li to create a helpful one-page resource, Asylum and Public Charge. This resource clearly explains that asylees like Chioma are exempt from the public charge bar to adjustment of status to become a lawful permanent resident and eventually U.S. citizen.

“The best way to master a subject is to teach it to someone else,” Li said of developing the resource. “The public charge rule isn’t a complicated topic, but the process of researching it and distilling that research into a digestible and accessible product really cemented the learning.”

The document answers questions common for Chioma and other asylees. Li explained the need for creating this resource to answer these questions not only for the client in this case but countless other asylees. “Even though the Trump administration’s attempt to expand the public charge rule couldn’t, by law, apply to asylum seekers, it unsurprisingly – and perhaps deliberately – created a chilling effect well beyond the categories of immigrants it actually impacted,” Li said. “Our country is stronger and more just when the public benefits we provide reach all the people they’re meant to lift up, so it’s important to get the right information out there.”

Lindelof, under Harris’s supervision, quickly filed petitions to bring Chioma’s children and spouse to the United States and is now working to expedite those requests. Since Chioma was forced to flee Nigeria in 2019, thugs hired by political actors have targeted her husband at least five times, searching for Chioma and her whereabouts. The Clinic will stand by Chioma and her family throughout the lengthy process of family reunification and consular processing at the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. In the meantime, Chioma hopes to reengage in organizing and contribute to her community in the United States.

All three students reflected on how this case and their time engaging with the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic have enriched their legal education and helped them prepare for their careers.

“It is tough to express how meaningful my clinic experience was at UDC Law,” Lindelof said. “I came to law school with a background in psychology, having done a lot of fulfilling work with children with disabilities and individuals who suffered from addiction. I had not quite felt that same sense of fulfillment until my time at the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic. It renewed my passion for the law.”

Li “came to law school to practice immigration law and chose UDC for its clinical program.” She added, “I’m very appreciative to be involved as a 1L. This was a great first-year project. If this one pager helps just one person, it’ll have been well worth the effort.”

Kagha chose to attend UDC Law because of her “desire to positively impact the lives of others, especially people who look like me. To be able to sit in the asylum office as a Nigerian female student attorney delivering the closing statement for a Nigerian female client is a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life.”

Lindelof added praise for Dean Harris and the ways in which working with her have helped him narrow down his post-law school path. “Working with a supervisor with such tremendous drive and passion was infectious. Dean Harris did a great job tying the clinic’s content to racial justice and deficiencies in the justice system, which impacted my philosophy about the law and my general outlook on the world. It also drove me to seek out a career in immigration. I am humbled at the opportunity that I will be working for the D.C. Affordable Law Firm and practicing hopefully both family law and immigration next year, which happen to be the clinics I was a part of at UDC.”

*Name changed to preserve anonymity.”

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

Congrats to my friend Dean Harris and her terrific students on saving another life in a system that often eats up humanity without much regard for justice. 

This case is a prime example of why “expedited” asylum calendars are a bad idea that 1) impedes effective preparation and representation by attorneys; 2) underestimates the complexity of many asylum cases, particularly under today’s skewed, often hyper technical, anti-asylum framework established and promoted by the BIA; 3) violates due process and best practices by encouraging judges to focus on speed and artificial time limits, rather than using careful scholarship along with fair and careful procedures to achieve correct results.

This also shows the extreme harm caused by the Trump-Miller White Nationalist “public charge sham” and the damage to the integrity of our justice system of a intellectually dishonest, imperious GOP Supremes’ majority who enabled Trump’s cruelty and evil nonsense to corrupt justice in America. (The Supremes had improperly lifted a correct nationwide injunction against the Trump Administration’s scofflaw scheme, before the Biden Administration finally was allowed to withdraw the case from the Court.)

It’s also interesting that the task of “setting the record straight” on the chilling effects of the former Trump policy fell to Dean Harris and the IHRC. In a more functional and just system, one might envision such public information efforts being undertaken by the Government!

Additionally, Dean Harris directly ties the meltdown and systemic unfairness of our Immigration Courts to the overall problems of racism and lack of equal justice in our country. That’s a lesson that could profit AG Garland and his lieutenants who so far have mostly pretended that the dysfunctional, biased, and broken Immigration Courts exist in a bubble beyond the other problems facing our democracy. There will be no equal justice in American without equal justice for immigrants!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-27-22

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  3. DEMS NEED TO STOP REPEATING THE BOGUS 🤥 NARRATIVES ABOUT THE (LARGELY SELF-CREATED & OVERBLOWN) “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS:” Channeling “Courtside,” Yale Schacher Sets Forth A Plan For Using Experts To Not Only Reinstitute But Drastically Improve Due Process ⚖️🗽🇺🇸 For Asylum Seekers! — It’s NOT Rocket 🚀 Science!
  4. 🏴‍☠️THE PROBLEM @ THE BORDER ISN’T THAT BIDEN HAS  SOFTENED TRUMP’S RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW RHETORIC! — IT’S THAT BIDEN, GARLAND, & MAYORKAS HAVE FAILED TO RESTORE A ROBUST ASYLUM SYSTEM AT LEGAL PORTS OF ENTRY, STAFFED WITH EXPERT ASYLUM OFFICERS & QUALIFIED IMMIGRATION JUDGES WHO WILL GRANT ASYLUM TO THOSE QUALIFIED, END IDIOTIC TRUMP-ERA MISINTERPRETATIONS & MIS-APPLICATIONS OF ASYLUM LAW, AND ARE DEDICATED TO DUE PROCESS FOR ALL! — Administration’s  Misguided “Trump Lite” Approach Continues To Create Human Misery,☠️⚰️ Trash The Law, 🤮 Without Addressing The Real Problems Generated By Years Of “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡🆘 In U.S. Asylum & Refugee Policies!  — Jack Herrera Reports From The Border For Politico!

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

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

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

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

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

Check this out!  It’s free!

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

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-25-22

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

Related posts:

  1. 👍🏼⚖️🗽MAJORITY OF ASYLUM SEEKERS WIN THEIR CASES, EVEN IN A BROKEN & BIASED  SYSTEM INTENTIONALLY STACKED AGAINST THEM — But, Only, If They Can Get To A “Merits Adjudication!” — Nativist Lies, Myths, Driving USG Policies Exposed! — Why USCIS & EOIR Self-Created Backlogs Primarily Shaft Those Deserving Legal Protection Of Some Type!
  2. FROM THE HEIGHTS OF KASINGA TO THE DEPTHS OF AMERICA’S DEADLY STAR CHAMBERS: Will The Biden Administration Tap The New Due Process Army To Fix EOIR & Save Our Nation? 
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻IN NYT OP-ED, FORMER TRUMP DOJ ATTORNEY ERICA NEWLAND ADMITS COMPLICITY! — Having Undermined Democratic Institutions, Sold False Narratives To (Too Often Willing) Federal Judges, & Participated In Racist-Inspired “Dred Scottification” (“Dehumanization”) Of the Other Is Actually a BIG Deal! — So Is The Destruction Of Due Process & Fundamental Fairness In The Immigration Courts (Now, “Clown Courts”🤡, or “America’s Star Chambers”☠️) 
  4. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️CAMILLE J.  MACKLER @ JUST SECURITY “GETS IT!” — How Come Judge Garland & The Biden Administration Don’t? — “If we want to re-build a better, stronger immigration system, we need to start with immigration courts.” — Get Involved! Get Angry! Say No To Institutionalized Racism, Misogyny, & Dehumanization (“Dred Scottification”) @ EOIR! Force Judge Garland To Pay Attention! Demand Change, Now!

ICRC: “Migration is not going to stop. If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”

Reuters reports:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/migration-violence-mexico-central-america?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Waves of migration through Mexico and Central America, and people who go missing, will increase in 2022 due to high levels of violence in the region, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

Battle-scarred ghost town bears mute witness to Mexico’s drug wars

“In many countries, violence is wreaking more and more havoc, and that’s why there are more and more migrants,” ICRC representative Jordi Raich told Reuters in an interview Wednesday. “And it’s not a situation that is going to improve or slow down, not even in the years to come.“

Immigration authorities in Mexico detained 307,679 migrants in 2021, a 68% increase compared with 182,940 detentions in 2019, according to government data.

Shelters in Mexico were completely overwhelmed last year, filled with frustrated migrants unable to continue their journey to the United States, Raich said.

Many migrants get “stuck” along Mexico’s southern or northern borders, Raich said, where they face “enormous economic constraints” and are able to find only basic services.

The administration of Joe Biden has faced record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern border and has implored Mexico and Central American countries to do more to stem the wave.

Disappearances in the region have not slowed either, the Red Cross said in a report released Thursday. Mexico recently surpassed 100,000 people reported missing in the country.

In El Salvador, 488 missing person cases remain unsolved, and in Guatemala, the number of missing women rose to six a day, the Red Cross report said.

Raich said it will be difficult to respond to the root causes of migration immediately. A joint effort among countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras is necessary, he added.

“Migration is not going to stop,” Raich said. “If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration on Thursday rolled out a sweeping new regulation that aims to speed up asylum processing and deportations at the US-Mexico border, amid a record number of migrants seeking to enter the US.

The announcement of the new rule came as US officials are debating whether to end a separate Covid-era policy that has blocked most asylum claims at the border. The asylum overhaul could provide a faster way to process border crossers if the Covid order is ended.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

Cruelty, walls, detention, family separation, border militarization, expedited hearings — they aren’t going to stop human migration. We will be able to increase border deaths, expand the scope of “black market migration,” increase our “underground population,” and enrich human smugglers.  Good policy? 

Meanwhile, it’s obvious that the “disingenuous internal debate” on Title 42 has nothing whatsoever to do with public health and everything to do with whether continued illegal and immoral suspension of asylum protections at the border will prove politically advantageous to the Biden Administration. It won’t! It might, however, cost Dems support among progressives.

How dishonest and unethical is the Biden Administration’s discussion of violating the law? (Do we actually have an Attorney General?) According to the WashPost, scofflaw Biden Administration officials actually are considering lifting Title 42 for families, but not for single males! https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/24/border-biden-migrants-influx-pandemic/

There is, of course, no known medical evidence that “single males” present a greater COVID threat than families! Indeed, there is no known medical evidence to suggest that any potential asylum applicant is a threat to the health and safety of the US.

The whole thing is a deadly farce! Why aren’t Hill Dems calling for oversight of Garland’s sitting by and watching while the law and ethics are pulverized around him? Or worse yet, what about his Department’s defense of abrogation of our laws? Believe it or not, we actually have asylum and protection laws on the books, duly enacted by Congress, although you’d never know it from Garland’s feckless performance!

Meanwhile, WashPost and other so-called “mainstream media” continue to hype stories about increased border pressure. So, continuing to violate asylum law is a viable alternative “strategy?” Give me a break! How is violating the law going to stop folks from fleeing deadly conditions in their home countries? It won’t, as the ICRC points out above!

What it will do, as also pointed out above, is kill more asylum seekers, subject them to rape, torture and other harm, enrich smugglers, and increase the extralegal population in the U.S.!

Blaine Bookey
Blaine Bookey
Legal Director
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies @ Hastings Law
Photo: CGRS website

It also will increase those waiting in vain at the Southern Border for the reopening of a legal asylum system that has abandoned them! In the words of one expert:

“The conditions are squalid,” said Blaine Bookey, the legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, who led a team interviewing dozens of families waiting in Tijuana for the federal government to lift Title 42. “There is real lack of access to sanitation, medical care, adequate food, all of the real basic fundamental necessities.”

. . . .

“There have been some exceptions made for Ukrainians, which we’re happy to see, but the policy should be ended for everyone,” Bookey said. “There was never a public health justification, and there certainly isn’t now.” (WashPost, supra).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) babbles nativist nonsense:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said at a committee hearing last week that the influx has “completely derailed” efforts to discuss improving legal immigration to the United States, which he said states such as Texas need to staff hospitals and fill jobs. Border states such as Texas and Arizona are bracing for higher numbers of unauthorized immigrants in coming weeks, he said.

“Rather than deter would-be migrants with weak asylum claims from taking the dangerous journey to the southwest border, the administration has rolled out the welcome mat and created new incentives to illegally immigrate to the United States,” he said at the March 15 hearing before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship and border safety.

To my knowledge, neither Cornyn nor any of his other GOP nativist buddies have ever adjudicated an asylum application. Nor have they represented asylum seekers before the Asylum Office or in our broken Immigration Courts. So, how would that have any idea whether certain asylum claims are “weak” or not? They wouldn‘t!

Moreover, we haven’t had a functioning asylum system at our Southern Border for years. So, how would anyone know how many of the claims are  “weak?” They wouldn’t?

Remarkably, apparently unknown to Cornyn and his scofflaw buddies, we actually have laws to deal with his concerns. When the legal system is “open for business” — which it isn’t now — those claiming asylum at the border are subject to “summary exclusion” by DHS officers. Their claims are then expeditiously reviewed by Asylum Officers for a “credible fear” of asylum. Those who don’t establish credible fear, subject only to cursory review by an Immigration Judge, can be immediately removed by DHS.

Historically, when the system was at least nominally functional, those “passing” credible fear have been turned over to the now dysfunctional Immigration Courts. Under Trump, these “parodies of courts”  were “weaponized” into “asylum killing grounds.”

Sessions and Barr packed their non-independent “captive courts” with “judges” perceived to be “enforcement oriented” and “anti-asylum” — willing to skew the law and facts as necessary to deny and deport. This mess is “led” by an appellate body, the BIA, which contains some of the most notorious members of the “Asylum Deniers’ Club”  — folks who got their appellate jobs under Barr specifically because as Immigraton Judges they denied almost every asylum case that came before them! In other words, even when there was some semblance of a legal asylum system, it was redesigned under Trump to be systemically unfair to asylum seekers, particularly women and applicants of color. For sure, racism and misogyny played into this unseemly scenario.

Remarkably, Garland has chosen to maintain this dysfunctional, biased, and broken system largely in the form it existed and with almost all of the same unqualified or questionably qualified “judges” he inherited from Session and Barr!

While the Administration has announced “new interim regulations” that would allow Asylum Officers to grant meritorious cases without going before Immigration Courts, the system still depends on “guidance,” supervision, and de novo review by the broken, biased, and dysfunctional Immigration Courts running amok under Garland. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/03/24/🏴☠%EF%B8%8Fno-surprise-boston-asylum-office-screws-🔩-maine-refugees-☠%EF%B8%8F-part-of-a-serious-national-anti-asylum-bias-largely/

Our broken asylum system can’t and won’t be fixed without dealing head-on with the overarching problem — systemic anti-asylum bias, poor quality decision-making, grotesque inconsistencies, and beyond incompetent administration of our Immigraton Courts by the DOJ!

Remarkably, Garland’s proposed solution is yet another “designed to fail” gimmick — expedite cases in his broken and biased, anti-asylum system! So the solution to a defective court system, infected with anti-asylum bias and poorly qualified judges turning out defective decisions is to make it “go faster!” The new regulations also fail to deal with the huge due process issue of lack of competent representation in the asylum system, particularly the Immigration Courts. Come on man!

We don’t need over 500 pages of new regulations and sophomoric, alternate universe “time limits” for an agency that can’t even find its files! What we need is for Garland to do the job he was hired to do more than a year ago! That’s  “clean house” at the Immigration Courts, bring in competent, fair judges who have experience in Immigration Court and are legitimate, well-recognized asylum experts — starting with a new BIA (save for their one qualified Appellate Immigration Judge Andrea Saenz, a Garland appointee).

Get expert judges, intellectual leaders, and competent judicial administrators into the broken Immigration Court system to provide coherent, practical asylum legal guidance and work with advocates, the Asylum Office, and DHS to get a functional and fair legal asylum system in place and operating smoothly and efficiently at the border. It should already be in place by now. That it isn’t, is entirely “on Garland!”

Then, with experts who actually are committed to fairly and impartially applying asylum law in place, we’ll see, for the first time, how many of the asylum claims are valid and how many aren’t! And, while we’re at it, we might find that many of the “legal” immigrants Texas and the rest of America needs are right there at our borders — just waiting for our legal system to do justice and admit them. Asylum seekers are seeking legal immigration! It the USG that’s acting “illegally” here!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-26-22

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. EOIR TARGETS UNACCOMPANIED KIDS FOR DEPORATION RAILROAD!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

🗽END THE “DOUBLE STANDARD” FOR REFUGEES — All Refugees Must Be Treated With Respect, Dignity, & In Accordance With The International Legal Standards! 

 

Nikolái Ingistov-García
Nikolái Ingistov-García Lecturer in Spanish Language and Latin American Studies at UC Riverside


http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=7fe1b555-69d3-499c-b9cc-3deaebd50a26

A glaring double standard on refugees

The portrayal and treatment of Ukrainians fleeing war and of Haitian, Central American and Mexican asylum seekers also fleeing deadly violence could not be more different

By Nikolái Ingistov-García

. . . .

Over the course of that weekend, I watched how the Ukrainian refugee crisis grew day by day. I read that Airbnb was paying for thousands of refugees to stay in their rooms. Thousands of Europeans in dozens of countries opened their doors to Ukrainians. I was encouraged but bothered at the same time. Media outlets all over the world from the left, right and center praised the courage of these refugees, and some reporters called them heroes.

An overwhelming majority of my students in my classes at UCR are Latino. Several of them are refugees from Latin America, and a few are “Dreamers.” I asked if any of them noticed anything with this growing refugee crisis in Eastern Europe, and several were quick to point out the double standard.

A few weeks before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine started, my class watched interviews about the forced sterilization of Latina refugees at an immigration detention center in Georgia. We discussed the Latino children fleeing Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala who are being held in U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement detention centers to this day. The double standard in the me-dia’s portrayal of the Ukrainian refugees in Europe compared with the images of Haitian, Central American and Mexican migrants at the Mexican border was obvious to everyone in my class.

I thought about the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Ukraine and the tens of thousands of refugees who have had to flee their homes in Central America, Mexico and other parts of Latin America because of wars, dictatorships, gang warfare and cartel terrorism. Refugees and migrants who are uprooted from their homes all go through trauma whether they come from Latinoamérica or Eastern Europe.

The images of people fleeing Ukraine shook me as I remembered my family’s histories from Ukraine and Mexico, with both sides leaving their homelands for a better life.

. . . .

Ukraine and Mexico came together to form my family in the borderland of Los Angeles. My Chicano-Mexican-Russian-Ukrainian border-crossing identity hurts as I watch Putin’s war unfold while more waves of Latin American and, very recently, Ukrainian refugees arrive at the Tijuana-U.S. border. My hope is that out of this tragedy, future refugees that come to the Mexican border, whether they are from Honduras or Ukraine, are treated with equal dignity — which all of them deserve.

Nikolái Ingistov-García is a lecturer in Spanish languageand Latin American Studies at UC Riverside.

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

Ukrainian refugees are “courageous heroes.” Meanwhile, equally brave and deserving refugees of color from Haiti, Latin America, and Africa are dehumanized, degraded, and removed to potential death or danger without a thought and in violation of law. 

They are often called by the misnomer “illegal migrants” — or worse! Ironically, however, the refugees arriving at Southern Border, even if not “invited,” are exercising internationally and domestically recognized legal rights to apply for asylum and other legal protections from involuntary return, some mandatory!

Of course, as intelligent humans, they don’t wait in vain or line up for “imaginary invitations” that will never come! We have no viable refugee programs for Haiti, Africa, and Latin America. Indeed, after four years of Trump and one of Biden we barely have any refugee programs anywhere! Even worse, we have immorally and illegally closed legal ports of entry to asylum seekers. So, having left refugees no viable legal avenues for seeking refuge in the U.S., a right guaranteed by both statute and international convention, we dehumanize and degrade them for using the only “self-help” methods available! Talk about chutzpah!  

It’s actually folks like Vice President Harris, Secretary Mayorkas, AG Garland, and his band of scofflaw lawyers at the DOJ who are the “illegals” in this  scenario. The Biden Administration is hardly the first to turn refugee and asylum laws as well as the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of our Constitution on their heads.

The Trump regime gloried in violating the law and mistreating refugees simply for the cruelty, racism, and hate involved. Shockingly, with a some exceptions, life-tenured Federal Judges gave them a pass — particularly at the Supremes which developed their own “special double standard” to dehumanize and “Dred Scottify” immigrants of color!

The Biden Administration sweeps their own gross misconduct and racially charged “double standards” under the rug! Under Garland, the DOJ has “gone along to get along” and even disgracefully defended illegal, immoral, and deadly removals without any process at all. In doing so, they have advanced some of the same discredited myths and disingenuous pretexts developed by Miller, Sessions, Barr and the Jim Crow White Nationalist nativists!

The “mainstream media” give excruciatingly detailed coverage of the humanitarian plight of Ukrainian refugees. Meanwhile, the similar humanitarian plight of vulnerable equally deserving refugees of color, like Ukrainians many of them desperate women and children, gets little coverage outside of a few specialized reporters. 

Of course, beyond the rhetoric, the Biden Administration has actually done very little to help even Ukrainian refugees beyond hollow expressions of sympathy and using them as “props” in the “war of words” with Putin. Leadership is a combination of rhetoric backed with action! 

Our refugee and asylum systems are in shambles, without the leadership and expertise in place to respond to either predictable refugee flows or humanitarian catastrophes in a practical and effective way. That needs to end! But, unfortunately, its hard to see the current, spineless (non) leadership from Harris, Mayorkas, Garland, and others in this Administration getting the job done!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-21-22

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸😎⚖️🗽👍🏼LAW YOU CAN USE:  Michelle Mendez and CLINIC Publish A New Practice Advisory on Opening & Closing Statements in Immigration Court
  2. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️KAKISTOCRACY WATCH: AILA Blasts Appointment Of Prosecutors Without Judicial Qualifications To Top Judicial Positions in Billy the Bigot’s Weaponized Anti-Due-Process “Court” System — Dysfunction, Bias, Illegitimate Decisions Run Rampant As Congress, Article IIIs Fail to Enforce U.S. Constitution!
  3. FROM THE HEIGHTS OF KASINGA TO THE DEPTHS OF AMERICA’S DEADLY STAR CHAMBERS: Will The Biden Administration Tap The New Due Process Army To Fix EOIR & Save Our Nation? 
  4. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”

🤯JUXTAPOSITION OF THE WEEK: INCOMPETENCE OF USG IMMIGRATION BUREAUCRACY HARMFUL TO PRACTITIONERS’ HEALTH!☠️🤮

Drowning Chain
“Drowning Chain”
Public Realm

These items were posted together this week on LexsNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/uscis-contact-center-is-more-a-source-of-frustration-than-assistance

USCIS Contact Center is More a Source of Frustration than Assistance

Cyrus D. Mehta, Kaitlyn Box, and Jessica Paszko, Mar. 15, 2022

“The USCIS Contact Center purports to provide tools for checking case statuses online, correcting notices that contain mistakes or were never delivered, and connecting applicants to a representative for live support. However, the Contact Center is more often a source of frustration than assistance. We outline some of our firm’s experiences with the Contact Center, and provide suggestions for improving its services.

One common set of issues occurs when an attorney attempts to place a call or e-request on behalf of a client. USCIS refuses to speak with even the managing attorney of the firm if a different attorney has submitted a Form G-28. Difficulties arise when the attorney of record has departed the firm or is otherwise unavailable, and other attorneys are then unable to utilize the Contact Center to assist a client. Even when the alternate attorney on the case submits a Form G-28, the Contact Center often is unable to track the submission of  a new Form G-28 and refuses to speak with the alternate attorney.   In some instances, USCIS will speak with an alternate attorney if the client is also on the call. This arrangement, however, defeats the purpose of a Form G-28 by forcing the client verbally give permission for representation over the phone, and is highly inconvenient when an attorney cannot be physically in the room with a client or arrange a conference call.

Additionally, USCIS only allows certain interested parties to a case to utilize the Contact Center to make queries. Only the petitioner or an attorney/accredited representative can submit e-requests in connection with a Form I-129 or I-140 petition, for example. USCIS will not respond to requests placed by the beneficiary of such petitions, although the beneficiary may be more sensitive to delayed receipt notices or misspelling on approval notices, and in a better position to raise these issues to USCIS than the employer.

Further, the USCIS Contact Center is not always responsive to requests, even when they are placed by a recognized party. Our office has observed instances of receipt notices that contain errors failing to get corrected, even after multiples calls and e-requests from the attorney of record. When USCIS does not timely rectify errors of this kind and issues an approval notice still containing a misspelling, applicants are forced to file a Form I-824 and pay the considerable $465 filing fee to seek a correction. The processing time for an I-824 ranges from a few months to upwards of 24 months.

Delays in processing applications have become endemic. Applicants do not get an employment authorization document issued in time and can lose their job. Also, obtaining advance parole to travel takes several months. One can use the USCIS Contact Center to make an expedite request under its articulated criteria. Unfortunately, most expedited requests get denied even though they fit the criteria

The problems with the USCIS Contact Center have widely been observed. On February 28, 2022, 47 members of Congress wrote a letter to DHS urging it to make improvements to the Contact Center. See AILA, Forty-Seven Members of Congress Urge DHS to Make Improvements to USCIS Contact Center, AILA Doc. No. 22030300 (Feb. 28, 2022),  https://www.aila.org/infonet/urging-dhs-to-make-improvements-to-uscis-contact. Among the improvements suggested by the members of Congress were providing accurate and accommodating callback windows for customers submitting requests through InfoMod, allowing law firm staff other than the attorney of record to make requests through the Contact Center, making the criteria used to grant appointments through InfoMod public, and offering walk-in availability for emergency requests at local USCIS offices.

Notwithstanding its shortcomings, the USCIS Contact Center has facilitated positive outcomes for some individuals. The USCIS 800 number has been helpful in getting corrected notices sent to applicants, or in this firm’s experience, ensuring that beneficiaries to an approved I-140 receive copies of Notices of Intent to Revoke under Matter of V-S-G- Inc., Adopted Decision 2017-06 (AAO Nov. 11, 2017).”

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

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/the-lifeguard-is-drowning-identifying-and-combating-burnout-and-secondary-trauma-in-asylum-practitioners-free-aba-webinar

The Lifeguard is Drowning: Identifying and Combating Burnout and Secondary Trauma in Asylum Practitioners (Free ABA Webinar)

The Lifeguard is Drowning: Identifying and Combating Burnout and Secondary Trauma in Asylum Practitioners

Register here.

 

Asylum attorneys have been facing a longstanding mental health crisis. The pandemic, sweeping regulatory changes, and uncertainty created deeper dimensions of stress in an already chaotic immigration system. To address this crisis, in 2020, Professors Lindsay Harris and Hillary Mellinger surveyed over 700 immigration attorneys utilizing the National Asylum Attorney Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress Survey. Their groundbreaking study found that asylum attorneys displayed symptoms of burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) at rates higher than immigration judges, social workers, hospital doctors, nurses, and prison wardens. Asylum attorneys reported burnout symptoms including not only depression, but boredom, cynicism, discouragement, and a loss of compassion. Notably, STS symptoms mirror Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which include intrusive thoughts, traumatic nightmares, insomnia, chronic irritability, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and hypervigilance.

The ABA has a longstanding commitment to address and identify resources to ameliorate attorney well-being and mental health. While strides have been made, this panel seeks to build upon the study to facilitate a normative shift away from old mental health paradigms to a culture of openly discussing burnout and secondary trauma within law school settings, non-profits, government agencies, and law firms.

This webinar, moderated by Deena Sharuk, Senior Legal Advisor to the ABA Commission on Immigration (COI), along with experts Law Professor Lindsay Harris, Criminal Justice and Criminology Professor Hillary Mellinger, ABA COI Senior Staff Attorney Eloy Gardea, and Leora Hudak from Center for Victims of Torture will discuss the implications of the survey’s findings on lawyers, their clients, and the immigration system. The panelists will discuss concrete ways to shift the norms in the legal profession on an individual and institutional level for attorneys to build sustainable careers in this field.

 

Time: Apr 7, 2022 03:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

 

pastedGraphic.png

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

Of course, USCIS isn’t the only part of the dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy taking a toll on the heath of practitioners and their clients. 

Over at EOIR, poor leadership, overly bureaucratized management, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” mindless enforcement “gimmicks,” a “Miller Lite” BIA, poor judicial selections by the Trump regime unaddressed by Garland, anti-immigrant/anti-asylum seeker “culture,” disdain for due process, disregard for best practices, endless largely self-generated backlogs, and lack of transparency continue to plague the system and torment advocates.

Unlike DOJ and EOIR, the ABA Panel conducting this webinar is made up of true subject matter experts and all-star practical scholars.

Deena Sharuk
Deena Sharuk
Senior Advisor
ABA Commission on Immigration
Professor Lindsay Muir Harris
Professor Lindsay Muir Harris
UDC Law
Hillary Mellinger
Dr. Hillary Mellinger
Assistant Professor
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology
Washington State University
PHOTO: WSU
Eloy Gardea
Eloy Gardea
Senior Staff Attorney
ABA Commission on Immigration
PHOTO: Facebook
Leora Hudak
Leora Hudak
Program Manager
Center for Victims of
Torture
PHOTO: Linkedin

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-19-22

Related posts:

  1. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  3. 🏴‍☠️THE PROBLEM @ THE BORDER ISN’T THAT BIDEN HAS  SOFTENED TRUMP’S RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW RHETORIC! — IT’S THAT BIDEN, GARLAND, & MAYORKAS HAVE FAILED TO RESTORE A ROBUST ASYLUM SYSTEM AT LEGAL PORTS OF ENTRY, STAFFED WITH EXPERT ASYLUM OFFICERS & QUALIFIED IMMIGRATION JUDGES WHO WILL GRANT ASYLUM TO THOSE QUALIFIED, END IDIOTIC TRUMP-ERA MISINTERPRETATIONS & MIS-APPLICATIONS OF ASYLUM LAW, AND ARE DEDICATED TO DUE PROCESS FOR ALL! — Administration’s  Misguided “Trump Lite” Approach Continues To Create Human Misery,☠️⚰️ Trash The Law, 🤮 Without Addressing The Real Problems Generated By Years Of “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡🆘 In U.S. Asylum & Refugee Policies!  — Jack Herrera Reports From The Border For Politico!
  4. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮

🤯“MAINSTREAM MEDIA” FINALLY CATCHES UP WITH “COURTSIDE” — Trump’s Evil Cruelty, Biden’s “Slows” Combine To Shaft Ukrainians, Russians, Other Refugees, While Failing Our Allies! — It’s An Inexcusable Mess, Just As Many Of Us Predicted!☠️🤮

Screwed
“Screwed”
By Pearson Scott Foresman
Public Domain

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Special Report

March 18, 2022

For the last year, “Courtside” has been ripping the incredibly poor, timid, stunning lack of vision leadership, expertise, common sense, and morality in the Biden Administration’s failure to restore and expand a robust overseas refugee program and to enforce the rule of law and due process in our asylum system at the border and in the US. Even as I write this, Garland’s failed BIA, with too many Trump restrictionist holdover judges, continues to crank out bad asylum precedents and anti-immigrant legally incorrect appellate decisions and precedents. 

DOJ mindlessly continues to advance and defend the indefensible in Federal Court. It’s “Miller Lite” on steroids! Squandering taxpayer money, wasting scarce pro bono resources, and worst of all, endangering human lives!

Stephen Miller Monster
This guy has to be thrilled with Garland’s approach to human rights, racial justice, and due process @ DOJ! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

Essential human rights issues like providing definitive, generous, positive guidance to move gender-based asylum cases through the system, correcting “intentionally overly restrictive” and ridiculously hyper-technical, legally wrong, highly impractical applications of supposedly “generous” asylum laws, lack of common sense, expertise, understanding, and humanity remain endemic in Garland’s broken “court” system and the USCIS Asylum Offices which are supposed to be under their legal guidance. 

The border effectively remains illegally and irrationally closed to refugees seeking asylum! Absurdly, the decisions as to who lives and who dies are left to the unfettered, unreviewable, “discretion” of Border Patrol Agents who are glaringly unqualified to make them. There aren’t even any known criteria in effect!

Indeed, that’s the precise reason why Congress created Asylum Officers and put them and Immigration Judges into the life or death asylum screening process, only to have Trump abrogate the law as Federal Courts meekly and fecklessly stood by! Hardly America’s finest moment!

There is plenty of irresponsibility to go around! But, dilatory “What Me Worry” AG Merrick Garland and his feckless lieutenants Lisa Monaco, Vanita Gupta, Kristen Clarke, and Liz Prelogar, along with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, deserve “special censure” for the brewing, unnecessarily out of control humanitarian and equal justice crisis!

Alfred E. Neumann
Garland’s tone-deaf approach to human rights and the rule of law now threatens the international order and the lives of perhaps millions of refugees and asylum seekers!
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

The WashPost finally “gets” it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/16/united-states-open-doors-ukraine-refugees/

The Biden administration’s immigration policy to date has been shambling. It can now do one big thing right: step up, grant humanitarian parole and help resettle Ukrainian refugees.

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

So does Catherine Rampell, writing in WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/17/ukrainians-are-suffering-consequences-of-our-broken-immigration-system/

Trump’s xenophobic policies had consequences beyond the cruelty inflicted while he was in office. Ultimately, they hobbled our ability to provide aid during a humanitarian catastrophe and thereby protect our own national security interests. Now, Biden must not only respond to the current crisis but also repair our institutions so that we have greater capacity to deal with future ones.

I’m sure traumatized Ukrainians and Russian dissidents being improperly turned back at our border were comforted by the following tone-deaf blather from Mayorkas as reported by Deepa Fernandes in the SF Chron:

 

Deepa Fernandes
Deepa Fernandes
Immigration Reporter
SF Chronicle
PHOTO: SF Chron

https://www.sfchronicle.com/us-world/article/They-protested-Putin-and-fled-their-country-Now-17010445.php

On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas told reporters that Border Patrol agents were reminded they have some leeway with regard to enforcing Title 42, particularly when it comes to those fleeing the crisis in Ukraine, BuzzFeed News reported.

“This was policy guidance that reminded (border officers) of those individualized determinations and their applicability to Ukrainian nationals as they apply to everyone else,” the online news outlet quoted Mayorkas as telling reporters.

Come on, man! You’ve got to be kidding me!

Belatedly, it appears that the Biden Administration is now “considering” restoring the rule of law at the borders (something they actually promised during the election), according to Alexandra Meeks over at CNN:

Alexandra Meeks
ALexandra Meeks
Current News Reporter
CNN
PHOTO: Linkedin

 

 

\

 

 

 

https://e.newsletters.cnn.com/click?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

The Biden administration is preparing for the potential of mass migration to the US-Mexico border when a Trump-era pandemic emergency rule ends. The influx is expected because officials are considering the possibility of terminating a public health order known as Title 42, which border authorities have relied on to turn away migrants, sources familiar with the discussions said. Internal documents, first reported by Axios, estimate around 170,000 people may be coming to the US border and some 25,000 migrants are already in shelters in Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security has asked department personnel to volunteer at the Mexico border in response.

But, it’s not clear that they have any real plan in mind. That’s certainly the case in Garland’s dysfunctional, astoundingly backlogged (1.6 million known cases) Immigration “Courts” led by a Trump restrictionist BIA. “Gauleiter” Stephen Miller must evilly chuckle every morning at how Garland has left his “designed for White Nationalism” system largely in place and continuing to shaft and screw asylum seekers on a daily basis.

And, no, 170,000 migrants arriving at the border, not all of whom are seeking asylum, isn’t a “mass migration” emergency! It’s a fairly predictable movement of migrants at a pace that should be well within the capabilities of our nation. 

Treat them with respect. Promptly and properly screen them with qualified Asylum Officers. Timely welcome those many who qualify for protection with competent expert Immigration Judges. End the anti-asylum nonsense and move the many grantable asylum, withholding, and CAT cases through the system. Develop humane, orderly responses for those who are rejected. Get in place a new BIA that understands asylum law, due process, and human rights. Empower them to “knock heads” of IJs and Asylum Officers who won’t let go of the White Nationalist “reject, don’t protect” program!” 

It’s not “rocket science.” 🚀 Not by a long shot!

No, an “emergency mass migration situation” is 3.2 million refugees fleeing war in Ukraine in three weeks and arriving in allied nations like Poland, Romania, and Moldova who have far fewer resources and ability to respond than the U.S.! These are also nations who legitimately fear that they could be next on Russia’s “hit list.”

And, while the humanitarian crisis is brewing, what’s Garland up to? He beefing up his already-record-setting Immigration Court backlog with “kiddie cases” (0-4 year olds, incredibly) — to the extent anyone can even figure it out, given his notoriously flawed and unprofessional record keeping at EOIR. See, e.g., https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/681/. 

Toddler
Garland and his top lieutenants are too busy filling the Immigration Courts with these desperados in the 0-4 age group to worry about restoring due process or treating asylum seekers fairly!
PHOTO: Sean Choe, Creative Commons License

Honestly! But, don’t say that “Courtside,” Jeffrey Chase Blog, Dan Kowalski, ImmigrationProf Blog, CGRS, Human Rights First, NIJC, AILA, KIND, NCIJ, ABA, and many other experts didn’t warn against this grotesque failure long ago — often predating the 2020 election!

I understand that “no fly zones” are more complicated than most American pols and media wags think and that there are challenges to waging war from afar without actually declaring war on Russia. But, repairing our refugee, asylum, and immigration systems, and restoring due process to our courts are not in this category of difficulty. 

It’s beyond time for the Biden Administration, particularly Mayorkas and Garland, to get the lead out, grow backbones, get rid of the remnants of Trumpism in their ranks  — personnel, substance, process — and run a refugee and asylum legal system that serves our and our allies’ needs. One that is values and law based! One that our nation can be proud of, rather than embarrassed before the world! End the Clown Show, in Falls Church and throughout our muddling immigration and (non) human rights bureaucracy!🤡

Amateur Night
The Garland/Mayorkas “Plan” for human rights and immigrant justice is proving as deadly as it is dysfunctional.
PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

Time’s a wasting and people are dying! ⚰️ Enough of “Amateur Night at the Bijou.”☠️ Nobody’s laughing!🤮

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-18-22

Related posts:

  1. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️COURTS OF APPEALS CONTINUE TO THROW ROTTEN TOMATOES 🍅 @ BIA’S ANTI-ASYLUM BIAS — Basic Analytical, Legal Errors Continue From Weaponized, Non-Expert “Star Chamber” ☠️ Posing As ”Tribunal!” — Judge Garland Must Fix This Inexcusable, Unnecessary, Systemic Failure Now! — Justice For Persons Of Color & Migrants Can’t “Wait For Godot!”
  3. VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS THINKS RULE OF LAW DOESN’T APPLY TO RICH NATION THAT ILLEGALLY TURNS DESPERATE REFUGEES AWAY, SUGGESTS GUATEMALANS SHOULD DIE IN PLACE! — “Deterrence Statement” Won’t Stop Migration, Won’t Appease Nativist-Restrictionists, But Will Cost Her Support From Human Rights Progressives Who Helped Elect Her!  — There Will Be No Workable Solutions At Our Southern Border Without a Functional, Robust Legal Asylum System That Complies With Due Process!
  4. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!

🤮👎🏽SPOTLIGHT ON GOP HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS! — New Tool From Justice Action Center (“JAC”) Keeps Tabs On Xenophobic, Dehumanizing Litigation By GOP State AGs!☠️🏴‍☠️

From Tasha Moro, Communications Director @ Justice Action Center:

Tasha Moro
Tasha Moro
Communications Director,,Justice Action Center
PHOTO: Justice Action Center

Hi friends!

In response to states like TX, FL, AZ and others engaged in unrelenting legal challenges to defend Trump-era policies that harm immigrants, JAC is launching our litigation tracker microsite—an interactive, searchable index of anti-immigrant legal challenges, decoded and technical legal summaries, court filings, news coverage, and advocacy tools. We hope it’s useful to advocates and litigators alike!

As a compliment to the tracker, we also send out a biweekly newsletter summarizing the latest case updates, which you can subscribe to here. Feel free to explore the microsite, and read our press release below, and RT our thread here!

All the best,

Tasha

JAC’s New Litigation Tracker Follows States’ Legal Efforts to Uphold Trump-Era Immigration Policies

https://justiceactioncenter.org/jacs-new-litigation-tracker-follows-states-legal-efforts-to-uphold-trump-era-immigration-policies/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 15, 2022

LOS ANGELES—Justice Action Center (JAC) launched a litigation tracker microsite that follows states’ legal challenges to inclusive federal immigration policies. Since President Biden took office, states like Texas, Arizona, Florida, and others have poured immense resources into impeding progress and defending Trump-era policies that demonize, endanger, and discriminate against immigrants. Updated continuously, the JAC litigation tracker decodes these complex legal battles using accessible language, and includes court filings, news coverage, and resources.

One example of such a case detailed in the tracker is Biden v. Texas, the critical Remain in Mexico (also known as “MPP” or “RMX”) case that the Supreme Court announced last month it would hear on an expedited schedule. Over the last year, Texas has challenged President Biden’s attempts to end Trump’s cruel and inhumane RMX program, which has stranded tens of thousands of asylum seekers in dangerous conditions in Mexico while awaiting their immigration court hearings in the U.S.

Like other cases, JAC’s litigation tracker outlines the history of Biden v. Texas as it worked its way up the federal court system. Providing critical analysis, the tracker explains how the Supreme Court’s decision will not only determine the future of asylum in the United States, but also have far reaching implications on executive powers. Users will find continuously updated news coverage and resources that can be used to take action on this and other important immigration related litigation.

“It is crucial that the American public is informed of various states’ attempts to obstruct inclusive immigration policies that would benefit our communities, culture, and economy. JAC’s litigation tracker decodes these legal moves to empower people of conscience to engage in smart, creative advocacy to counter them—whether they have a law degree or not,” said JAC legal director Esther Sung.

As a complement to the tracker, JAC sends out a bi-weekly newsletter outlining the latest courtroom updates, which users can subscribe to here.

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.

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

The bad news: These morally debilitated heirs to the slave-owning class and Jim Crow politicians exist and, like those antecedents, hold influential positions of public trust that they use to pick on and dehumanize the vulnerable.

The good news: You’ll no longer have to look under rocks and other dark places where slimy creatures hang out to see what shenanigans they are up to now!

Just when you think the GOP couldn’t sink any lower, they dredge up these sleazy “public officials” who show that there is no lower limit.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-15-22

Related posts:

  1. CRIME BLOTTER: CHILD ABUSE🤮☠️⚰️🦹🏿‍♀️: DOJ IG REPORT CONFIRMS WHAT COURTSIDE & OTHERS KNEW FROM THE START: Trump, Sessions, Miller, Rosenstein, Hamilton Are Cowards🐓, Lying 🤥 Criminals, Child Abusers🦹🏿‍♀️, Who Belong Behind Bars For Intentionally Abusing Asylum Seeking Families & Kids & Then Having Their Sleazy DOJ Lawyers Lie To Federal Judges! — What Happened To “Due Diligence” As An Ethical Requirement For Government Lawyers?
  2. 🇺🇸😎⚖️🗽👍🏼LAW YOU CAN USE:  Michelle Mendez and CLINIC Publish A New Practice Advisory on Opening & Closing Statements in Immigration Court
  3. 🤮NO PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARD MEN (WOMEN, OR ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) FROM REGIME OF “BAD SANTAS” 🦹🏿‍♂️🎅🏻— Illegally Separated Families Continue To Suffer Irreparable Trauma, 😰 Volunteer Groups 😇🗽⚖️ Left To Pick Up Pieces — A Reminder That Defeated Regime Has Mocked, Disparaged, & Trashed Christ’s Values & Assaulted Humanity Over Four Christmases!🏴‍☠️🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻
  4. CLOGGING 🪠💩🧻 🚽 PROBLEM @ FORMER HOME OF JUSTICE: “Team Garland” Needs Roto-Rooter* On Call To Clean Up The Toxic BS 💩 Spewing From EOIR & Root Out The Ethics Challenged DOJ “Attorneys” Clogging The Federal Courts With Their Frivolous Defenses Of This White Nationalist, Nativist Garbage Coming From Falls Church Kakistocracy In The Waning Days! — Another Lawless EOIR Attack On Due Process, Humanity, Lawyers Blocked By Federal Judge! — Will There Be Accountability For The “Perps” Of These Continuing “Crimes Against Humanity?”