"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals PAUL WICKHAM SCHMIDT and DR. ALICIA TRICHE, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
“The strongest objection to Moore’s hardness and harshness is theological. On the consistent evidence of Jesus’ ministry, what public attitude did he condemn the most? He stood against people who talked constantly of the law, who thought they were especially virtuous, who enjoyed scolding people, who judged others without tenderness and understanding. He was at constant war with the self-righteous and took the side of the social outcasts they condemned.
Now we see the return of the Pharisee.”
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Read the rest of Gerson’s “spot on” op ed at the link.
“Amid the world’s worst migrant crisis on record, the Trump administration is cutting back on refugee resettlement. As part of his travel ban, President Trump capped the number of refugees to be admitted in 2017 at 50,000, the lowest number in decades. Now the administration has proposed lowering the goal even further, to 45,000, next year.
Over the years, the United States has lived up to its ideals and brought millions of refugees to safety and freedom. It didn’t become a resettlement leader out of pure altruism. By welcoming refugees, the United States revitalizes its democracy and its economy, helps preserve or restore stability in volatile regions of the world, and builds respect.
In slashing resettlement, the president is taking a recklessly narrow view of how best to put America first. Shutting out refugees would not only increase human suffering; it would also weaken the country and undermine its foreign policy.
There are more than 22 million refugees in the world, the highest number since World War II. Even before the Trump presidency, the United States response to this crisis was relatively modest. In fiscal year 2016, the United States resettled about 84,000 refugees, the most of any year under President Barack Obama. For comparison’s sake, the country took in roughly 200,000 refugees a year in the early 1980s under President Ronald Reagan.
Nonetheless, the resettlement effort under President Obama served American interests. For one thing, it helped the states that host the vast majority of Syrian refugees: Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. (In fiscal year 2016, 12,500 of the refugees resettled by the United States came from Jordan, a key American ally in a strategically crucial region.) The huge influx of refugees into these nations has strained their resources and infrastructure, becoming a potential source of instability and even conflict. By resettling refugees, the United States helps preserve stability and sends a message of support to countries whose cooperation it needs on a range of issues.
The Trump administration’s cuts to resettlement send the exact opposite message. It is a message heard across the region, by enemies as well as friends of the United States. Restricting resettlement, especially in the context of the travel ban, appears to validate the propaganda of the Islamic State and other extremist groups, which claims that the United States is hostile to Muslims. The battle against violent extremism must be fought with guns, but also with ideas. Slamming the door on refugees is a significant strategic blunder.
Opponents of refugee resettlement would have you believe that the country’s enemies are exploiting the program. There is no factual basis for this claim. In fact, of all the people who enter the United States, refugees are the most thoroughly vetted. The screening process is exhaustive and lengthy, and involves numerous agencies. Our intelligence and national security professionals can both vet refugees and protect Americans. Indeed, they’ve done just that for years.
Refugees are victims of extremist groups and brutal governments. They become patriotic, hard-working Americans. Refugees are us. They are teachers, police officers, doctors, factory workers and soldiers. There are thousands of former refugees and children of refugees in the United States military. I served alongside many who were eager and proud to give back to the country that helped them in their time of need.
It’s no wonder that numerous studies have found that refugees are a net benefit to the American economy. The administration’s own study — which the president solicited from the Department of Health and Human Resources — concluded that refugees added $63 billion to the economy between 2005 and 2014.
Support for refugees creates another form of currency for the United States. Call it respect or admiration or credibility, this currency accrues when the United States leads by example and champions human rights on the world stage. It’s an invaluable and fungible resource, amassed over many decades. It enables the United States to forge ties with democratic movements. It also helps Washington persuade allies to do difficult things and pressure foes to stop their bad behavior. It is crucial to forging trade pacts, military coalitions and peace deals.
More than any other resource — including military and economic might — this accounts for American greatness. We sacrifice it at our peril.
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Michael G. Mullen, a retired United States Navy admiral, was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 to 2011 and serves on the board of Human Rights First.”
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The greatest threat to America’s national security is Donald Trump and his enablers. And, it doesn’t take any type of “extreme vetting” to figure this out. Just common sense and human decency. Thanks, Admiral Mullen for “telling it like it is,” and continuing to support real American values and national interests in this time of darkness brought upon us by the Trump Administration.
“THE BIG IDEA: Bowing to pressure from Republicans on Capitol Hill and public criticism from President Trump, Tom Price announced Thursday that he will partially reimburse the government for the costs of his flights on charter planes in recent months.
The Health and Human Services secretary is writing a check for $51,887 to the Treasury Department. He said he will no longer take private charters at taxpayer expense and plans to cooperate with the HHS inspector general, who last week launched an investigation into his travel practices.
The optics here are terrible. Price took a $25,000 charter flight from Dulles to Philadelphia when a round-trip train ticket would have cost $72. The government also paid for a private jet to whisk Price to a resort in Georgia where he owns land and to Nashville, where he lunched with his son.
— It came out last night that Price also used military aircraft for trips to Africa and Europe this spring, and to Asia in the summer, at a cost of more than $500,000 to taxpayers. Politico, which broke that story, notes that the reimbursements do not cover any military planes: “The overseas trips bring the total cost to taxpayers of Price’s travels to more than $1 million since May. … Price’s wife, Betty, accompanied him on the military flights, while other members of the secretary’s delegation flew commercially to Europe. … But one of Price’s recent predecessors, Kathleen Sebelius, who served for five years under President Barack Obama, said she never took a military plane on her many trips overseas; she always flew commercially.”
— A million dollars isn’t nothing, but is it more scandalous than the New York Times’s estimate that Donald Trump could cut his tax bills by more than $1.1 billion, including saving tens of millions of dollars in a single year, if Congress enacts the proposal he unveiled this week? We cannot know for sure how much Trump stands to gain personally because he’s the first president since Richard Nixon who refuses to release his tax returns.
The national debt topped $20 trillion for the first time ever this month, yet Senate Republicans tentatively agreed last week to a budget deal that would allow them to pass as much as $1.5 trillion in tax cuts without spending reductions or revenue offsets to pay for them. “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has repeatedly called the debt ‘unsustainable’ and ‘alarming,’ even going so far as to say in 2013 that it ‘makes us look a lot like Greece.’ Yet McConnell was the one who held the meeting in his office to broker the red-ink deal,” Heather Long notes.
Many of Price’s charter flights, which numbered more than two dozen in total, were so that he could be the lead cheerleader for repealing Obamacare. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill that passed the House in May, which Price aggressively advocated for, would have left 23 million more Americans uninsured by 2026 than under current law.
— Price was also flying high on the taxpayer dime at the same time he was championing cuts in spending on scientific research, medical research, disease prevention programs and health insurance for children of the working poor.
The Trump administration’s May budget called for cutting $1.2 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of HHS, including an $82 million cut at the center that works on vaccine-preventable and respiratory diseases, such as influenza and measles. Price’s budget proposed a cut of $186 million from programs at CDC’s center on HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis prevention. There was also $222 million in cuts to the agency’s chronic disease prevention programs, which are designed to help people prevent diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and obesity. The agency’s center on birth defects and developmental disabilities saw a 26 percent cut to its budget. The experts there are still trying to understand the full consequences of Zika infections in pregnant women and their babies.
Price’s first budget also sought $1 billion in cuts for the National Cancer Institute, $575 million in cuts for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and $838 million in cuts for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The administration asked Congress to slash the overall National Institutes of Health budget from $31.8 billion to $26 billion. These cuts went further than even some of the most conservative GOP lawmakers were willing to go.
— All these numbers are far more consequential to the long-term health, both fiscal and physical, of the United States than Price’s private plane habit. But they are also way more abstract, and thus less sexy, than a million bucks spent on airfare.
People are inclined to focus on relatively small expenditures because they sometimes struggle to wrap their heads around bigger numbers that underscore harder truths. A search of Lexis Nexis and Google News makes clear that Price’s flights have garnered far more attention than the proposed HHS budget cuts in May or even the GOP’s $1.5 trillion debt deal last week. Non-mainstream outlets like TMZ have seized on the plane story.
— By no means is the point here that Price’s travel is unworthy of coverage. His profligacy signifies misplaced priorities, demonstrates hypocrisy (he decried Democrats for flying on military aircraft when he was in Congress) and suggests that a culture of entitlement pervades the upper echelons of the Trump administration.
Drip, drip, drip: More stories continue to emerge about members of Trump’s Cabinet flying private.
“Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke chartered a flight from Las Vegas to near his home in Montana this summer aboard a plane owned by oil-and-gas executives,” Drew Harwell and Lisa Rein scooped last night. “The flight cost taxpayers $12,375, according to an Interior Department spokeswoman. Commercial airlines run daily flights between the two airports and charge as little as $300. …
“Zinke and his official entourage also boarded private flights between the Caribbean islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix during a three-day trip to the Virgin Islands in March … The spring trip included an official snorkeling tour of the nearby Buck Island Reef National Monument … Zinke also attended a Virgin Islands GOP event and spoke on behalf of President Trump.”
Taxpayers have spent more than $58,000 for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to take at least four noncommercial and military flights since mid-February.
The Treasury Department’s inspector general is investigating Steven Mnuchin for his use of a government plane to visit Kentucky during the solar eclipse with his wife, as well as for a short trip from New York City to Washington.
— Congressional Republicans are taking this seriously. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a proud penny pincher, called on Trump last night to impose a governmentwide ban on the use of charter flights by administration officials. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has requested that more than 20 agencies provide details about the use of private, charter aircraft and government-owned aircraft by political appointees since January.“
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You get what you vote for, folks. On the other hand, the majority of Americans are stuck with the stunningly poor choices of the minority. And, it’s not like Trump’s dishonesty and lack of values were secrets!
“Americans Back DACA by a Huge Margin. A vast 86 percent of Americans support a right to residency for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, with support crossing the political spectrum. Two-thirds back a deal to enact such legislation in tandem with higher funding for border control. Possibly in light of Donald Trump’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, disapproval of his handling of immigration overall reaches 62 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll. Just 35 percent approve. Additional hurdles for Trump are his demand for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico – again 62 percent oppose it – and substantial concerns about his immigration enforcement policies. Americans were asked whether they support “a program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States if they arrived here as a child, completed high school or military service and have not been convicted of a serious crime,” all elements of DACA, established by Barack Obama by executive order in 2012. Support spans demographic groups, including three-quarters of Republicans and conservatives, 86 and 87 percent of independents and moderates and 97 and 96 percent of Democrats and liberals.”
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Read the complete summary of the ABC News/Washington Post Poll at the link.
While all polls, particularly those on immigration, must be looked at with some circumspection, these are great numbers to keep in mind when faced with the constant bogus claims from Trump Administration and GOP Congressional restrictionists that they are somehow representing the “national will” or “the people’s voice” with their out of touch policies and proposals.
Interestingly, one enforcement initiative that got widespread support was enforcing existing employer sanctions laws, something that neither GOP nor Democratic Administrations has been willing to do over the past three decades since they were in acted in 1986.
Nor does their Trump Administration appear to be putting any emphasis on this program. And, it’s easy to see why. Employer sanctions would involve going after U.S. businesses, some of the same folks who helped put Trump and the GOP in power. Some of them like the current system, which keeps many needed workers marginalized and dependent, so they can be exploited.
Perhaps more important, going after U.S.employers doesn’t do anything for the Trump/GOP racist base. Much better to sack up some decent productive Hispanic workers and count it as “law enforcement.” That’s what the racist xenophobes like to see.
“Detention as a tool of immigration enforcement has increased dramatically following immigration reforms enacted in 1996. Two Supreme Court cases at the dawn of the new millennium offered contrasting approaches to the review of decisions of the U.S. government to detain immigrants. In 2001, in Zadvydas v. Davis, the Supreme Court interpreted an immigration statute to require judicial review of a detention decision because “to permit[] indefinite detention of an alien would cause a serious constitutional problem.” Just two years later, the court in Demore v. Kim invoked the “plenary power” doctrine – something exceptional to immigration law and inconsistent with modern constitutional law – to immunize from review a provision of the immigration statute requiring detention of immigrants awaiting removal based on a crime.
How the Supreme Court reconciles these dueling decisions will no doubt determine the outcome in Jennings v. Rodriguez. This case involves the question whether immigrants, like virtually any U.S. citizen placed in criminal or civil detention, must be guaranteed a bond hearing and possible release from custody. Relying on Zadvydas v. Davis, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed a district court injunction that avoided “a serious constitutional problem” by requiring bond hearings every six months for immigrant detainees. The court of appeals further mandated that, in order to continue to detain an immigrant, the government must prove that the noncitizen poses a flight risk or a danger to public safety.”
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Read the rest of Dean Johnson’s analysis at the link.
This is huge in human rights. A “W” for the Administration, which many observers view as likely with the advent of Justice Gorsuch, will essentially “Green Light” the Trump-Sessions-Miller plan to construct the “New American Gulag.” The Gulag’s “prisoners” will be noncriminal migrants (many of them women fleeing violence in the Northern Triangle) whose only “crime” is to assert their rights for due process and justice under our laws.
The concept that migrants have rights is something that sticks in the craws of the White Nationalists. So, punishing them for asserting their rights (with an objective of coercing them into giving up their rights and leaving “voluntarily”) is the next best thing to denying them entirely (which the Administration routinely does whenever it thinks it can get away with it — and the Article IIIs have largely, but not entirely, been asleep at the switch here).
And, make no mistake about it, as study after study has shown, the “conditions of civil detention” in the Gulag are substandard. So much so that in the last Administration DHS’s own study committee actually recommended an end to private immigration detention contracts and a phasing out of so-called “family detention.” The response of the Trump White Nationalists: ignore the facts and double down on the inhumanity.
Based on recent news reports, DHS immigration detainees die at a rate of approximately one per month. And many more suffer life changing and life threatening medical and psychiatric conditions while in detention. Just “collateral damage” in “Gonzo speak.”
Immigration detainees are often held without bond or with bonds that are so unrealistically high that they effectively amount to no bond. And, in many cases (like the one here) they are denied even minimal access to a U.S. Immigration Judge to have the reasons for detention reviewed.
Plus, as I reported recently, across the nation DHS is refusing to negotiate bonds for those eligible. They are also appealing Immigration Judge decisions to release migrants on bond pending hearings, apparently without any regard to the merits of the IJ’s decision. In other words, DHS is abusing the immigration appeals system for the purpose of harassing migrants who won’t agree to waive their rights to a due process hearing and depart!
Also, as I pointed out, in the “no real due process” world of the U.S. Immigration Courts, the DHS prosecutors can unilaterally block release of a migrant on bond pending appeal. In most cases this means that the individual remains in detention until the Immigration Judge completes the “merits hearing.” At that point the BIA determines that the DHS bond appeal is “moot” and dismisses it without ever reaching the merits. Just another bogus “production” statistic generated by EOIR!
Oh, and by the way, contrary to “Gonzo” Session’s false and misleading rhetoric on so-called “Sanctuary Cities,” one of the things jurisdictions that rationally choose to limit cooperation with DHS enforcement to those with significant criminal records are doing is protecting their law-abiding, productive migrant residents and migrant communities from the patent abuses of the “American Gulag.” “Gonzo policies” predictably drive reasonable people to take protective actions.
But, some day, the bureaucrats, complicit judges (particularly life-tenured Article III Judges, like the Supremes), reactionary legislators who turn their backs on human suffering, and misguided voters who have allowed this human rights travesty to be perpetrated on American soil will be held accountable, by the forces of history if nothing else.
“On September 4, immigration judge Denise Slavin followed orders from the Department of Justice to drop everything and travel to the U.S.-Mexico border. She would be leaving behind an overwhelming docket in Baltimore, but she was needed at “ground zero,” as Attorney General Jeff Sessions called it—the “sliver of land” where Americans take a stand against machete-wielding, poison-smuggling criminal gangs and drug cartels.
As part of a new Trump administration program to send justices on short-term missions to the border to speed up deportations and, Sessions pledged, reduce “significant backlogs in our immigration courts,” Slavin was to spend two weeks at New Mexico’s Otero County Processing Center.
But when Slavin arrived at Otero, she found her caseload was nearly half empty. The problem was so widespread that, according to internal Justice Department memos, nearly half the 13 courts charged with implementing Sessions’ directive could not keep their visiting judges busy in the first two months of the new program.
“Judges were reading the newspaper,” says Slavin, the executive vice president of the National Immigration Judges Association and an immigration judge since 1995. One, she told POLITICO Magazine, “spent a day helping them stock the supply room because she had nothing else to do.”
Slavin ended up leaving Otero early because she had no cases her last day. “One clerk said it was so great, it was like being on vacation,” she recalls.
In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the DOJ to deploy U.S. immigration judges to U.S. detention facilities—most of which are located on or near the U.S.-Mexico border. The temporary reassignments were intended to lead to more and faster deportations, as well astake some pressure off thecurrently overloaded immigration court system. But, according to interviews and internal DOJ memos, since the new policy went into effect in March, it seems to have had the opposite result: Judges have frequently had to cancel cases on their overloaded home dockets only to find barely any work at their assigned courts—exacerbating the U.S. immigration court backlog that now exceeds 600,000 cases.
According to internal memos sent by the DOJ’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) and obtained by the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) via a Freedom of Information Act request, judges delayed more than 20,000 home court hearings for their details to the border from March to May.
“I canceled about 100 cases in my home court to hear 20,” says Slavin, who was forced to postpone those Baltimore hearings by a year since her court schedule was already booked through most of 2018. In Otero, she had no more than 50 hours of work over the course of two weeks (she typically clocks 50 hours per week in Baltimore). But she couldn’t catch up on her work at home because she had no access to her files.
Her three colleagues at the facility who had also been ordered there by the DOJwere no busier. One who had been sent to Otero previously told her the empty caseloads were normal.
“Sending judges to the border has made the backlog in the interior of the country grow,” says Slavin, “It’s done exactly the opposite of what they hoped to accomplish.”
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On April 11 in Nogales, Arizona, Sessions formally rolled out the DOJ’s judge relocation program. “I am also pleased to announce a series of reforms regarding immigration judges to reduce the significant backlogs in our immigration courts,” he told the crowd of Customs and Border Protection personnel gathered to hear him. “Pursuant to the president’s executive order, we will now be detaining all adults who are apprehended at the border. To support this mission, we have already surged 25 immigration judges to detention centers along the border.”
The idea was to send U.S. immigration court judges currently handling “non-detained” immigration cases—cases such as final asylum decisions and immigrants’ applications for legal status—to centers where they would only adjudicate cases of those detained crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, along with others who had been picked up by ICE for possible deportation. More judges would follow, the attorney general said.
But as Sessions spoke, nearly half of those 25 “surge” judges—whose deployments typically last two weeks or a month—were largely unoccupied. One week before the attorney general’s Nogales announcement, EOIR—the Justice Department office that handles immigration cases—published an internal memo identifying six of 13 detention centersas offering inadequate work for their visiting justices.
“There are not enough cases to fill one immigration judge’s docket, let alone five,” the DOJ wrote of Texas’ T. Don Hutto facility, which had been assigned five Miami judges to hold hearings via video teleconference with the women detained there.
One judge sent to the South Texas Residential Center, a family detention facility, had no cases at all; a judge at another family facility, Karnes Residential Center, had a “light” docket; and Texas’ Prairieland Detention Center, which had received a judge, also was “not receiving enough cases to fill a docket or even come close to it,” the memo stated.
The two judges assigned to New Mexico’s Cibola Detention Facility also had barely any work to do, and Louisiana’s La Salle Detention Center—not on the border but treated as such in its receipt of five “surge” judges—had similarly been overstaffed. “There is not enough work for five judges,” said one DOJ memo. “There is enough work for a reasonable docket and three judges.”
The Justice Department documents also revealed a number of logistical issues with the border courts, including a lack of phone lines or internet connectivity, and noise infiltrating the courtroom from the detention facility. “The courtrooms at Imperial Regional Detention Facility are not suitable for in-person hearings because security is wholly inadequate,” said one memo of the California facility. “The court cannot do telephonic interpreters and the request for in-person interpreters remains pending. … Last week an immigration judge was left in the courtroom without a bailiff.”
Meanwhile, the judges sent to the border were forced to abandon thousands of home court cases—which the DOJ was aware could increase pressure on the U.S. immigration court system, where a specialized cadre of judges handles questions over whether people can remain in the country or face deportation. “It is likely that the backlog will increase for the locations from which a judge is assigned,” predicted one March 29 document, which also projected the deployments would cost $21 million per fiscal year.
Within the first three months of the program, judges postponed about 22,000 cases around the country, including 2,774 in New York City alone, according to the DOJ memos. (The delays added to an already clogged system: New York City’s immigration court backlog stood at 81,842 as of July, according to the immigration data tracker TRAC Immigration.)
When asked about these FOIA documents, and why the DOJ had deployed judges where they were not needed, a Justice Department spokesmanresponded that the program had improved in recent months. “After the initial deployment, an assessment was done to determine appropriate locations to increase the adjudication of immigration court cases without compromising due process,” he said.
Immigration judges and advocates acknowledge that the program has slightly improved since May—but many say that’s largely because the DOJ is sending fewer judges on temporary missions. “Some of the least productive assignments have either been discontinued or converted to video teleconferencing hearings, and it seems that fewer judges are being sent overall,” says National Association of Immigration Judges President Dana Marks, who serves as an immigration judge in San Francisco. But, she says, “the basic problem still persists.”
More than 100 total judges have been reassigned since March, but Politico was not able to obtain data on whether deployments are declining or increasing, or how many judges are still facing empty caseloads.
The spokesperson declined to comment on Slavin’s experience at Otero. But the DOJ discontinued deployments to Otero this month, as soon as Slavin completed her assignment there.
The U.S. immigration court backlog has increased under Trump, moving from 540,000 in January to 600,000 in July. But the DOJ spokesperson denied thatthe deployments were responsible for the bump, instead blaming the overloaded system on the Obama administration’s policies. He noted that the first six months of the Trump administration had seen a14.5 percent increase in final immigration court rulings from the previous year,and that more than 90 percent of cases by “surge” judges had led to deportation orders.
But just because judges have ruled on more cases doesn’t mean the Trump administration hasn’t worsened the backlog, NIJC communications director Tara Tidwell Cullen says. In fact, it could likely mean the opposite. Trump’s first six months in power saw 40 percent more immigration arrests in the country’s interior than the year before, adding more cases to already overloaded dockets.
“The ‘home’ courts where judges are sent from continue to be understaffed and their caseloads are adversely impacted as judges are sent to temporary assignments,” adds Marks, the San Francisco judge. Adding to the problem, she points out, istheadministration’s decision to detain immigrants without allowing the Department of Homeland Security to grant them bonds. Now, detainees have to go to immigration court to get a bond, creating extra work for those justices.
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Not everyone thinks sending judges to the border is a bad idea.
“The best use of resources is to throw them all at detention,” says Leon Fresco, who served as deputy assistant attorney general under President Barack Obama. Judges typically release individuals detained for more than 90 days with no trial on habeas corpus, he explains, in which case the government has “wasted money in detaining them” to start. Better, then, to hear all the detained cases quickly.
Any administration will have to make tough calls, says Fresco. “You have just about 300 judges to hear more than 500,000 cases, so you have to prioritize.” Under Obama, the DOJ—while it hadn’t sent judges to the border—had also prioritized recent border crossers in order to send a message that the U.S. would immediately hear their cases, rather than allow them to “wait eight years to be adjudicated” while staying in the country, Fresco says. Trump’s priorities similarly send a message to potential border crossers that “we do have quick justice.”
The problem, Fresco adds, is that the Trump administration has been clumsy in its border deployments—sending judges to places where they aren’t needed. “There are ways to do this, but they need to be more flexible and nimble, and they’re not being as nimble as they can be,” he says. “EOIR is an agency badly in need of some sort of consulting firm. … There’s still too little rhyme or reason about how case assignments work—you shouldn’t have weeks with judges with hours of idle time.”
Chicago immigration judge Robert D. Vinikoor says his deployment went smoothly. He had a full caseload in his two-week detail at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego this April, and he maintains that the reassigned judges were necessary to get immigrants out of detention as expeditiously as possible. “DHS is detaining more and more people and keeping them in custody, so that’s the need for the judges,” says Vinikoor, who retired in June after serving 33 years as an immigration judge. “The question is: Are they over-detailing? In some cases they put the cart before the horse.”
But Marks, who has been an immigration judge for 30 years, disagrees. Even if the DOJ gets deployments right, she says, the surge policy shows the administration has the wrong priorities. She says the administration’s biggest mistake was making a “politically motivated decision” and not consulting immigration judges. “The judges weren’t asked and that’s always been our big frustration,” she says.” The judges are the ones who are the experts in handling their cases.”
Marks notes that her union had similar frustrations with the Obama administration’s prioritization of recent border crossers—predominantly Central American women and children seeking asylum—to send a message they would be deported quickly if they could not prove they qualified for asylum. That decision, she says, worsened the backlog, too.
The overloaded system jeopardizes due process for immigrants, says NIJC’s policy director Heidi Altman, who filed the FOIA for EOIR’s memos after hearing about “chaos” in the courts when the border details began.
“When the backlog is exacerbated it makes it exponentially harder for us and other legal services to take on clients,” says Altman, whose NIJC organizes pro-bono attorneys handling immigration cases, which do not guarantee legal representation. Without a lawyer handling a case, she says, it is less likely to proceed fairly.
But there’s another reason that Trump might want to reconsider the border surge, says John Sandweg, former acting director of ICE under the Obama administration: It takes the pressure off the undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for years and may be fighting to prevent an order of deportation.“They’re basically giving amnesty ironically to the non-detained docket.”
“By shifting the judges away they’ll never have their hearing so they’ll never be ordered deported,” he says. “You’re letting them stay.”
“NEW YORK—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit had a burning question for Donald Trump’s Department of Justice on Tuesday: What are you doing in our courthouse? By the end of the day, the answer still wasn’t clear. Something else was, though: The DOJ’s new anti-gay legal posture is not going to be received with open arms by the federal judiciary.
The Justice Department’s latest wound was fully self-inflicted, as Tuesday’s arguments in Zarda v. Altitude Express should not have involved the DOJ in the first place. The case revolves around a question of statutory interpretation: whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws anti-gay workplace discrimination. Title VII bars employment discrimination “because of sex,” which many federal courts have interpreted to encompass sexual orientation discrimination. The 2nd Circuit is not yet one of them, and Chief Judge Robert Katzmann signaled recently that he would like to change that. So on Tuesday, all of the judges convened to consider joining the chorus of courts that believe Title VII already prohibits anti-gay discrimination in the workplace.
It’s important to understand some background before getting further into how those arguments went. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decided in 2015 that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination does protect gay employees. Under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department took no position on this question. But in late July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ DOJ unexpectedly filed an amicus brief in Zarda arguing that Title VII does not protect gay people. The 2nd Circuit had not solicited its input, making the brief both puzzling and gratuitous. Its purpose only became apparent in September, when the DOJ filed a similarly uninvited brief asserting that bakers have a free speech right not to serve same-sex couples. Both anti-gay briefs were startlingly incoherent, seemingly the product of political pandering rather than legal reasoning.
Regardless, the DOJ’s decision to weigh in on Zarda ensured that oral arguments would include the weird spectacle of one federal agency opposing another in court. That doesn’t happen often—and really shouldn’t happen—because the executive branch is expected to speak with one voice on legal affairs. But the EEOC’s commissioners serve fixed terms and haven’t gotten the memo placing politics above the law yet. And so they were not exactly delighted to see political appointees at the Justice Department trash their theories in court on Tuesday when the two agencies faced off over what it means to discriminate “because of sex.”
. . . .
That set the stage for Mooppan’s appearance, which, to put it mildly, did not go well at all. Chief Judge Katzmann immediately wanted to know: Why didn’t the DOJ defer to the EEOC on Title VII, as it normally does? Mooppan’s basic reply was that the Justice Department is the nation’s “largest employer”—meaning, in short, that it has an interest in retaining its capacity to fire gay people for being gay.
“What is the process with regard to the EEOC and the DOJ in terms of filing a brief?” Katzmann followed up.
“That’s a complicated question,” Mooppan responded.
“Try to help us,” Katzmann implored. He also wanted to know what career attorneys at the DOJ’s civil rights division think about the agency’s position. But Mooppan wouldn’t answer: “That’s not appropriate for me to disclose,” he told the judge. Katzmann looked alarmed. Judge Pooler jumped in: “Does the Justice Department sign off on a brief that EEOC intends to file?” she wondered.
“That’s not appropriate for me to disclose,” Mooppan repeated.
“It’s procedure, not internal deliberations,” Pooler responded.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Mooppan said again, stonewalling. Now a majority of the judges looked irritated. As a general rule, attorneys are supposed to answer questions posed by the court, not dodge them as though they’re taking the Fifth. It was a terrible start for Mooppan, and both Pooler and Katzmann looked genuinely perplexed that a DOJ attorney would show such blatant disrespect. Finally, Judge Dennis Jacobs broke the impasse: “I, for one, am prepared to proceed on the assumption that you’re here,” he said.”
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Read the entire rather amazing, if disturbing, article at the link. Accounts of the daily doings of “Gonzo’s Justice” could be ripped right from the headlines of The Onion. But, sadly they aren’t. Every day that Gonzo serves in the office for which he is jaw-droppingly unaqualified diminishes the American legal system and our country as a whole.
Liz was right. She might even have understated the case against Gonzo. Happy to be retired. Pity those still at the DOJ. Move over, John Mitchell, you’ve got some real competition for “Worst Attorney General In Modern American History.” I feel like asking for a recount when Betsy De Vos allegedly edged out Gonzo for “Worst Cabinet Member!” Could it be Russian interference?
“The Trump administration is drafting a new policy to quickly deport more than 150,000 child migrants from Central America who arrived alone in the U.S. illegally, creating a new class of undocumented migrants.
The Department of Justice and Homeland Security is drawing up a policy proposal in a series of memos, according to two sources with knowledge of the internal debate who spoke to the Miami Herald.
As it stands, the plan would allow for teens and children who arrived in the U.S. illegally by themselves to be put on a fast track to deportation when they turn 18. Most of these children have traveled thousands of miles alone from Central American countries, including Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, to escape violence and poverty.
The policy wouldn’t allow the teens to plead their case before an immigration judge.
The discussions follow controversy within the government about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, a program implemented by Barack Obama, which protects children brought to the country illegally by their parents from deportation.
Speaking about the new policy plans, a former U.S. Justice Department official told the Herald, “The concern is that most people at DOJ know this will likely be viewed as illegal and do not want to have to defend this in court if they can avoid it.”
Current law “doesn’t give the administration a lot of flexibility with how to deal with unaccompanied children,” said a U.S. official familiar with the internal debate about the policy. “This administration still has its hands somewhat tied with what it can do with that population,” that person said.
. . . .
The new policy around unaccompanied children is part of the Attorney General’s efforts to avoid creating a another protected group of illegal immigrants like those under DACA, the Herald’s sources said.
The arrival of unaccompanied children and families from Central America peaked in 2014. In the year between October 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) says it encountered 67,339 unaccompanied children.
At the height of the influx in June 2014, 27,000 people, including unaccompanied children and families, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Three months later the number dropped below 5,000 following crackdowns by the U.S. and Mexico governments.
More than 150,000 children have been referred by Homeland Security to the Office of Refugee Resettlement since that time. The program cares for unaccompanied children after they are caught at the border by officials and either places them in shelters, with sponsors, or relatives in the U.S.
About 63 percent and 73 percent of the unaccompanied youth who arrive at the border are between 15 and 17 years old, making a large group of those who are in the U.S vulnerable to deportation if the administration moves ahead with the policy.
“For a growing population of migrants deported from Mexico and the United States to Central America, the conditions upon return typically are worse than when they left, setting up a revolving-door cycle of migration, deportation, and remigration,” according to the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute. The group advocates better programs to reintegrate those who are deported to their home country.
If the Trump administration decides to move ahead with the policy proposal it will it will likely meet similar opposition to Trump’s travel ban on people coming to the U.S. from six Muslim-majority nations. Elements of the ban have been blocked by federal courts and a legal case against the policy will be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court this fall.
The new policy on unaccompanied minors could be blocked by the courts almost immediately, said Leon Fresco, the former head of the Office of Immigration Litigation at the Justice Department during the Obama administration.
The question is, Fresco said, “whether the administration wants to add this to the travel ban, sanctuary cities, Byrne Jag grants, and DACA repeal to the issues they would want the Supreme Court to have to decide this year.”
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Read the complete report at the link.
These kids clearly are entitled to full and fair hearings before U.S. Immigration Judges with full rights of appeal. So, whatever Gonzo Apocalypto has up his sleeve must be clearly illegal.
DOJ career lawyers probably realize that their law licenses, and perhaps their individual freedom, could be at stake for participating in such an illegal operation. It would be nice to think that Sessions could also be held accountable under the law. But, as a high-ranking Government official, he’s likely to escape liability under the current Supreme Court rulings. Besides, Trump (or Pence) would probably pardon him anyway in the tradition of his fellow racist xenophobe “Racist Joe.”
When 2-month-old Isaac Enrique Sanchez was diagnosed with pyloric stenosis, a condition that causes vomiting, dehydration and weight loss in infants, his parents were told that their son’s condition was curable. The problem was that no hospital in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas had a pediatric surgery team capable of performing the operation on his stomach.
To make Isaac well, Oscar and Irma Sanchez would need to take their infant son to Driscoll Children’s Hospital, in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was just a couple of hours up the highway, but for them it was a world away.
The Sanchezes, who are undocumented, would need to pass a Border Patrol checkpoint.
“The nurse told us we had to go there,” Oscar says in Spanish. “We said we couldn’t go.”
While they pondered their predicament in a Harlingen, Texas, hospital, a Border Patrol agent showed up in the waiting room — Oscar Sanchez suspects a nurse turned them in — and said he could arrange for officers to escort the parents through the checkpoint to Corpus. But the agent said when they arrived, they would be arrested and put into deportation proceedings. The couple agreed.
The events that followed at the Corpus Christi hospital are the latest developments in a national controversy over so-called sensitive locations. Under President Barack Obama, the Department of Homeland Security adopted a policy that immigration agents should avoid enforcement actions at hospitals, schools, churches and public demonstrations unless there are special circumstances.
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The Sanchezes’ 48-hour odyssey with federal agents shows the lengths to which the Trump administration will go to round up people in the country illegally, whether they have a criminal record or not.
The Border Patrol followed the ambulance, the night of May 24, as it raced to Corpus through desolate ranchland, carrying Oscar, Irma and tiny Isaac — with an IV in his arm and a tube in his stomach. Once they arrived at Driscoll Children’s Hospital, the green-uniformed agents never left the undocumented couple’s side. Officers followed the father to the bathroom and the cafeteria and asked the mother to leave the door open when she breast-fed Isaac.
“Everywhere we went in the hospital,” Oscar says, “they followed us.”
Customs and Border Protection says it is required to monitor subjects in custody “at all times” and tried to do so at the hospital “in the least restrictive manner possible.”
The next morning, agents took Oscar and Irma Sanchez, separately, from the hospital to the Corpus Christi Border Patrol station to be fingerprinted and booked. They were permitted to return. Oscar asked the surgeon if she could delay the operation until both parents could be in the waiting room. She agreed.
The parents said because Isaac is a U.S. citizen, the operation was covered by Medicaid.
“You feel vulnerable,” Oscar says. “We didn’t know if they were going to let us stay with our son or not.”
The Border Patrol, in an email to NPR, says it made sure to leave one parent with the baby at all times and that agents played no role in the decision to postpone the operation.
Driscoll Children’s Hospital, citing patient privacy, declined to discuss the case.
On a recent Tuesday 3 1/2 months after the operation, Isaac sat on his mama’s lap — all pudgy cheeks and wide eyes, wearing a top covered with little race cars. The family lives in a tidy, weathered frame house in North Brownsville, Texas.
“Thank the Lord, everything went well,” Irma says. “He still throws up a little milk, but thank God he’s fine.”
Religious Communities Continue The Long Tradition Of Offering Sanctuary
U.S.
Religious Communities Continue The Long Tradition Of Offering Sanctuary
Sanctuary Churches Brace For Clash With Trump Administration
NEWS
Sanctuary Churches Brace For Clash With Trump Administration
Advocates are puzzled why the Border Patrol chose to put the Sanchezes under such intense supervision, which one would expect for higher-value targets like drug traffickers or MS-13 gang members. The couple has no criminal records. They overstayed visitors visas that were issued 12 years ago. He works construction and landscaping; she stays home with their four children, all of whom are citizens.
“I can’t pretend to understand any reasoning that would have led anyone up the chain of command to think that Irma and Oscar were flight risks or dangers to the community or in any other way people who needed to be followed into a hospital in order to be placed in deportation proceedings,” says Lisa Koop, a lawyer with the National Immigrant Justice Center. She will be asking an immigration judge in December to let the Sanchezes remain with their children in the U.S.
“That’s how you treat criminals that are harmful, and that’s understandable for our own protection,” says Ana Hinojosa, an immigrant advocate with the Mennonite Central Committee in Brownsville, who is also working on the case. “But they’re a family that’s just here trying to make a living, provide an education and a future for their children.”
Advocates are concerned that immigration enforcers are chipping away at places formerly considered safe zones. Three examples: Immigration agents detained six men after they left a church homeless shelter in Virginia; they removed a woman with a brain tumor from a Texas hospital and put her back in detention; and they arrested a father after he dropped off his daughter at school in Los Angeles.
As with the Corpus hospital, the agency maintains none of the arrests were actually made inside a sensitive location. But several members of Congress, all Democrats, are troubled just the same. They have proposed the “Protecting Sensitive Locations Act,” which would codify protected places in federal law. And it would expand them to include courthouses and bus stops.
“They’re pushing the envelope to the point where they’re trying to find out how far they can go,” says Bronx Rep. Jose Serrano, one of the bill’s authors. He is outraged by what happened to the Sanchez family in South Texas. “It violates human decency,” he says. “You don’t interrupt medical procedures.”
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Obviously, Congress should not give DHS any additional enforcement resources, given that they have so little to do and such little internal discipline that they waste time and manpower needlessly on cases like this.
Under any sane Administration, these folks would have been granted “PD” or “prosecutorial discretion.” Even assyuming that the agency wished to go forward they could merely have mailed a Notice To Appear (“NTA”) to the couple at their home address or served them at home at a later date. The case isn’t going to be heard for months (or more) anyway.
This total lack of discipline and common sense started under and was enabled by Gen. John Kelly, at the urging of “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, during the time when he was Secretary of DHS.
Dave Leonhardt writes in “Opinion Today” at the NYT:
“First, health care: Here’s a giveway about how bad the new Senate health care bill is: Bill Cassidy, one of its authors, keeps trying to sell it by telling untruths.
“The relatively new phenomenon of just ‘up is down’ lying about your bill’s impacts is jarring,” says Loren Adler of the USC-Brookings-Schaeffer Initiative on Health Policy. Most egregiously, Cassidy is claiming that the bill would not ultimately deprive sick people of health insurance. That’s false, as NPR calmly explained when Cassidy said otherwise.
In fact, the bill — known as Graham-Cassidy — would free states to remove insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Without those protections, insurers could price such people out of the market.
If you get cancer (or even have a family history of it) or your child is born with a birth defect — among many, many other health issues — you could find yourself unable to buy insurance. Without insurance, you could be denied crucial treatments. In a tangible way, Graham-Cassidy would harm millions of Americans.
Aviva Aron-Dine and Sarah Kliff have both written good explainers on this issue. As Kliff notes, “There is literally no analysis” to support Cassidy’s claim that the bill would expand the number of insured.
Jimmy Kimmel, the country’s most unexpected health wonk, has urged Cassidy to stop “jamming this horrible bill down our throats.”
Insurers came out against the bill yesterday, joining doctors, hospitals, AARP, patient advocates, multiple governors and others.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders are trying to win the vote of Lisa Murkowski — one of three Republican senators who voted against a previous Obamacare repeal bill, in July — by funneling money to Alaska.
In the least surprising development of all, President Trump is now repeating Cassidy’s falsehoods.
The last word on health care this morning goes to Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan. “Graham-Cassidy is a brazen effort to block any level of government, state or federal, from achieving near-universal coverage,” he writes. “That’s what the debate is about. Everything else is just noise.”
Read Leonhardt’s entire piece with working links to his sources and citations at this link:
And Leonhardt is by no means the only one blowing the whistle on the GOP’s latest War on America. Among many others, the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” awarded Senator Cassidy “Three Pinocchios” for his false claims about coverage:
“Regular readers of The Fact Checker know that the burden of proof falls on the person making the claim. Cassidy has provided little evidence to support his claim of more coverage, except that innovation would flourish and help bring down costs and expand coverage. That’s certainly possible, but it would be more plausible if his proposal did not slash funding to such an extent.
Kimmel’s claim that 30 million fewer Americans will have insurance may be a high-end estimate. But already, in 2019, CBO calculations suggest at least 15 million fewer Americans would have insurance once the individual and employer mandates are repealed. Much of that decline might be by choice, but Cassidy insists the gap will be filled and then exceeded in 10 years. Unlike Cassidy, no prominent health-care analyst is willing to venture a guess on coverage levels — but the consensus is that his funding formula makes his claim all but impossible to achieve.
Given the lack of coverage estimates by the CBO or other health-care experts, Cassidy’s claim does not quite rise to Four Pinocchios. But it certainly merits a Three.
Three Pinocchios”
Here’s a link to the complete analysis by the Post’s Glenn Kessler:
“U.S. immigration officials have a long history of overstepping the boundaries of their legal authority and violating the constitutional and other legal rights of migrants at the Southwest border. Allegations of abuse throughout the apprehension, detention, and deportation process are not new; immigrant rights organizations and media outlets have reported on those violations for years.
Deportations in the Dark: Lack of Process and Information in the Removal of Mexican Migrants, a new report released by the American Immigration Council, is the most recent effort to document such violations. The report shows the extent to which U.S. immigration officials prevent migrants in their custody from accessing critical information and processes, which in many cases jeopardizes their chances to access various forms of immigration relief. Specifically, the report examines whether U.S. immigration agents properly inform migrants of their rights, actively obstruct their ability to exercise these rights, coerce or intimidate migrants in their custody, or neglect to provide removal documents to migrants at the time of repatriation.
The study is the result of a collaboration between the Council and the Mexico-based Binational Defense and Advocacy Program (in Spanish, Programa de Defensa e Incidencia Binacional, or PDIB), a Mexican human rights initiative established in 2010 to document abuses perpetrated against repatriated Mexican immigrants during their time in the United States. With staff currently located in three different sites—Nogales, Sonora; Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua—PDIB interviews migrants upon deportation to Mexico on an ongoing basis.
Based on new survey data (600 interviews) collected by PDIB between August 2016 and April 2017 and testimonies gathered between August 2016 and May 2017, the study found that migrants are frequently deprived of legally required information, told they cannot contact their consulates, compelled to sign documents they cannot read or understand, threatened with protracted detention, and blocked from applying for asylum and other legal claims.
For example, half of the respondents who signed repatriation documents reported that they were not allowed to read the documents before they signed them; 57.6 percent did not receive their repatriation documents; 43.5 percent were not advised of their right to contact their consulate; more than half (55.7 percent) were not asked if they feared returning home.
This report is perhaps the first attempt to systematically analyze the prevalence of denied access to critical information among migrants in U.S. custody. Some of the issues highlighted here, however, have been raised by advocates and been subject to litigation in the past. One concrete example is the case of immigration agents misleading migrants into waiving their right to a removal hearing by signing for voluntary return.
When immigration authorities deprive migrants of critical information regarding their rights or the opportunity to exercise them, migrants may face unjust deportation and lose the ability to ever seek legal admission or apply for asylum in the future. As the U.S. government promises to institute a new level of immigration enforcement, the behavioral patterns of U.S. immigration authorities highlighted in this report are a source of concern.“
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This is what Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions’s disingenuous claims about the “Rule of Law” really mean. And, for EOIR to post on its website DOJ propaganda about how ramming through more final orders of removal, many without full due process because individuals were given not given legally sufficient notice of their hearings, were effectively denied their right to counsel, were denied the opportunity to gather documentation necessary for their cases, or were coerced into withdrawing claims or waiving appeals, has something to do with the Imigration Courts’ mission is simply more proof that the current system has become a disgraceful mockery of justice.
America needs an independent Article I Immigration Court, now!
D“The end of the 1960s turned out to be Detroit’s apex. In the early 1970s, dubious U.S. economic and foreign policy led to disaster when the Middle East OPEC nations initiated an oil embargo. Gas became scarce and expensive, and Detroit was caught focusing on the wrong products—ostentatious gas-guzzlers—at the wrong time, giving Japanese makers of small cars an opening in the U.S. market. Pulitzer Prize–winning auto historian Joseph White wrote about two fateful mistakes that made things worse. First, “Detroit underestimated the competition,” he said. The likes of Toyota and Honda had become much more adept than industry executives realized. Second, the U.S. companies “handled failure better than success.” Detroit’s decades of triumph set up the hubris, waste and bad practices that came to haunt it.
From there, it was a short trip to loss of market leadership, layoffs, plant closings and a city that fell into a desperate decline.Think that could never happen to Silicon Valley? Like 1970s Detroit, Silicon Valley seems to be handling success rather badly. Look at the twisted mess at Uber and the culture wars tearing at Google’s guts. Insanely high valuations of private companies are starting to look like a perilous pyramid scheme Bernie Madoff might admire. High costs and ever-worsening congestion are making the San Francisco Bay Area nearly unlivable for all but the superrich. At the same time, much of U.S. tech is underestimating the competition, particularly from China and the European Union.Making it all worse, the Trump administration seems to be doing everything it can to help shove Silicon Valley off its pedestal. Trump’s policies on trade, immigration and investment are giving competing nations openings to steal important chunks of Silicon Valley’s global leadership, lure away talent and divert capital to other rising tech centers—even France. (You know, the country President George W. Bush once said doesn’t even “have a word for entrepreneur .”)
Related: Is the Silicon Valley Bubble about to Pop?The Silicon Valley tech industry isn’t going to suddenly crumble and vanish. Detroit’s auto industry didn’t disappear either. But there’s a clear demarcation point in the early 1970s, when Detroit’s worldwide hegemony ended. The CEOs, founders and wizards of Silicon Valley would be misguided to think they’re immune from any similar stumble off their pedestal.
. . . .
Most damaging of all may be the policies of the Trump administration, which has been implementing or proposing one policy after another that puts the industry at a competitive disadvantage.Earlier this year, the president initiated a review of H-1B visas for foreign workers, which tech companies rely on to bring in talent. More recently, the Trump administration delayed —and may kill—the International Entrepreneur Rule, which would make it easier for foreign company founders to bring their startups to the U.S. “At a time when countries around the world are doing all they can to attract and retain talented individuals to come to their shores to build and grow innovative companies, the Trump administration is signaling its intent to do the exact opposite,” said Bobby Franklin, president and CEO of the National Venture Capital Association.And in early September, Trump said he will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to stay. Now, they may be deported. Some are valuable employees of tech companies. Microsoft pledged to pay the legal expenses of any employees who face deportation as DACA ends. Microsoft President Brad Smith called Trump’s decision “a big step back for our entire country,” and the industry worries that it will further discourage talented foreigners from coming to the U.S.Other countries have started pursuing international talent like sharks circling surfers at dusk. “I myself hope that many of these engineers will come to China to work for us,” said Robin Li, CEO of Chinese tech giant Baidu. Canada’s minister of innovation, Navdeep Bains, launched a recruitment program, saying, “We want to be open to people.” French President Emmanuel Macron announced that tech talent can “find in France a second homeland.”Even more detrimental to U.S. tech are two other Trump decisions: pulling out of the Paris climate accord and dumping the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement on trade with Asia.”
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Read the rest of the story at the link.
Government by the arrogant, ignorant, incompetent, biased, and unqualified has its downsides! It’s something that we’re all going to learn over the next four years, assuming that Trump doesn’t get us into a world-ending nuclear war before then. Perhaps one of the stupidest consequences of some very stupid policies: one of the main beneficiaries is likely to be China, one of our biggest tech competitors, and unlike Canada, also a potential hostile military threat! Trump and his cronies are dangers to our national security!
“Jeff Sessions Is Dismantling the Justice Department’s Community Policing Initiative When We Need It Most
The program wasn’t federal intrusion. Local police asked for it to improve relations with the communities they serve.
As St. Louis and the rest of the country reacted to the acquittal of the police officer who killed Anthony Lamar Smith last Friday, the Justice Department had its focus on something else. While we expressed outrage at continued state violence and another fatal police shooting of a Black man with no accountability, Attorney General Jeff Sessions did just the opposite. On Friday, DOJ announced the end of a community policing program as we know it. The program, which once helped St. Louis County police address racial profiling and other localities address issues like excessive use of force, is no more. Instead, DOJ will now assist local agencies in “fight[ing] violent crime,” aka, Session’s failed drug war agenda. The Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance, or “collaborative reform” for short, was started in 2011 at the request of local law enforcement. The DOJ program provided resources to law enforcement agencies that were experiencing serious policing failures and reached out to the agency for help. These police departments were plagued by excessive force, biased policing, and failed police-community relations. As the former head of the COPS office, Ron Davis, described, “[collaborative] reform worked because it was driven by local police, elected [and] community leaders who wanted stronger relationships [and] safer cities.” This effort was far from the “federal intrusion” that Sessions uses to describe the previous administration’s oversight of local policing. Police departments and local communities sought out and volunteered for this federal program. And they were right to do so. The police departments benefiting from collaborative reform were often responsible for fatal police shootings that garnered national attention. We are talking about departments in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Dontre Hamilton was fatally shot by police; Saint Anthony, Minnesota, where Philando Castile met the same fate; and North Charleston, South Carolina, where Walter Scott was also fatally gunned down by a police offer. The collaborative reform cities that were waiting on DOJ’s recommendations, like Milwaukee, have been told to stop holding their breath. The reports are not coming. A draft of the Milwaukee report shows just what is at stake with the loss of these federal resources. The report revealed that “MPD members generally do not understand their roles in community policing.” The report also found that “MPD’s traffic enforcement practices have a disparate impact on the African-American community” and the department “does not have specific guidelines for conducting use of force investigations.” For DOJ to now deny critical policing resources to troubled agencies and communities is appalling. Police departments and local officials asked for federal help so they could attempt to “strengthen and build the mutual trust” between law enforcement and communities in the midst of tragedy, often a fatal police shooting. And for Sessions to say he now wants the program to “fight violent crime” is ridiculous. Fatal police shootings can be violent crimes; they just tend to happen without consequence as we saw most recently in St. Louis. So what can be done with police practices and a justice system that continues to fail this country? Let’s keep organizing, advocating, and litigating, making sure our voices are heard. Let’s tell our local police departments that we will work with them to ensure constitutional policing practices; that we will hold them accountable even if this Justice Department will not. Originally published at www.aclu.org.”
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Just another part of Gonzo’s White Nationalist program. Liz was right!
“The Trump administration’s latest attempt to punish sanctuary cities hit a snag on Friday when a federal court ruled the Justice Department cannot withhold public safety grants from jurisdictions that refuse to assist federal immigration authorities. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had attempted to prevent cities and states from receiving these funds unless they cooperatedwith immigration officials’ crackdown on undocumented immigrants. The court held that Sessions in fact has no power to attach new restrictions to the grants, rendering most of his new rules unlawful.
MARK JOSEPH STERN
Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.
Friday’s decision marked the second time a court has blocked Sessions’ attempts to penalize sanctuary cities by depriving them of federal grants. It also comes on the heels of a sweeping ruling that froze the most controversial provisions of Texas’ new anti–sanctuary cities bill. Earlier this month, the White House declared that Donald Trump is “restoring law and order to our immigration system.” But in their haste to adopt a restrictionist immigration regime, Trump, Sessions, and their fellow Republicans have shown a consistent disdain for federal statutes and constitutional protections.
Consider Sessions’ latest sanctuary cities imbroglio. In July, the attorney general created new criteria for Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance grants, which dispense hundreds of millions of dollars to state and local law enforcement. Under these rules, jurisdictions would not be eligible for Byrne grants unless they collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Most pertinent here, law enforcement officials would have to give ICE agents access to local jails and, if the agency is interested in detaining an undocumented immigrant, notify ICE 48 hours before that person is set to be released. Chicago sued, alleging that the new rules were illegal.
Where does Sessions get the authority to impose these conditions on Byrne grants? Nowhere, as Judge Harry D. Leinenweber of the Northern District of Illinois pointed out in his ruling siding with Chicago. The Constitution grants Congress, not the executive branch, authority to impose conditions on federal funding. And Congress has never authorized the Justice Department, which is part of the executive branch, to force Byrne grantees to work with ICE. Sessions simply usurped Congress’ authority to make new rules.
When Chicago sued Sessions over the Byrne conditions in August, the attorney general put out a Trumpian statement asserting that the city “proudly violate[s] the rule of law” by protecting undocumented immigrants. But as Leinenweber explained on Friday, it was Sessions, not Chicago, who was acting lawlessly.
It’s surprising that Sessions would try to meddle with Byrne grants given that his first foray into sanctuary city–bashing failed so spectacularly. In Trump’s first days in office, the president issued an executive order directing the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary to withhold all federal grants and funding from sanctuary jurisdictions. Multiple cities quickly filed suit to defend their sanctuary policies. Sessions’ Justice Department, which apparently realized this order would violate multiple constitutional provisions, told a federal court that in reality, the order was nothing more than a narrow warning to sanctuary cities that the government would enforce current grant conditions.
In April, U.S. District Judge William Orrick blocked the order as an unconstitutional abomination. In his decision, Orrick essentially mocked the Justice Department, writing that he would not accept the DOJ’s “implausible” interpretation as it would transform Trump’s order into “an ominous, misleading, and ultimately toothless threat.” Instead, he analyzed the text of the order and found that it infringed upon constitutional separation of powers; coerced and commandeered local jurisdictions in violation of the 10thAmendment; and ran afoul of basic due process principles.
The White House promptly complained that Orrick “unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our Nation” in an “egregious overreach.” Ironically, that is almost exactly what Trump had done through his executive order, illegally attaching new conditions to federal funds without congressional approval. Orrick had merely enforced the law; it was Trump who tried to change it unilaterally.
Neither of the Trump administration’s unlawful immigration power-grabs is as startling as SB 4, a Texas bill targeting sanctuary cities that Sessions’ Justice Department has defended in court. Confident in their measure’s legislative success, Texas Republicans turned SB 4 into a compendium of the most draconian possible attacks on sanctuary jurisdictions. The bill compelled local police to enforce immigration law, cooperate with ICE agents, and detain potentially undocumented immigrants; it also censored local officials who wished to speak out against the law. Law enforcement officers who ran afoul of SB 4 would face massive fines, jail time, and removal from office. Government employees who criticized the measure could also be fined and stripped of their positions.”
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Let’s get this straight: the “rule of law” to Sessions means laws aimed disproportionately at Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, undocumented migrants, non-white immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, ethnic communities, jurisdictions that voted for Democrats, legal marijuana users and businesses, innocent victims of civil forfeitures, and “leakers” (many would say “whistleblowers”) who are career civil servants. In other words law enforcement that in some disturbing ways parallels the “Jim Crow” laws in Alabama and other Southern States to which Sessions would apparently like to return (only with a greater emphasis on targeting Latinos, rather than Blacks, although he has little use for the latter now that the confirmation process is complete during which he “conned” a couple of Blacks into saying he wasn’t a racist.)
I remember from my youth hypocritical Southern racists like George Wallace asserting the false mantle of “the rule of law” and “states rights” for enforcing blatantly discriminatory racial laws while stomping on the actual legal and constitutional rights, and often lives, of Black citizens. Sessions has little or no intention of enforcing laws relating to civil rights protections, voting rights, protections for LGBTQ individuals, protections against local police abuses, due process for migrants in and outside of the U.S. Immigration Court process, environmental protection, constitutional conditions of detention, and ethics. Sessions is clearly a liar, if not a perjurer (which he might be) under legal definitions.
We should all be concerned that this totally unqualified and disingenuous individual has been put in charge of the U.S. justice system. I’ve commented earlier on the glaring unsuitability of individuals like Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton to be governing a state with a significant Hispanic population.
And, Stern’s article didn’t even raise Trump’s greatest and most audacious abuse of the rule of law: his totally unjustified and inappropriate abuse of the Presidential Pardon authority by pardoning the unrepentant, unapologetic “Racist Joe.” Think about what “Racist Joe” stands for, as described by a U.S. District Judge who found him guilty of contempt of court after trial for his continuing, knowing, and intentional abuses of the constitutional rights of Latino citizens and prisoners, among others.In what way does “Racist Joe” deserve a pardon? How would you feel if you were a Hispanic citizen or a detainee who had his or her constitutional rights intentionally violated and was victimized by this arrogant, bullying, racist? The innocent suffer while the guilty go unpunished. What kind of “rule of law” is that?
Then think of all the GOP “politicos” who “palled around” with “Racist Joe” and his toxic sidekick Kris Kobach and even sought their endorsements! That’s because it would help with the racist, White Supremacist “core vote” that has allowed the GOP to gain control of much of the U.S. governing structure notwithstanding the party’s extremist views and generally destructive agenda.
This is very reminiscent of how the “White Southern racist base” helped the Democrats maintain a stranglehold on government for the bulk of the mid-20th Century. Assume that the “Trump base” is 20% of the electorate and only 15% fit my foregoing description. That means without the racist White Supremacist vote, the GOP and Trump would have polled around 31% of the popular vote, not enough to win even with the idiosyncrasies of our electoral system that favor the GOP minority!
“Washington (CNN)The Trump administration on Monday announced an end to protections for Sudanese immigrants, a move that advocates fear could be a sign of things to come.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday afternoon that it would be ending Temporary Protected Status for Sudan after a 12-month sunset period. It opted to extend, however, Temporary Protected Status for South Sudan, which gained its independence in 2011, through May 2019.
The decision was overdue. By law, decisions on TPS designations are required 60 days before an expiration deadline. With both countries’ status set to expire on November 2, the decision was due September 3. DHS said it made a decision in time, but kept it quiet for more than two weeks and did not respond to requests for an explanation.
While the decision on the future of Temporary Protected Status for Sudanese and South Sudanese immigrants only affects just over 1,000 people in the US, the decision is being closely watched as a harbinger of where the administration will go on upcoming TPS decisions that affect more than 400,000 people in the US.
Under Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke’s direction on Monday, recipients of protections from Sudan will be allowed to remain protected from deportation and allowed to work under the program until November 2, 2018, during which they are expected to arrange for their departure or seek another immigration status that would allow them to remain in the US.
Individuals from South Sudan will be able to extend their status until May 2, 2019, when DHS will make another decision on their future based on conditions in the country.
According to USCIS data, at the end of 2016 there were 1,039 temporarily protected immigrants from Sudan in the United States and 49 from South Sudan.
Temporary Protected Status is a type of immigration status provided for by law in cases where a home country may not be hospitable to returning immigrants for temporary circumstances, including in instances of war, epidemic and natural disaster.
While DHS did not explain the delay in publicizing the decision, which the agency confirmed last week was made on time, the law only requires “timely” publication of a TPS determination. The decision was made as the administration was preparing to announce the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, a popular program that has protected nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation since 2012.
Some of the affected individuals have been living in the US for 20 years. TPS is not a blanket protection — immigrants have to have been living in the US continuously since a country was “designated” for TPS in order to qualify.
For example, Sudan was first designated in 1997 and was re-designated in 1999, 2004 and 2013, meaning people had opportunities to apply if they’ve been living in the US since any of those dates. South Sudan’s TPS was established in 2011 and had re-designations in 2014 and 2016.
Both countries were designated for TPS based on “ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions.”
The situation in Sudan has improved in recent years, but there are still concerns about its stability and human rights record. In January, outgoing President Barack Obama eased sanctions on Sudan but made some moves contingent upon further review. President Donald Trump has extended that review period. South Sudan, meanwhile, remains torn by conflict.
Advocates for TPS have expressed fear that if the administration were to begin to unwind the programs, it could be a sign of further decisions to come. In the next six months, roughly 400,000 immigrants’ status will be up for consideration, including Central American countries like El Salvador that have been a focus of the Presidents’ ire over illegal immigration and gang activity.
close dialog
California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the immigration subcommittee for the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview before the decision that ending Sudan’s protections could be a sign of more to come.
“I mean look what’s going on in Sudan,” Lofgren said. “If that is a wise decision, what’s an unwise one?”
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Let’s take a closer look at some of those supposedly “improved conditions,” using the Government’s own information, the U.S. Department of State’s latest (2016) Country Report on Human Rights Conditions for Sudan:
“The three most significant human rights problems were inability of citizens to choose their government, aerial bombardments of civilian areas by military forces and attacks on civilians by government and other armed groups in conflict zones, and abuses perpetrated by NISS with impunity through special security powers given it by the regime. On January 14, the government launched an intensive aerial and ground offensive against Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid (SLA/AW) strongholds in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur. This operation displaced more than 44,700 persons by January 31, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In February the government established in Darfur a suboffice of the National Human Rights Commission to enhance the commission’s capacity to monitor human rights in Darfur. Meanwhile, ground forces comprising Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Border Guards carried out attacks against more than 50 villages in an attempt to dislodge the armed opposition. Attacks on villages often included killing and beating of civilians; sexual and gender-based violence; forced displacement; looting and burning entire villages; destroying food stores and other infrastructure necessary for sustaining life; and attacks on humanitarian targets, including humanitarian facilities and peacekeepers. In September, Amnesty International issued a report alleging that, through September the government engaged in scorched-earth tactics and used chemical weapons in Jebel Marra, Darfur. UN monitors were unable to verify the alleged use of chemical weapons, due in part to lack of access to Jebel Marra, including by rebel commanders loyal to Abdel Wahid. By year’s end the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had not been presented with sufficient corroborating evidence to conclude chemical weapons had been used. The NISS continued to show a pattern of widespread disregard for rule of law, committing major abuses, such as extrajudicial and other unlawful killings; torture, beatings, rape and other cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest and detention by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; incommunicado detention; prolonged pretrial detention; obstruction of humanitarian assistance; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly,association, religion, and movement; and intimidation and closure of human rights and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Societal abuses included discrimination against women; sexual violence; female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C); early childhood marriage; use of child soldiers; child abuse; sexual exploitation of children; trafficking in persons; discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities, persons with disabilities, and persons with HIV/AIDS; denial of workers’ rights; and child labor. Government authorities did not investigate human rights violations by NISS, the military or any other branch of the security services, with limited exceptions relating to the national police. The government failed to adequately compensate families of victims of shootings during the September 2013 protests, make its investigations public, or hold security officials accountable. Impunity remained a problem in all branches of the security forces.
. . . .
The 2005 Interim National Constitution prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, but security forces, government-aligned groups, rebel groups, and ethnic factions continued to torture, beat, and harass suspected political opponents, rebel supporters, and others. In accordance with the government’s interpretation of sharia (Islamic law), the penal code provides for physical punishments, including flogging, amputation, stoning, and the public display of a body after execution, despite the constitution’s prohibitions. With the exception of flogging, such physical punishment was rare. Courts routinely imposed flogging, especially as punishment for the production or consumption of alcohol. The law requires police and the attorney general to investigate deaths on police premises, regardless of suspected cause. Reports of suspicious deaths in police custody were sometimes investigated but not prosecuted. For example, in November authorities detained a man upon his return from Israel. He died while in custody, allegedly from falling out a window, although the building had sealed windows. The president called on the chief prosecutor and chief justice to ensure full legal protection of police carrying out their duties and stated that police should investigate police officers only when they were observed exceeding their authority. Government security forces (including police, NISS, and military intelligence personnel of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)) beat and tortured physically and psychologically persons in detention, including members of the political opposition, civil society, religious activists, and journalists, according to civil society activists in Khartoum, former detainees, and NGOs. Torture and other forms of mistreatment included prolonged isolation, exposure to extreme temperature variations, electric shock, and use of stress positions. Some female detainees alleged NISS harassed and sexually assaulted them. Some former detainees reported being injected with an unknown substance without their consent. Many former detainees, including detained students, reported being forced to take sedatives that caused lethargy and severe weight loss. The government subsequently released many of these persons without charge. Government authorities detained members of the Darfur Students Association during the year. Upon release, numerous students showed visible signs of severe physical abuse. Government forces reportedly used live bullets to disperse crowds of protesting Darfuri students. There were numerous reports of violence against student activists’ family members.
Security forces detained political opponents incommunicado, without charge, and tortured them. Some political detainees were held in isolation cells in regular prisons, and many were held without access to family or medical treatment. Human rights organizations asserted NISS ran “ghost houses,” where it detained opposition and human rights figures without acknowledging they were being held. Such detentions at times were prolonged. Journalists were beaten, threatened, and intimidated (see section 2.a.). The law prohibits (what it deems as) indecent dress and punishes it with a maximum of 40 lashes, a fine, or both. Officials acknowledged authorities applied these laws more frequently against women than men and applied them to both Muslims and non-Muslims. Courts denied some women bail, although by law they may have been eligible. There were numerous abuses reported similar to the following example: On June 25, the Public Order Police arrested several young women and men in Khartoum under the Public Order Act for “indecent dress.” During the sweep, all women who did not have their hair covered were taken into custody. The Public Order Police further arrested two young men for wearing shorts. According to NGO reports, the Public Order Police released the young women and men later the same day without charges.
Security forces, rebel groups, and armed individuals perpetrated sexual violence against women throughout the country; the abuse was especially prevalent in the conflict areas (see section 1.g.). As of year’s end, no investigations into the allegations of mass rape in Thabit, Darfur, had taken place (see section 6).”
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What I’ve set forth above is just a small sample of some of the “lowlights.” Virtually every paragraph of the Country Report is rife with descriptions of or references to gross abuses of Human Rights.
Clearly, these are not the type of “improved country conditions” that would justify the termination of TPS for Sudan. Moreover, since it affects only 1,000 individuals, there are no overriding policy or practical reasons driving the decision.
No, the Administration’s totally disingenuous decision is just another example of wanton cruelty, denial of established facts, and stupidity. Clearly, this is an Administration that puts Human Rights last, if at all.
As pointed out by Nolan Rappaport in a a recent post, the best solution here is a legislative solution that would provide green cards to long-time “TPSers” through the existing statutory device of “registry.” With some lead time to work on this, hopefully Lofgren can convince enough of her colleagues to make it happen.
