🏴‍☠️🔨DO IT YOURSELF CORNER: Billy The Bigot Barr Tells You How To Design & Build Your Own “Aggravated Felony” — No Knowledge Or Tools Required — All You Need Is Some Unsustainable Charges, Evil 🦹🏿‍♂️ Imagination, & The Willingness To Ignore The Law To Start Your Very Own Deportation Factory! — Family Fun For Everyone! — Matter of Reyes

Matter of REYES, 28 I&N Dec. 52 (A.G. 2020)

The Attorney General has issued a decision in Matter of REYES, 28 I&N Dec. 52 (A.G. 2020).

HEADNOTE:

(1) If all of the means of committing a crime, based on the elements of the statute of conviction, amount to one or more of the offenses listed in section 101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(43), then an alien who has been convicted of that crime has necessarily been convicted of an aggravated felony for purposes of the INA.

(2) The respondent’s conviction for grand larceny in the second degree under New York Penal Law § 155.40(1) qualifies as a conviction for an aggravated felony for purposes of the INA. DHS charged that the respondent had been convicted of either aggravated-felony theft or aggravated-felony fraud, as defined in section 101(a)(43)(G) and (M)(i) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(G) and (M)(i). Larceny by acquiring lost property constitutes aggravated-felony theft, and the parties do not dispute that the other means of violating the New York statute correspond to either aggravated-felony theft or aggravated-felony fraud.

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

The DHS has the burden of proving removability. The DHS charges two distinct aggravated felonies. At trial and on appeal to the BIA, DHS can sustain neither charge. Therefore, according to Billy, to make the respondent removable, Immigration Judges should look for the generic elements of the respondent’s crime in any of the separate sections defining “aggravated felony” and combine them as necessary to create a new aggravated felony.

In other words, even if the respondent has not committed any listed “aggravated felony” under the so-called “categorical approach,” the judge must rewrite the statute as necessary to create new aggravated felonies that overcome the shortcomings and limitations of the actual statutory language used by Congress. The judge need not find that the respondent was convicted of any particular aggravated felony listed in the statute. It is enough that he or she committed the elements of some generic crime that would be some aggravated felony if we rewrote the definition as we think it should have been written to maximize deportations.

As my friends and colleagues Judge Jeffrey S. Chase (Jeffrey S. Chase Blog) and Dan Kowalski (LexisNexis Immigration Community) pointed out to me, this is not the first time that a GOP AG has decided to “diss” the Federal Courts by attempting to rewrite the “categorical approach” out of existence. AG Mukasey tried something similar with crimes involving moral turpitude during the Bush II Administration in Matter of Silva-Trevino, 24 I&N Dec. 24 I&N Dec. 608 (A.G. 2006). The Federal Courts didn’t agree, and Attorney General Eric Holder eventually vacated Mukasey’s lousy decision. http://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/AG-Order-Vacating-Silva-Trevino-2015.pdf

All of us who believe in due process and equal justice should look forward to a day when a future Attorney General and/or Congress will vacate all of the misguided, biased, anti-immigrant “precedents” by Billy the Bigot, Gonzo Apocalypto, and Whitaker and thereby restore some semblance of fairness, normalcy, and predictability to the law. In the meantime, we’ll see whether Billy’s attempt to undo the “categorical approach” fares any better than Mukasey’s with the Federal Courts.

Litigate litigate, litigate! It’s important that the Federal Courts feel and see the pain caused by the DOJ’s biased rewriting of established principles of immigration law to create unnecessary controversies where there previously were none. Immigration law has never been short of legitimate controversies for litigation. But this regime’s unprecedented attempt to rewrite immigration law by fiat has upset those areas that previously were settled, thereby creating new waves of avoidable litigation and controversy where previously there was some agreement and efficiency. No wonder the Immigration Court backlog has mushroomed out of control. Sadly, the regime’s maliciously incompetent approach to the Immigration Courts resembles its maliciously incompetent approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. Basically a total disaster!

I also credit Jeffrey with the “Do It Yourself” observation. Or, as Dan pointed out, Billy’s approach could be called “Tinker Toy Analysis” or “Legoland Analysis.”

Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-31-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮CONTEMPT FOR COURTS = CONTEMPT FOR AMERICA! — As Trump Disses Court Orders On DACA It’s Clear That Saying “Nobody Is Above The Law” Has Little To Do With Reality — Barr, Wolf, Miller, & Trump Remain Free To Abuse, While Their Victims Suffer & Their Lawyers Find That Even Winning Means Losing When A Supposedly Independent Judiciary Won’t Stand Up To A Lawless Executive & His Henchpeople!

https://apple.news/AJNODllmJS-meicPYuRkl-Q

Mark Joseph Stern Reports in Slate:

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it will continue to defy a federal court order compelling the full restoration of DACA, the Obama-era program that allows 700,000 immigrants to live and work in the United States legally. By doing so, the administration has chosen to flout a decision by the Supreme Court, effectively rejecting the judiciary’s authority to say what the law is.

Donald Trump first attempted to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in September 2017, a move that would’ve stripped its beneficiaries of work permits and subjected them to deportation. But his administration continually cut corners, failing to explain the basis for its decision and refusing to consider the impact of DACA repeal on immigrants, their communities, and their employers (including the U.S. Army). This June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious” under federal law and therefore “set aside” DACA repeal.

To implement that decision, U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm compelled the administration to restore DACA to its pre-repeal condition on July 17. Grimm’s order required the Department of Homeland Security to let DACA beneficiaries renew their status for two years, accept new applicants, and restore “advance parole,” which permits travel outside the country. But DHS did not do that. Instead, the agency maintained that it would reject new DACA applicants. It also declined to accept DACA renewals or reinstate advance parole.

At a hearing Friday, Grimm tore into Justice Department attorneys for flouting his order. The government’s actions, he explained, created “a feeling and a belief that the agency is disregarding binding decisions” from the Supreme Court. DOJ attorneys insisted that DACA applications were merely “on hold,” or “placed into a bucket,” while the administration decided how to proceed. But, as Grimm retorted, “it is a distinction without a difference to say that this application has not been denied, it has been received and it has been put in a bucket.” The judge once again directed DHS to comply with the law by accepting new applicants and processing renewals.

Incredibly, the agency has decided to disobey this order, as well. On Tuesday, acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf declared that it would not accept new applications and would only grant one-year extensions to current beneficiaries “on a case by case basis.” This tactic will make it easier for Trump to deport DACA beneficiaries if he wins reelection, since their status will expire sooner. The agency will also deny advance parole “absent exceptional circumstances.” This new policy is nothing less than brazen defiance of a federal court ruling. Grimm, and the Supreme Court itself, ordered DACA’s full resuscitation, which requires the acceptance of new applicants and the conferral of two-year renewals. There is simply no legal basis for DHS’s zombie version of the program.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Equal justice for all and the easing of racial tensions in America will not happen until we get an Executive, Legislators, and Judges with the courage and integrity to make it happen. We’re a long way from that now.

The timid approach of the Legislative and Judicial Branches to Trump’s and his cronies’ almost daily abuses of our legal system have sent the message that the law is largely meaningless in the age of Trump, except if you are a person of color, asylum seeker, immigrant, or, perish the thought, all three, in which case the law only applies to you when the effects are adverse to your interests but not to protect you. On the other hand, if you are a Trump official or a DOJ lawyer, compliance with the law is at most a suggestion and ignoring it has few meaningful consequences.

The Trump regime has exposed the deep flaws and weaknesses in our democratic institutions. We need better public officials in all three branches of the Government. Better judges will take awhile because of life tenure. But, a better Executive, Legislature, and public servants can be achieved with a “big push” in November to expel the malicious incompetents at all levels. And, that will set the stage for eventually achieving a better Federal Judiciary that will stand up to tyranny and lawlessness and show that “nobody is above the law” is more than just a feckless catchphrase.

Due Process Forever! A Feckless Legislature & Federal Judiciary, Never!

PWS

07-29-20

⚖️🗽😎👍🏼👨🏾‍🎓🏆MASTER CALENDAR REFORM: WHAT THE POST-KAKISTOCRACY IMMIGRATION COURT COULD LOOK LIKE — “The Asylumist” Jason Dzubow Shows Exactly Why An Independent Article I Immigration Court With More “Private Sector Experts” (Like Jason & Many Others) As Judges & Judicial Administrators Would Promote “Due Process With Efficiency” & Creative Judicial Administration That Would Be Good For Everyone Involved (Including DHS)!

https://www.asylumist.com/2020/07/29/re-thinking-the-master-calendar-hearing-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/

New post on The Asylumist

The Master Calendar Hearing–where dozens of people are squeezed into a room and forced to wait for hours in order to talk to a Judge for two minutes–has always been a headache and a waste of time. Now, though, as the coronavirus pandemic continues unabated, attending an MCH seems downright dangerous (lucky for us, we have an associate attorney who covers our MCHs – Don’t forget to wash your hands when (if) you get back!). I’ve written before about alternatives to the MCH, and given the expanding pandemic and the need for social distancing, now seems a good time to re-visit some of these ideas.

Before we get to that, I should mention that MCHs are not the only place where groups of non-citizens are packed together against their will. Far worse are our nation’s ICE detention facilities and private prisons, where conditions were already quite bleak (in the two years before the pandemic, 21 people died in ICE custody). Unfortunately, ICE has not taken effective action to protect detained asylum seekers and other non-citizens from the pandemic (at one facility in Virginia, for example, nearly 75% of detainees tested positive for COVID-19), and the agency seems to have little regard for the health of its detainees (or staff). As a colleague aptly notes, Anne Frank did not die in a gas chamber; she most likely died from typhus, which was epidemic in her detention camp.

Also, it’s worth noting that the National Association of Immigration Judges (the judges’ union) has been working hard for safer conditions in our nation’s Immigration Courts, even if EOIR management has been hostile to some of those efforts. Currently, non-detained MCHs have been suspended, but so far, there is no EOIR-wide policy for what to do instead. Some Immigration Judges and individual courts have made it easier to submit written statements in lieu of MCHs, but the process is still needlessly awkward and time consuming.

MCHs are no more efficient today than they were in olden times.

While we need a short-term fix so that MCHs can go forward during the pandemic, here I want to talk about longer-term solutions. Below are a few ideas for replacing in-person MCHs. While these ideas may not work in all cases, they will help most respondents (and their attorneys) avoid attending MCHs. This would save time and money for people in court, and would also save time and resources for the courts themselves, and for DHS. In addition, reducing the need to appear in person would help prevent the spread of disease. In short, doing away with MCHs is an all around win. So without further ado, here are some ideas to get rid of those pesky Master Calendar Hearings–

e-Master Calendar Hearings: EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts–has been working towards electronic filing for decades, and in some courts, limited online filing is available. Given that the infrastructure is being put into place for online filing, EOIR should create an online MCH. There already exists a system for written MCHs, but this is a huge pain in the neck. It involves a burdensome amount of paperwork, and judges don’t always respond to the documents we file. This means that we lawyers do double work–we submit everything in writing and we have to attend the MCH. Given how unreliable it is, many attorneys (including yours truly) would rather attend the MCH than try to do it in writing.

An effective and reliable e-MCH would be easy to use and efficient. Most cases fit a clear pattern: Admit the allegations, concede the charge(s), indicate the relief sought and language spoken, designate the country of removal, and obtain a date for the Individual Hearing. For attorneys and accredited representatives who are registered with EOIR, this could all easily be accomplished through an online form, thus saving time for all involved.

Orientation Sessions for Unrepresented Respondents: One difficulty during the typical MCH is attending to unrepresented respondents. People who come to court without a lawyer tend to take more time than people who have attorneys. This is because the attorneys (usually) know what is expected at the MCH and are (hopefully) ready to proceed. For people without lawyers, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) needs to explain what is going on, often through an interpreter. All this takes time and seems like busy work for the IJ (who often has to repeat the same litany multiple times during each MCH). Why not provide pre-MCHs with court staff instead of judges? There, unrepresented respondents can received a basic orientation about the process and be encouraged to find a lawyer. These sessions could be organized by language. Respondents who indicate that they will return with a lawyer can be given a deadline by which the lawyer can either submit the necessary information online (if e-MCHs have been implemented) or come to court if need be. Respondents who will not use a lawyer can be given a date to return for an in-person MCH with a judge. Even if e-MCHs are not implemented, having an orientation session would save significant time for judges and would make MCHs more efficient.

Empower DHS: In Immigration Court, the “prosecutor” works for the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). Most DHS attorneys are overwhelmed and overworked. They have little time to review cases in advance or to speak with opposing counsel prior to the MCH or the Individual Hearing. What if there were more DHS attorneys? What if we could pre-try cases, narrow issues, and maybe even hold depositions? If issues could be hashed out ahead of time, we could shorten or eliminate the need for a MCH, and we could make Individual Hearings more efficient.

All this seems pretty basic. The Immigration Courts are overwhelmed. Reducing or eliminating MCHs will free up judges to do substantive work. It will also save time for DHS, respondents, and their attorneys. And of course, given our new normal with the coronavirus, it will help keep everyone safe. Changes to the MCH system are long overdue, and are especially urgent due to the pandemic. Let’s hope that EOIR can finally rise to the occasion.

Jason Dzubow | July 29, 2020 at 9:09 am | Tags: coronavirus, court, EOIR | Categories: Immigration Court | URL: https://wp.me/p8nkzm-21G

Re-Thinking the Master Calendar Hearing in the Time of Coronavirus

by Jason Dzubow

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https://www.asylumist.com/2020/07/29/re-thinking-the-master-calendar-hearing-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/

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Thanks, Jason, for some great ideas!

One could wonder why EOIR hasn’t done this already. Unfortunately, the answer is obvious: It’s a “built to fail system” FUBAR System, run by a maliciously incompetent politicized kakistocracy whose main objective is to screw immigrants and secondary objective is to degrade and demoralize its own employees.

Creative thinking and working collectively and cooperatively with knowledgeable “stakeholders” — private counsel, pro bono groups, NGOs, immigrants, judges, staff, and ICE attorneys — is actively discouraged if not outright prohibited by current the political kakistocracy. That’s what happens when a racist, xenophobic agenda replaces due process and fundamental fairness as the objective and vision of the system. A kakistocracy actually inhibits and suppresses creative positive change in favor of “political gimmicks” and “haste makes waste” non-solutions to problems. The Trump regime is “Exhibit A!”

That’s why true reform can’t come without:

regime change;
Article I;
return to a sole focus on due process and fundamental fairness through teamwork and innovation;
a merit based Immigration Judiciary at all levels; and
professional court administration accountable to that independent judiciary (not a political kakistocracy).

Thanks for pointing us in the right direction, Jason! I know from my experience that there are lots of other folks out there in private sector with some great ideas on how to make the Immigration Court System functional while advancing due process, fundamental fairness, and human rights.

Another idea for promoting due process with efficiency developed by my friend retired Wisconsin Judge Tom Lister and me is to create a trained corps of Reserve Immigration Judges. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/08/19/an-open-letter-proposal-from-two-uw-law-73-retired-judges-weve-spent-90-collective-years-working-to-improve-the-quality-delivery-of-justice-in-america/

This would be comprised of retired judges from all systems who could work on a volunteer basis to perform certain types of standard judicial tasks to free up Immigration Judges to concentrate on fairly resolving the most difficult legal issues at individual hearings and to work on their opinion writing.

Master calendar hearings, motions calendars, status calls, bond hearings, and certain types of hearings where the issues are primarily factual would be naturals for a Reserve Immigration Judge Corps. It also would allow the Immigraton Court System to be more responsive to workload fluctuations without the problems of “fire drill” overstaffing, understaffing, and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” that currently plague the system.

Right now, we lack the political will to get the job done. That must start this November with “regime change” at all levels of our political system.

Elected officials who aren’t willing to prioritize and commit to an independent Article I Immigration Court dedicated to due process and fundamental fairness should be voted out of office. Enough of the nonsense, malicious incompetence, and inhumanity. Time for a change! We can’t afford the kakistocracy!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-29-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚖️⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY WATCH: BILLY THE BIGOT BLOWS BIGTIME BS AT CONGRESS: Laura Coates @ CNN With Analysis Of Billy’s Opening Statement Liefest & Stream Of Racist Tropes! — With This Trump Toady As Chief Lawyer, & Feckless Courts & Legislators, The U.S. Legal System Is Functionally Dead ☠️⚰️

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/opinions/william-barr-fallacies-undermine-justice-department-coates/index.html

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)Attorney General Bill Barr’s written opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee was replete with mischaracterizations, fallacies and unnerving stereotypes that run afoul of the principle of equal justice — and which, taken together, show how he has transformed the Department of Justice that enforces the law to a department that undermines the rule of law.

These are but a few lines that should evoke a visceral reaction to the views of a man who sits at the helm of the most powerful prosecutorial office in the country.

1. “Ever since I made it clear that I was going to do everything I could to get to the bottom of the grave abuses involved in the bogus ‘Russiagate’ scandal, many of the Democrats on this Committee have attempted to discredit me by conjuring up a narrative that I am simply the President’s factotum who disposes of criminal cases according to his instructions.”

No, Attorney General Barr, you are not being accused of being a factotum, colloquially defined as a handyman. You stand accused of being a henchman who acts not only under the President’s instructions but, perhaps more nefariously, exclusively in the President’s interests. And what conveys this impression is not a deceptive narrative crafted by the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, but rather your own conduct.

Case in point: undermining career prosecutors in what appears to clearly be the interests of President Donald Trump. Not once can I recall an attorney general weighing in on a career prosecutor’s sentencing recommendations for a defendant convicted of multiple felonies by a jury. Yet, this appears to be an increasingly frequent endeavor by this Attorney General on behalf of Trump associates, including, most recently former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and the President’s long-time friend Roger Stone.

William Barr has a lot to explain about actions on Michael Cohen

The disturbing trend is underscored by the fact that the one convicted felon who has fallen out of the President’s favor, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, felt the knife twisted rather than removed when the Justice Department recently, albeit briefly, sent him back to prison under questionable

And Barr’s misuse of terms continues with the use of the term “Russiagate.” The use of the suffix “gate” insinuates that it is conspiratorial, farcical and worthy of derision. And yet, the Attorney General has confirmed, as recently as today’s colloquy with Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, that Russia did interfere with the past presidential election and will presumably continue to interfere with our upcoming presidential election. Perhaps the nod to conspiracy theorists was inadvertent in light of overwhelming evidence he fails to dispute.

2. “Like his predecessors, President Trump and his National Security Council have appropriately weighed in on law-enforcement decisions that directly implicate national security or foreign policy, because those decisions necessarily involve considerations that transcend typical prosecutorial factors.”

No one doubts the propriety of the President of the United States and members of his National Security Council to get involved in cases that directly implicate the national security of this nation or those matters that directly relate to our foreign policy interests. What is in doubt is whether Barr’s defense of deploying federal agents to US cities is anything more than a pretextual reason to infringe upon the constitutional rights of Americans, namely their First Amendment rights to assemble and to protest their grievances with the government. A bald assertion of a national security interest does not absolve the executive branch from having to provide an appropriate and lawful justification when constitutional rights are implicated. And yet Barr has offered no compelling reason.

3. “I had nothing to prove and had no desire to return to government. … When asked to consider returning, I did so because I revere the Department and believed my independence would allow me to help steer her back to her core mission of applying one standard of justice for everyone and enforcing the law even-handedly, without partisan considerations.”

This is just laughable. He had no desire to return to the government? I have a June 2018 memo that says otherwise. It was entirely unsolicited, offered Barr’s insight on special counsel Robert Mueller’s handling of an investigation into Russia’s interference in our presidential election and read like a solicitation for a job. And lo and behold, he got his wish. Now, Barr has launched an investigation into the origins of what he calls “Russiagate” that seems to track the very outline he presented when he, ahem, had no desire to put skin in the game.

Barr’s suggestion that he was compelled to return to the helm out of a sincere interest to restore the objectivity and credibility of the Department of Justice is belied by his decision-making. His sentencing decisions that seem to show political favor, his failure to justify the use of force against peaceful protestors and his involvement in the removal of Geoffrey Berman, the former Attorney General for the Southern District of New York, comprise just a handful of the many instances where his conduct has undermined — not restored — the credibility of the Justice Department.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Laura’s seven points at the link.

It’s a familiar pattern. After “stonewalling” Congressional oversight, Administration Kakistocrat finally shows up and arrogantly spews lies, misrepresentations, and false narratives under oath. Dems spend their time lecturing and pontificating, but don’t create the factual record for a subsequent perjury prosecution. (Ask yourself: What if Laura Coates were doing the questioning?)

GOP toadies in Congress “circle the wagons” and double down on the lies showing their complete contempt for truth, human decency, and good governance.

We already knew Barr was a shady character and that the GOP is unfit for any office in any branch. So, this hearing didn’t really accomplish much.

But it does demonstrate the absolute necessity for the majority of us who want to save our nation to get out the vote to remove Trump and the GOP at every level 🧹 in November.

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does! Another four years of Trump’s racist malicious incompetence and the GOP kakistocracy could kill us all (including the truth-impervious Trumpsters and GOP toadies willing to seek the end of our democracy)! Victory for the “good guys” isn’t inevitable — it will take lots of energy and continuing hard work to save our nation!👍🏼🗽🇺🇸

PWS

07-29-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️IS THIS HOW WE WANT TO BE REMEMBERED BY FUTURE GENERATIONS? – America “is no longer committed to basic standards of decency!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/canada-gives-americas-treatment-of-refugees-a-failing-grade/2020/07/27/3eabeb8e-cdfa-11ea-b0e3-d55bda07d66a_story.html

From the WashPost Editorial Board:

Opinion by Editorial Board

July 27, 2020 at 1:23 p.m. EDT

NOT SO long ago, asylum seekers turned to the United States, seeking refuge from repressive states. Now the United States is one of those repressive states.

That’s the gist of a Canadian federal court ruling, which would scrap a 16-year-old bilateral treaty called the Safe Third Country Agreement, under which Canada and the United States each recognize the other as a safe place to seek refuge. Justice Ann Marie McDonald ruled that Canada’s practice of turning back third-country refugees who try to cross at official points of entry along the U.S.-Canada frontier — on the theory that they have already reached a safe harbor in the United States — no longer makes sense given the atrocious treatment to which they are subjected south of the border. Canada, she wrote, can no longer turn a blind eye to the reality that the United States denies decent and dignified treatment to asylum seekers.

Justice McDonald based her ruling partly on testimony from asylum seekers who described harrowing conditions of confinement in U.S. detention, to which they are automatically taken when turned back by Canada. One of them, a refugee from Ethiopia named Nedira Jemal Mustefa, recounted what she called a “terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic” experience at a “freezing” facility where she was held in upstate New York. Other testimony in the Canadian court provided evidence that detainees in U.S. facilities were denied access to counsel, phone calls and translators, and some were subjected to solitary confinement.

The judge found that the “accounts of the detainees demonstrate both physical and psychological suffering because of detention, and a real risk that they will not be able to assert asylum claims” in the United States.

None of this is surprising to advocates and others who have monitored the travails of asylum seekers, especially since President Trump took office. In the past two years, his anti-immigration policies have prompted more than 50,000 asylum seekers to cross into Canada outside official ports of entry, thereby skirting the treaty’s automatic-return provision — until the pandemic forced the border’s closing this spring. After arriving in Canada and undergoing security and medical screening, they have been allowed to work and receive basic benefits such as medical care as they await adjudication of their asylum claims.

Canada is among the United States’s closest allies; gratuitous America-bashing is not the norm there. That a Canadian judge would give a failing grade to this country’s commitment to human rights where they concern refugees is a damning rebuke.

Before her ruling takes effect, the judge gave the Canadian government six months to appeal, should it choose to do so. Until now, the treaty’s supporters have justified it on the grounds that it bars “asylum shopping” by refugees. The question facing the administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is whether its neighbor to the south still adheres to what Western democracies regard as the basic standards of dignity and decency on which the original treaty was based. The evidence suggests it does not.

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

Actually, this is a “Duh” for those of us who have been speaking out for the last three years about the Trump regime’s racist White Nationalist hate inspired anti-asylum, anti-immigrant, anti-human rights agenda. The only “shocker” is that neither the Congress nor the Article III Courts have put up meaningful resistance to these clearly illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral actions.

Basically, “Brown Lives Don’t Matter” to this gang of nativist thugs and their legislative and judicial enablers. Perhaps most disgustingly, the Supremes’ majority has been an eager participant in this “Dred Scottification” of “the other” based largely on race and covered by only the most transparent pretexts of “national emergency” and the like.

America needs not only a qualified, non-racist Executive, but also better qualified legislators and judges who reject institutionalized racism and hate masquerading as “emergency justifications” for suspending the rule of law and the Constitution as it applies to human rights, human lives, and human dignity. To state the obvious, our nation is disintegrating because far too many of those we have entrusted to govern reject the basic concept that equal justice for all, ending racism, and due process for all persons in the U.S. are both Constitutional requirements and moral imperatives.

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

PWS

07-26-20

🏴‍☠️REWRITING HISTORY: Billy The Bigot Barr’s Plan To Undo Bush-Era Asylum Grant Due To Pressure From Foreign Government Takes Legal Nihilism To New Depths 🤮 — Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan Reports On Matter of A-M-R-C-

Betsy Woodruff Swan
FederalLaw Enforcement Reporter
Politico

https://apple.news/A8oVgQ_C-SiyOEmGp8ZZCew

He thought he had asylum. Now, he could face a death sentence.

Rashed Chowdhury was a bit player in a years-old coup. His home country wants him back. And now, his fate is in William Barr’s hands.

By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN
07/24/2020 04:30 AM EDT

Late last month, Attorney General William Barr quietly reopened a sprawling case that spans four decades and two continents. It involves the killing of a president, a decades-old death sentence and a hard-fought battle for asylum pitting a former Bangladeshi military officer against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

For almost 15 years, the case was closed. But now, thanks to Barr, it’s back. And immigration lawyers say the move sends a chilling message to people who have received asylum in the U.S. It signals, they argue, that even after years of successful legal battles, any protection could still be revoked out of the blue.

They also say the move’s timing is inscrutable. The legal team for the military officer—wanted by Bangladesh’s government for decades—says it suspects foul play, and that if the U.S. deports him, he is all but certain to be executed.

“It’s purely a favor the Trump administration is doing for Bangladesh,” said Marc Van Der Hout, a lawyer for the man in question, Rashed Chowdhury. “And the question is, why are they doing it?”

Bangladesh’s government has for years been open about its efforts to persuade the U.S. to extradite Chowdhury—whom it calls a cold-blooded assassin. And there’s no question it will be delighted by Barr’s move.

What’s less clear is why, exactly, the attorney general reopened the case—and what he plans to do next. This story is based on exclusive interviews and legal documents reviewed by POLITICO.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Betsy’s article in Politico at the above link.

Here’s my previous coverage of the “Modern Cadaver Trial” —

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/06/22/spectacle-justice-pope-billy-convenes-%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8fcadaver-synod%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f-looks-to-exhume-decade-old-dead-case-for/

PWS

07-27-20

🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻GOP POLITICO SUMS UP TRUMP’S INCREDIBLY NOXIOUS & DANGEROUS KAKISTOCRACY IN A FEW PARAGRAPHS: “Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don’t say that hyperbolically,” Says Steve Schmidt (No Relation)!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/politics/steve-schmidt-donald-trump/index.html

“Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don’t say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.

“When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don’t use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We’ve never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.

“It’s just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he’s the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he’s brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let’s be clear. This isn’t happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you’re the most likely to die from this disease. We’re the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.”

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

That about sums it up!

Or, you could just say: “A kakistocracy led by a maliciously incompetent racist moron!”

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

PWS

087-27-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea! — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!

🏴‍☠️

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html

THE GREAT CLIMATE MIGRATION

By Abrahm Lustgarten | Photographs by Meridith Kohut

Early in 2019, a year before the world shut its borders completely, Jorge A. knew he had to get out of Guatemala. The land was turning against him. For five years, it almost never rained. Then it did rain, and Jorge rushed his last seeds into the ground. The corn sprouted into healthy green stalks, and there was hope — until, without warning, the river flooded. Jorge waded chest-deep into his fields searching in vain for cobs he could still eat. Soon he made a last desperate bet, signing away the tin-roof hut where he lived with his wife and three children against a $1,500 advance in okra seed. But after the flood, the rain stopped again, and everything died. Jorge knew then that if he didn’t get out of Guatemala, his family might die, too.

This article, the first in a series on global climate migration, is a partnership between ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, with support from the Pulitzer Center. Read more about the data project that underlies the reporting.

Even as hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans fled north toward the United States in recent years, in Jorge’s region — a state called Alta Verapaz, where precipitous mountains covered in coffee plantations and dense, dry forest give way to broader gentle valleys — the residents have largely stayed. Now, though, under a relentless confluence of drought, flood, bankruptcy and starvation, they, too, have begun to leave. Almost everyone here experiences some degree of uncertainty about where their next meal will come from. Half the children are chronically hungry, and many are short for their age, with weak bones and bloated bellies. Their families are all facing the same excruciating decision that confronted Jorge.

The odd weather phenomenon that many blame for the suffering here — the drought and sudden storm pattern known as El Niño — is expected to become more frequent as the planet warms. Many semiarid parts of Guatemala will soon be more like a desert. Rainfall is expected to decrease by 60 percent in some parts of the country, and the amount of water replenishing streams and keeping soil moist will drop by as much as 83 percent. Researchers project that by 2070, yields of some staple crops in the state where Jorge lives will decline by nearly a third.

Scientists have learned to project such changes around the world with surprising precision, but — until recently — little has been known about the human consequences of those changes. As their land fails them, hundreds of millions of people from Central America to Sudan to the Mekong Delta will be forced to choose between flight or death. The result will almost certainly be the greatest wave of global migration the world has seen.

In March, Jorge and his 7-year-old son each packed a pair of pants, three T-shirts, underwear and a toothbrush into a single thin black nylon sack with a drawstring. Jorge’s father had pawned his last four goats for $2,000 to help pay for their transit, another loan the family would have to repay at 100 percent interest. The coyote called at 10 p.m. — they would go that night. They had no idea then where they would wind up, or what they would do when they got there.

From decision to departure, it was three days. And then they were gone.

. . . .

Our modeling and the consensus of academics point to the same bottom line: If societies respond aggressively to climate change and migration and increase their resilience to it, food production will be shored up, poverty reduced and international migration slowed — factors that could help the world remain more stable and more peaceful. If leaders take fewer actions against climate change, or more punitive ones against migrants, food insecurity will deepen, as will poverty. Populations will surge, and cross-border movement will be restricted, leading to greater suffering. Whatever actions governments take next — and when they do it — makes a difference.

The window for action is closing. The world can now expect that with every degree of temperature increase, roughly a billion people will be pushed outside the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years. For a long time, the climate alarm has been sounded in terms of its economic toll, but now it can increasingly be counted in people harmed. The worst danger, Hinde warned on our walk, is believing that something so frail and ephemeral as a wall can ever be an effective shield against the tide of history. “If we don’t develop a different attitude,” he said, “we’re going to be like people in the lifeboat, beating on those that are trying to climb in.”

Abrahm Lustgarten is a senior environmental reporter at ProPublica. His 2015 series examining the causes of water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Meridith Kohut is an award-winning photojournalist based in Caracas, Venezuela, who has documented global health and humanitarian crises in Latin America for The New York Times for more than a decade. Her recent assignments include photographing migration and childbirth in Venezuela, antigovernment protests in Haiti and the killing of women in Guatemala.

Reporting and translation were contributed by Pedro Pablo Solares in Guatemala and El Salvador, and Louisa Reynolds and Juan de Dios García Davish in Mexico.

Data for opening globe graphic from “Future of the Human Climate Niche,” by Chi Xu, Timothy A. Kohler, Timothy M. Lenton, Jens-Christian Svenning and Marten Scheffer, from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Graphic by Bryan Christie Design/Joe Lertola.

Maps in Central America graphics sequence show total population shift under the SSP5 / RCP 8.5 and SSP3 / RCP 8.5 scenarios used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and it is calculated on a 15-kilometer grid. A cube-root scale was used to compress the largest peaks.

Projections based on research by The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, with support from the Pulitzer Center. Model graphics and additional data analysis by Matthew Conlen.

Additional design and development by Jacky Myint and Shannon Lin.

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

Read the full article, with pictures and neat graphics, at the link!

“Safe Third Countries” indeed! It’s total fraud-enhanced immorality by the Trump regime, with our failed and failing “governing institutions” and the rest of the world fecklessly watching us be driven by the irrational hate and stupidity filled agenda of a madman and his toadies!

No wall will be high enough, no “American Gulag” cruel enough, no rhetoric racist enough, no laws hateful enough, no Supreme Court dehumanizing enough, no immorality and stupidity gross enough to stop mass human migration driven by climate change. “Desperate people do desperate things!”

This November, vote like the future of humanity depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

07-26-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻ERROR SUPPLY: EOIR’s Anti-Asylum Bias, Failure To Apply Precedents, Earns Yet Another Rebuke From 3d Cir. — Blanco v. AG

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

Immigration Law

Daniel M. Kowalski

25 Jul 2020

persecution

cat

Honduras

asylum

CA3 on Persecution: Blanco v. Atty. Gen.

Blanco v. Atty. Gen.

“Ricardo Javier Blanco, a citizen of Honduras, is a member of Honduras’s Liberty and Refoundation (“LIBRE”) Party, an anti-corruption political party that opposes the current Honduran president. After participating in six political marches, he was abducted by the Honduran police and beaten, on and off, for twelve hours. He was let go but received death threats over the next several months until he fled to the United States. He applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) denied all relief, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirmed. Blanco now petitions for review of the agency’s decision, arguing that the BIA and IJ erred in denying his asylum and withholding of removal claims on the basis that his treatment did not rise to the level of persecution. He also argues that it was improper to require him to corroborate his testimony to prove his CAT claim. Because the agency misapplied our precedent when determining whether Blanco had established past persecution, and because it did not follow the three-part inquiry we established in Abdulai v. Ashcroft, 239 F.3d 542, 554 (3d Cir. 2001), before requiring Blanco to corroborate his CAT claim testimony, we will grant the petition, vacate the BIA’s decision, and remand for further proceedings.”

[Hats off to patent lawyers Gary H. Levin and Aaron B. Rabinowitz!]

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

This should have been a “no brainer” asylum grant!

Instead, after two levels of disturbingly unprofessional administrative decision-making, now driven by racism and overt anti-immigrant bias, and one layer of “real court” review, the case is basically back to square one. No wonder this “Deadly Clown Court” ☠️🤡 is running a 1.4 million backlog, and counting!

Think we have the wrong folks on the “Immigration Bench?” You bet! Two smart patent lawyers from Baker Hostetler run legal circles around an IJ, the BIA, and OIL!

Interestingly, a significant number of students in my Georgetown Law Summer Semester Immigration Law & Policy (“ILP”) Class have been patent examiners and/or patent attorneys! They have all been amazing, both in class dialogue and on the final exam. I suspect it has something to do with analytical skills, meticulous research, and attention to detail — always biggies in asylum litigation!

That’s why we must end a “built to fail” system that preys on unrepresented or underrepresented asylum seekers in illegal, intentionally inhumane and coercive, detention settings, where adequate preparation and documentation are impossible and where judges, too often lacking in asylum expertise, humanity, and/or the time to carefully research and deliberate, are pressured to engage in “assembly line denials.”

And, thanks to the racial dehumanization embraced by the Supremes’ majority many refugees, disproportionately those with brown or black skins, are completely denied fair access to the asylum hearing system. They are simply treated by our highest Court like human garbage — sent back to torture or potential death in unsafe foreign countries without any due process at all. So, the systemic failure is not by any means limited to the “Immigration Star Chambers.”

A simple rule of judging that appears “over the heads” of the current Supremes majority: If it wouldn’t be due process for you or your family in a death penalty case, than it’s not due process for any “person.” Not “rocket science.” Just “Con Law 101” with doses of common sense and simple humanity thrown in. So why is it beyond the capabilities of our most powerful judges?

If there is any good news coming out of this mess, it’s that more talented litigators like Gary Levin and Aaron Rabinowitz from firms like Baker Hostetler are becoming involved in immigration and human rights litigation. They often run circles around Billy the Bigot’s ethically-challenged group of captive DOJ lawyers, who can no longer operate independently and ethically, even if they want to.

So, in a better future, after regime change, there are going to be lots of really great sources for better judges out there at all levels of the Federal Judiciary from the eventually independent Immigration Courts, to the U.S. District Courts and Magistrate Judges, to the Courts of Appeals, all the way to the Supremes.

At the latter, we need new and better Justices: Justices who understand immigration and human rights laws and the overriding human interests at stake, who will “lose” the White institutional racial bias and perverted right-wing ideologies that infect our current Court, and who are dedicated to making the vision of folks like Dr. King and Congressman John Lewis for “equal justice under law” and an end to dehumanization of persons of color a reality under our Constitution and within our system of justice!

There is no excuse for the current Supreme Court-enabled travesty unfolding in a biased, broken, and dysfunctional immigration system every day!

Due Process Forever!

This November, vote like our nation’s future existence depends on it! Because it does!

PWS

07-26-20

☠️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY CLOSE-UP: When He Isn’t Busy Appointing Hate Groupers To Immigration “Judgeships,” The Lies Just Keep Flowing From Billy The Biogot’s Mouth — Laura Coates Reports On His Latest Whoppers For CNN!

Laura Coates says AG Bill Barr has some explaining to do

CNN Tonight

CNN’s Laura Coates argues that Attorney General Bill Barr has some explaining to do about a number of issues surrounding him and how he runs the US Department of Justice.

Source: CNN

Watch Laura’s report here:https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/07/25/laura-coates-case-attorney-general-bill-barr-has-explaining-to-do-ctn-vpx.cnn

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

Lies to Federal Courts, cover-ups, brutality, First Amendment violations, pretexts, misrepresentations, racism, it all just in a few days’s work for Billy.

The worst Attorney General in modern U.S. history, toady to the worst President in U.S. history, just keeps getting worse!

PWS

07-25-20

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️👎🏻🤮HATE & BIAS RULE WHERE EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL IS SCORNED! —THE WORST OF THE WORST FIND A HOME IN AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS, THANKS TO BILLY THE BIGOT, ENABLED BY A CONGRESS & ARTICLE III JUDGES UNWILLING TO STAND UP AGAINST “HATE AGENDA” IN “AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS!” — Noah Lanard @ Mother Jones Reports!

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/07/he-defended-anti-gay-and-anti-muslim-causes-now-hes-an-immigration-judge/

Noah Lanard writes in Mother Jones:

He Defended Anti-Gay and Anti-Muslim Causes. Now He’s an Immigration Judge.

Brandon Bolling argued that Islam was incompatible with the First Amendment and homosexuality was not innate.

NOAH LANARD
Reporter
Bio | Follow

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.

During the 2014–2015 school year, Caleigh Wood started to learn about Islam as part of her 11th grade world history class. Upon discovering this, Caleigh’s dad, John, wrote on Facebook that he “just about fucking lost it,” adding in response to a commenter, “A 556 round [of ammunition] doesn’t study Islam and it kills them fuckers everyday.” John told the school’s vice principal that “you can take that fucking Islam and shove it up your white fucking ass,” according to federal court records. After saying that he was going to create a “shit storm like you have never seen,” he got banned from the La Plata, Maryland, high school.

That could have been the end of the story. Instead, Brandon Bolling and other lawyers from the Thomas Law More Center, a right-wing Christian group that declares itself “battle ready to defend America,” represented John as he sued the Charles County public school system for allegedly attempting to indoctrinate his daughter into Islam.

Last week, the Justice Department announced that it had hired Bolling, a former Marine and federal attorney, to be an assistant chief immigration judge in Texas, even though he has no discernible immigration experience. During two stints at the Thomas More Law Center—neither of which is disclosed in his government bio—Bolling worked on numerous cases that pitted his clients against Muslims and the gay community. Now Bolling will help oversee the immigration cases of people detained in El Paso, and could be responsible for deciding whether victims of persecution based on their religions and sexual orientations receive protection under US asylum laws.

Bolling is one of 46 new immigration judges recently hired by the Trump administration. Another is Matt O’Brien, who served as the research director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, one of the country’s leading anti-immigrant groups. The decision to hire both men is an escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to select judges sympathetic to its anti-immigration agenda. (The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review and the Thomas More Law Center did not respond to requests for comment.)

As part of the Justice Department, immigration courts lack the independence of federal courts. The decisions they make can determine whether immigrants who have been in the United States for decades can remain, or whether asylum seekers will be deported to the countries they fled. Even when immigrants appeal their decisions, they generally stick, since the Trump administration has made a point of filling the Board of Immigration Appeals with judges known for denying nearly all asylum claims.

. . . .

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

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

As the world watches America spiral downward and our institutions, once admired by democracy advocates everywhere, spinelessly crumble in the face of tyranny, nowhere is the problem more pronounced than in the clearly unconstitutional, bias-driven, and grotesquely unfair Immigration “Courts.”

Racial justice and equal justice in America will remain cruel illusions unless and until we demand an end to these Star Chambers and hold those responsible for creating and enabling their current toxicity accountable!

Certainly giving Thomas More a bad name. And like lots of those caught up in the EOIR Star Chamber, he has no way of defending himself against the Bollings and Barrs of the world!

PWS

07-25-20

🤮👎🏻CONTEMPT FOR COURT: Trump Regime Continues To Drag Feet On DACA Compliance As U.S. Judge Finally Mulls Contempt For Scofflaw Officials — Human Lives “Held In A Bucket” ☠️🤮

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/trump-administration-has-put-daca-applications-on-hold-despite-supreme-court-ruling-restoring-program/2020/07/24/59f20f48-cdcf-11ea-b0e3-d55bda07d66a_story.html

Emily Davies
Local Reporter
Washington Post

By Emily Davies

July 24 at 7:33 PM ET

Trump administration officials said during a federal court hearing Friday that they have not “granted nor rejected” any applications for a program designed to protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation, but rather have put them “on hold” as the government discusses the future of the program.

The virtual hearing in the U.S. District Court in Maryland was the first time the administration addressed reports that the Department of Homeland Security was not accepting applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — despite a recent Supreme Court ruling and a federal judge’s order requiring the government to resume accepting applications.

“Although the applications will be received by the department, they will be neither granted nor rejected, and instead will be held, placed into a bucket pending a policy consideration that takes place and that now I can tell you is still ongoing at the department,” said Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer with the Justice Department.

Pezzi also said that “some or all” of the applications from DACA beneficiaries looking to leave the country and return lawfully had been wrongly rejected when they should have been held.

“Going forward, in just the last few hours, it has been straightened out at least prospectively such that any request for DACA-based advance parole will also be held in the pending bucket,” Pezzi said.

[[Supreme Court blocks Trump’s bid to end DACA, a win for undocumented ‘dreamers’]]

U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm, who ordered last week that the government comply with court directives to restore the DACA program, ruled Friday that the Trump administration must clarify the program’s status to the public within 30 days. He instructed Pezzi to confirm by next Friday whether the government could commit to updating its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website and sending receipts to DACA applicants who are confused about whether their applications have been processed.

Grimm also instructed the plaintiffs and defendants to propose a schedule for a briefing on whether the government should be held in contempt.

. . . .

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

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

Emily, a former Post intern, is a relatively new addition to the reporting staff, but already showing “superstar potential.” She has shared in a Pulitzer Prize as part of a Team for Breaking News Reporting. Let’s hope that she keeps reporting on immigration issues as part of her local news beat!

Time to start taking names and throwing the criminals on the DHS payroll in jail! Their overall performance on DACA — a highly beneficial program favored by the vast majority of Americans that is actually helping us get through the pandemic — would have been a “no brainer” for a competent Administration. Instead, the “malicious incompetents” at DHS are showing why under their rancid leadership USCIS has become morally as well as fiscally bankrupt.

“Humanity in a bucket” is a very accurate description of the Trump regime’s racist, xenophobic, intentionally cruel, and, perhaps most of all, dehumanizing immigration polices. They diminish the humanity of every American every day they remain in office.

Due Process Forever! Kakistocracy, Never!

PWS

07-25-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️🤡FRIDAY SPECIAL: COMBINED KAKISTICROCY KORNER ☠️ & CLOWN COURT 🤡 REPORT — EOIR GOES TOTAL FUBAR! — Local Chief Federal Prosecutors To Decide If, How, & When So-Called Immigration “Courts” (More Accurately, “Star Chambers”) Will Reopen!

EYORE — “Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

Subject: Re: [fedcourtlitigation] immigration court reopening in the hands of us attorney offices?

It was confirmed by EOIR Director McHenry today during the EOIR forum during the AILA conference.

Sabrina [Damast]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 2:31 PM Jorjani, Raha; Public Defender wrote:

It was announced yesterday at an IJ townhall that the decision of whether, when, and how to reopen Immigration Courts across the nation was in the hands of local U.S. Attorney offices. Has anyone seen any official support for this suggestion? I can’t seem to find a memo or other policy directive about it.

RAHA JORJANI| Supervising Immigration Defense Attorney, [Alameda County Public Defenders]

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

The solution seems pretty obvious. With a coronavirus stimulus package coming up, the Dems should insist on:

Defunding of EOIR;
Transfer of all EOIR responsibilities and remaining funding for this fiscal year and any future fiscal years until an Article I or Article III Immigration Court is established to U.S. Magistrate Judges and the Administrative Office for U.S. Courts;
Absolute prohibition on any contact with the transferred functions by any employee of the Executive Branch except 1) a Government Attorney appearing in a particular matter; and 2) attendance at a meeting including representative members of the public to discuss fair and efficient Immigration Court administration.

Problem would be solved, for now. Moreover, this would provide the necessary “incentives” for the Article III Courts to establish a fair and efficient due process framework for Immigration Court proceedings that could be a model for the eventual Article I or Article III legislation. Put an immediate end to “malicious incompetence” by the DOJ and the Trump regime!

Due Process Forever! America’s Star Chambers,☠️⚰️ Never!

PWS

07-24-20

BIA SHOOTS UNREPRESENTED RESPONDENT ON “DIVISIBILITY” ANALYSIS — MATTER OF P-B-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 43 (BIA 2020) — Like Shooting Fish 🐟 In A Barrel 🛢!

MATTER OF P-B-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 43 (BIA 2020)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1296956/download

BIA HEADNOTE:

Section 13-3407 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which criminalizes possession of a dangerous drug, is divisible with regard to the specific “dangerous drug” involved in a violation of that statute.

PANEL: Board Panel: GREER and O’CONNOR, Appellate Immigration Judges; SWANWICK, Temporary Appellate Immigration Judge.

OPINION: O’CONNOR, Appellate Immigration Judge

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

You think this isn’t “Theater of The Absurd?” Let’s check out Fns 5 & 6 from the opinion:

5 We recognize that the Ninth Circuit, in whose jurisdiction this case arises, utilized a modified categorical inquiry in Alvarado, 759 F.3d at 1130–33, to discern whether an alien’s conviction under section 13-3407 involved a federally controlled substance and was therefore a predicate for removal under section 237(a)(2)(B)(i) of the Act. However, the Ninth Circuit did not expressly analyze the divisibility of section 13-3407 in that decision, nor did the court have the benefit of the Supreme Court’s articulation of divisibility in Mathis. Moreover, the circuit recently certified a similar issue to the Arizona Supreme Court. See Romero-Millan v. Barr, 958 F.3d 844, 849 (9th Cir. 2020) (asking the court to resolve whether Arizona statutes proscribing possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a narcotic drug under sections 13-3415 and 13-3408 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, respectively, are divisible with respect to the identity of the drug involved in each offense). For these reasons, we do not consider Alvarado to be persuasive authority regarding the divisibility of section 13-3407, which, in light of Romero-Millan, we view as an unsettled issue in the Ninth Circuit.

6 We acknowledge that State v. Prescott, No. 1 CA-CR 15-0188, 2016 WL 611656, at *2 (Ariz. Ct. App. Feb. 16, 2016), and State v. Castorina, No. 1 CA-CR 08-0816, 2010 WL 2450117, at *4 (Ariz. Ct. App. June 17, 2010), suggest that the identity of the “dangerous drug” involved in a violation of section 13-3407 is not an element of the statute. However, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona recently reviewed both cases, found that their reasoning was flawed, and concluded that Arizona case law fails to provide a “clear answer[] as to the divisibility” of section 13-3407. United States v. Sanchez-Murillo, No. CR-19-00795-PHX-SPL, 2019 WL 3858606, at *2–3 (D. Ariz. Aug. 16, 2019) (alteration in original) (citation omitted). Accordingly, we are not persuaded that Prescott or Castorina “definitively answer[s] whether the dangerous drug requirement of [section] 13-3407[] is divisible.” Gonzalez-Dominguez v. Sessions, 743 F. App’x 808, 811 (9th Cir. 2018).

So, how do you think that the unrepresented, almost certainly detained, respondent did on these issues, assuming that he even can read the BIA’s decision or have someone accurately read It to him?

The whole Immigration Court System has become a judicially and Congressionally-enabled “Due Process Farce” befitting a third word failed state that our country now resembles under the Trump kakistocracy.

NO, those who say our democratic institutions are “holding up” under Trump are living in a parallel universe!

PWS

07-24-20

🎥🎞📺NEW NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES SHOWS DHS’S CRUEL, MISGUIDED, WASTEFUL ENFORCEMENT UNDER TRUMP — Not Surprisingly, The Regime Wants To Suppress The Truth — At Least Until After The Election — Caitlin Dickerson @ NY Times Reports

Caitlin Dickerson
National Immigration Reporter
NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/trump-immigration-nation-netflix.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfq4hkT1UZACbIRp87tACDnb3Oxbk9iWX3MCmST3NExvgUBI7F_UrRa65id50zwzGfDpdnAYMYecZTnKVZLlA_DE6huIeFk5AIZC4_-Ni-B21ompyQB-x9rG6wYCywI-khgeXkskqLPTO-XaCM1WYzZ1ow-esTfl-h2nQJz6bBA7Q1joE4haF9c8g8ETQQZyCKvu3qDQF-PbiFbRLc7woxXYJJSG2Z3I7cu_9bLlIkWR-RR2h_4G0-9NpWJNoSWa7_JBUmc8b06q4DCJCm1elPvSY5zqibk_nysQ&smid=em-share

Caitlin reports:

In early 2017, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepared to carry out the hard-line agenda on which President Trump had campaigned, agency leaders jumped at the chance to let two filmmakers give a behind-the-scenes look at the process.

But as the documentary neared completion in recent months, the administration fought mightily to keep it from being released until after the 2020 election. After granting rare access to parts of the country’s powerful immigration enforcement machinery that are usually invisible to the public, administration officials threatened legal action and sought to block parts of it from seeing the light of day.

Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid.

At town hall meetings captured on camera, agency spokesmen reassured the public that the organization’s focus was on arresting and deporting immigrants who had committed serious crimes. But the filmmakers observed numerous occasions in which officers expressed satisfaction after being told by supervisors to arrest as many people as possible, even those without criminal records.

“Start taking collaterals, man,” a supervisor in New York said over a speakerphone to an officer who was making street arrests as the filmmakers listened in. “I don’t care what you do, but bring at least two people,” he said.

The filmmakers, Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz, who are a couple, turned drafts of their six-part project called “Immigration Nation” over to ICE leadership in keeping with a contract they had signed with the agency. What they encountered next resembled what happened to Mary L. Trump, the president’s niece, who was eventually sued in an unsuccessful attempt to stop her from publishing a memoir that revealed embarrassing details about the president and his associates.

Suddenly, Ms. Clusiau and Mr. Schwarz say, the official who oversaw the agency’s television and film department, with whom they had worked closely over nearly three years of filming, became combative.

The filmmakers discussed their conversations on the condition that the officials they dealt with not be named out of fear that it would escalate their conflict with the agency.

. . . .

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

Read Caitlin’s full article at the link.

The multi-part documentary begins airing on Netflix on August 3. You can watch the trailer at this link:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjj05eA9eXqAhXagnIEHR5UBd4QwqsBMAJ6BAgKEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DX_xVKy58Yuw&usg=AOvVaw3B6_C_v-0f__UPQyLHJ-fy

See firsthand how your tax dollars are being largely wasted on cruel, unnecessary terrorizing of ethnic communities and populating the “New American Gulag” — “enforcement” that in too many cases actually harms our economy and our society and certainly diminishes both our integrity and humanity as a nation.

Catlin’s concluding paragraphs are worth keeping in mind:

The filmmakers said they came away with some empathy for the ICE officers, but became convinced that the entire system was harmful to immigrants and their families.

The problem, they said, was summarized in the first episode by Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

“Is a government agency evil? No. Is every single person inside ICE evil? No,” Ms. Heller told the filmmakers. “The brilliance of the system is that their job has been siphoned off in such a way that maybe what they see day to day seems justified, but when you add it up, all of the people just doing their job, it becomes this crazy terrorizing system.”

We have all been harmed by Trump’s racist-driven “weaponization” of DHS and the Immigration Courts, and that includes the DHS employees and the Immigration Court employees who are caught up in this grotesque, often illegal, and overall immoral abuse of government authority and resources.

We should also be concerned about the First Amendment implications of Trump’s attempts to misuse Government authority to manipulate the election in his favor by, once again, suppressing truth in reporting. Thank goodness we have courageous journalists like Caitlin and these filmmakers to keep exposing the ugly truth about the Trump/Miller/Wolf/Barr ongoing White Nationalist immigration charade.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-24-20

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