Category: Trump Tweets

HOW TOXIC IS THE ATMOSPHERE AT THE DEPARTMENT OF “JUSTICE” UNDER SCOFFLAW SESSIONS? – Highly Honored Long-Time Career Attorney, In Line for Promotion, Quits After Sessions Tosses Constitution Under the Bus With Politically Motivated Change Of Sides in ACA Litigation!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senior-justice-dept-lawyer-resigns-after-shift-on-obamacare/2018/06/12/b3001d7c-6e55-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html?utm_term=.702fb5e91011

Devlin Barrett & Matt Zapotosky report for the Washington Post:

A senior career Justice Department official has resigned in the wake of the Trump administration’s move to stop defending a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, a departure that highlights internal frustration generated by the decision, according to people familiar with the matter.

Joel McElvain, who has worked at the Justice Department for more than 20 years, submitted his resignation letter Friday, the morning after Attorney General Jeff Sessions notified Congress that the agency will not defend the ACA — the 2010 law known as Obamacare — against lawsuits brought by Republican-led states challenging its requirement that most Americans carry health insurance.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of repealing Obamacare, but that effort faltered in Congress. Last year, lawmakers amended the law, nullifying the provision requiring people to carry insurance. That takes effect in 2019.

[Trump administration won’t defend ACA against suit from GOP states]

The Justice Department’s decision last week reversed years of legal work McElvain and the Justice Department had performed on the issue.

McElvain and his team were honored in 2013 with the Attorney General’s Award for exceptional service defending the legislation in court. A Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed his resignation takes effect in early July. McElvain declined to comment.

Those who know McElvain described him as an expert lawyer and a well-liked boss.

“This is the first I’m hearing it, and it’s a gut punch,” said one person who worked with McElvain for years and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel issue. “That will be a very big blow to the morale of the [agency’s] civil division, a really sad day for the Department of Justice and a loss for the country.”

Several colleagues said McElvain was in line to become director of the Justice Department’s federal programs branch, which handles complex government policy questions pending before the courts. It is not known for its politics but for the tenacity with which its lawyers defend the law — any law — passed by Congress.

“Joel is just phenomenal. He’s just such a terrific lawyer and a great person,” said a former Justice Department official who knows McElvain. “ . . . It’s a lot of institutional knowledge and a great deal of experience walking out the door.”

It was previously reported that shortly after the Justice Department reversed itself, McElvain and two other Justice Department lawyers who had been defending the ACA withdrew from a case pending in a Texas court.

. . . .

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

I suspect that some stressed out U.S. Immigration Judges left this week’s so-called “training” conference (more like a “brainwashing session”) thinking about whether this also would be their future.

Sessions delivered a shockingly lawless and xenophobic lecture in which he abandoned the Due Process role of the Immigration Courts, trashed judicial independence, treated them like junior immigration enforcement officers, encouraged “worst judicial practices,” told them it’s “all about the numbers,” minimized the compelling human plight of asylum seekers, lied about EOIR statistics, and ordered them to follow his rewrite of established asylum law that essentially could make U.S. Immigration Judges members of a “shooting squad” sent out to execute women and children refugees from the Northern Triangle without Due Process.

Some must have also found being a “delegee” of the “Chief Official Child Abuser of the U.S.” at least somewhat troubling. Not a great way to round out a career with the pathetic remains of the once-proud DOJ (now widely regarded as a bastion of White Nationalism, legal incompetence, and overt political bias).

PWS

06-13-18

 

Related posts:

  1. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  2. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

THE EVER-AMAZING TAL @ CNN GIVES US THE “LOWDOWN” ON SESSIONS’S ALL-OUT PLAN TO DISABLE US PROTECTION LAWS – Pulling Out All The Stops In Attempting To Turn US Legal Protection System Into A “Killing Floor” For Most Vulnerable Refugees! – No Wonder Many U.S. Immigration Judges See Looming Conflict With Oath To Uphold U.S. Constitution & Exercise Independent Judgment Coming At Them with Breakneck Speed!

The massive asylum changes Jeff Sessions tucked into the footnotes

By Tal Kopan, CNN

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that domestic violence and gang victims are not likely to qualify for asylum in the US, he undercut potentially tens of thousands of claims each year for people seeking protection.

But in a footnote of his ruling, Sessions also telegraphed a desire for more sweeping, immediate reinterpretations of US asylum law that could result in turning people away at the border before they ever see a judge.

Sessions wrote that since “generally” asylum claims on the basis of domestic or gang violence “will not qualify for asylum,” few claims will meet the “credible fear” standard in an initial screening as to whether an immigrant can pursue their claim before a judge. That means asylum seekers may end up being turned back at the border, a major change from current practice.

“When you put it all together, this is his grand scheme to just close any possibility for people seeking protection — legally — to claim that protection that they can under the law,” said Ur Jaddou, a former chief counsel at US Citizenship and Immigration Services now at immigration advocacy group America’s Voice. “He’s looking at every possible way to end it. And he’s done it one after the other.”

The Trump administration has focused on asylum claims — a legal way to stay in the US under domestic and international law — characterizing them as a “loophole” in the system. The problem, they say, is many claims are unsuccessful, but in the meantime as immigrants wait out a lengthy court process, they are allowed to live and work in the US and build lives there, leading some to go into hiding.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/politics/jeff-sessions-asylum-footnotes/index.html

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I strongly recommend that you go on over to CNN at the link to read Tal’s amazing and incisive analysis of Jeff Sessions’s insidious plan to destroy US protection laws and undermine our entire Constitutional system of justice to further his obscene White Nationalist agenda.

For those of you who read “Courtside” on a regular basis, it’s no secret that I’m a “Charter Member” of the “Tal Kopan Fan Club.” I have total admiration for her amazing work ethic, ability to understand and simplify one of the most complex subjects in US law and politics, and to turn out such tightly written, gobbledygook free copy on a regular basis.

In my view, even for a superstar like Tal, this is one of her “best ever” articles, and one that every American interested in saving lives, preserving our refugee and asylum laws, retaining our Constitutional system of Due Process, and remaining a nation of “values rather than men” in light of a totally unprincipled attack by an Attorney General unqualified for office should read and digest Tal’s analysis!

How disingenuous a scofflaw is Jeff Sessions? As Tal mentions, in FN 8 of Matter of A-B-, Sessions takes aim at the well-established principle of asylum law that “family” is a qualifying “particular social group.”

Now, lets hear what a “real” Article III Court, one not bound to a restrictionist White Nationalist anti-asylum agenda, and where they judges don’t work for Jeff Sessions, has to say about “family” as a particular social group:”

The INA does not expressly define the term “particular social group,” but we have recently considered its meaning. See Lizama v. Holder, 629 F.3d 440 (4th Cir. 2011).4 We there concluded that Chevron deference should be accorded to the BIA’s long-standing interpretation of “particular social group” as “a group of persons all of whom share a common, immutable characteristic,” Matter of Acosta, 19 I. & N. Dec. 211, 233 (BIA 1985), overruled on other grounds by Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I. & N. Dec. 439 (BIA 1987). See Lizama, 629 F.3d at 447. This “immutability” test, first articulated in the BIA’s seminal Acosta case, requires that group members share a characteristic that “the members of the group either cannot change, or should not be required to change because it is fundamental to their individual identities or consciences.” 19 I. & N. Dec. at 233.

The Crespins’ proposed group satisfies this test. Acosta itself identifies “kinship ties” as paradigmatically immutable, see id., and the BIA has since affirmed that family bonds are innate and unchangeable. See In re C-A, 23 I. & N. Dec. 951, 959 (BIA 2006); In re H-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 337, 342 (BIA 1996) (accepting “clan membership” as a particular social

[632 F.3d 125]

group because it was “inextricably linked to family ties”). Accordingly, every circuit to have considered the question has held that family ties can provide a basis for asylum. See Al-Ghorbani v. Holder, 585 F.3d 980, 995 (6th Cir.2009); Ayele v. Holder, 564 F.3d 862, 869 (7th Cir.2009); Jie Lin v. Ashcroft, 377 F.3d 1014, 1028 (9th Cir.2004); Gebremichael v. INS, 10 F.3d 28, 36 (1st Cir.1993). We agree; the family provides “a prototypical example of a `particular social group.'” Sanchez-Trujillo v. INS, 801 F.2d 1571, 1576 (9th Cir. 1986).

The BIA committed legal error by concluding to the contrary. That error flowed from the fact that, as the Government concedes, the BIA’s removal order rejected a group different from that which the Crespins proposed. The BIA concluded that “those who actively oppose gangs in El Salvador by agreeing to be prosecutorial witnesses” does not constitute a cognizable social group. But the Crespins did not so contend. Rather, they maintained, and continue to maintain, that family members of those witnesses constitute such a group. The BIA later essentially admitted this error, acknowledging in its denial of Crespin’s motion to reconsider that it does “not dispute that family membership can give rise to membership in a particular social group under certain circumstances.” The BIA nonetheless affirmed its original order, asserting that the Crespins’ proposed social group was insufficiently “particular[ ]” because “anyone who testified against MS-13, as well as all of their family members, would potentially be included.” Again the BIA inaccurately characterized the Crespins’ proposed social group. Indeed, the Crespins’ proposed group excludes persons who merely testify against MS-13; the Crespins’ group instead encompasses only the relatives of such witnesses, testifying against MS-13, who suffer persecution on account of their family ties. The BIA never explained why this group stretches beyond the bounds of particularity.

Moreover, the precedent on which the BIA relied requires only that “the group have particular and well-defined boundaries” such that it constitutes a “discrete class of persons.” Matter of S-E-G-, 24 I. & N. Dec. 579, 582, 584 (BIA 2008). The family unit—centered here around the relationship between an uncle and his nephew—possesses boundaries that are at least as “particular and well-defined” as other groups whose members have qualified for asylum. See, e.g., Urbina-Mejia v. Holder, 597 F.3d 360, 365-66 (6th Cir.2010) (former gang members); Tapiero de Orejuela v. Gonzales, 423 F.3d 666, 672 (7th Cir.2005) (“the educated, landowning class of cattle farmers”); Safaie v. INS, 25 F.3d 636, 640 (8th Cir.1994) (“Iranian women who advocate women’s rights or who oppose Iranian customs relating to dress and behavior”), superseded by statute on other grounds, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009, as recognized in Rife v. Ashcroft, 374 F.3d 606, 614 (8th Cir.2004).

Finally, the BIA opined that the proposed group lacked the requisite “social visibility” of a particular social group. This was also error.5 Indeed, the BIA itself has previously stated that “[s]ocial

[632 F.3d 126]

groups based on innate characteristics such as … family relationship are generally easily recognizable and understood by others to constitute social groups.” In re C-A, 23 I. & N. Dec. at 959. In fact, we can conceive of few groups more readily identifiable than the family. See Sanchez-Trujillo, 801 F.2d at 1576. This holds particularly true for Crespin’s family, given that Crespin and his uncle publicly cooperated with the prosecution of their relative’s murder.

In sum, the BIA’s conclusion that Crespin failed to demonstrate his membership in a “particular social group” was manifestly contrary to law.

Crespin-Valladares v. Holder, 632 F.3d 117, 124-26 (4th Cir. 2011).

Outrageously, Sessions is suggesting taking a position that has been held by the Article III Courts to be “manifestly contrary to law.” Could there be a clearer example of a “scofflaw?”

And, lets not forget the cause for which Sessions is prostituting himself and the law. Contrary to Sessions’s suggestion that these are just ordinary folks seeking a better life, he is actually proposing to summarily remove mostly women and children who face a specific, very real chance of rape, torture, beatings, and death because of their position, gender, and resistance to the forces perpetrating persecution in El Salvador who are closely aligned with or operate largely with impunity from  the Government, in fact if not in the mythical version that Sessions portrays.

In plain terms, Jeff Sessions is advocating that we pass a potential “death sentence” on the most vulnerable among us without giving them a fair hearing or actually considering the many ways in which protections laws could be used to save their lives. Even if Sessions were legally correct (which he certainly isn’t) removing basically defenseless individuals to places where they face such a deadly future would be both cowardly and highly immoral.

Finally, as I have pointed out before, the real plan here, which will go into effect almost immediately, is to have USCIS Asylum, Officers and Immigration Judges who now are all considered “partners” in the enforcement mechanism by Sessions,  deny almost all “credible fear” claims based on Sessions’s yet untested decision in Matter of A-B-. Therefore, unless the Article III Courts decide to enforce the Due Process Clause of the Constitution, a duty which to date they have fairly consistently shirked in connection with the “credible fear process,” most current and future arrivals will be shipped out without any access to the hearing process at all — in other words, without even a veneer of fairness, impartiality, and Due Process.

Advocates had better get busy with a better plan to get the illegal aspects of the “deportation express” before the Article IIIs. Otherwise, vulnerable women and children are going to be condemned to death and /or torture with no process at all! Think we’re not witnessing the “decline and fall” of our republic.  Guess again!

What have we come to as a nation when a corrupt and biased individual like Sessions purports to “speak for America?”

Stand up for Due Process and human values! Oppose Jeff Sessions and his restrictionist agenda!

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, “Midnight Writer” Tal reports on the GOP’s “DACA negotiations.”

House DACA deal in final stages: ‘Crossing the Ts’

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

Republican negotiations on a House immigration bill that would fix the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are in the final stages, key lawmakers said as they left a secretive meeting in the House basement on Wednesday.

Both moderates and conservatives are coming together on an outline of a bill brought on by weeks of negotiations behind closed doors, as leadership brought the two wings of the party together to avert rebellions on both sides.

After a breakthrough agreement on how to proceed Tuesday — and arm twisting by leadership — that cut off moderates’ efforts to buck leadership control of the floor, talks Wednesday centered around hammering out the details of the policy itself.

The progress in negotiations sets the stage for votes on immigration on the House floor next week, which will include a vote on a conservative proposal that is not believed to have the support to pass and a separate compromise being written that will stem from the negotiations currently in progress.

Though the bills’ fates are still unclear and it’s possible neither passes the House — let alone moves in the Senate — the prospect of Republicans having a debate and vote on the political third rail of immigration on the House floor the summer before midterm elections was unthinkable just months ago.

“We’re just doing the cleanup stuff from the negotiations that (Reps) Raul (Labrador) and Carlos (Curbelo) did yesterday,” said conservative Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows as he left member negotiations Wednesday. “So we’re just trying to dot our I’s and cross our T’s.”

“We’re just about there,” Curbelo said. “I think we’ll definitely see text this week.”

What’s in it

CNN has obtained a draft from a source close to the negotiations of the outline lawmakers are working from to write the bill, which, when described to Curbelo, was confirmed as largely still what they’re working on minus a few “details filled in.” The broader GOP conference was briefed on the toplines of the bill in a Wednesday morning meeting.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/politics/daca-deal-house-immigration/index.html

 

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Sounds to me like another wasteful “legislative charade” on the way from the GOP. The only “Dreamer bill” that actually could pass both houses would be one pushed by a bipartisan group of legislators. But, GOP leadership has no interest in such a solution, nor does Trump.

Therefore, I predict that Dreamers will continue to “twist in the wind” while the Federal Courts ruminate about their fate.

PWS

06-13-18

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”
  4. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!

KATIE BENNER @ NYT: SESSIONS USES IMMIGRATION JUDGE “TRAINING” CONFERENCE TO INSTILL FEAR AND UP ALREADY ASTRONOMIC STRESS LEVELS ON IMMIGRATION JUDGES – IMPROPERLY TOUTS “VOLUME” WHILE FAILING TO PROMOTE IMPARTIALITY, FAIRNESS, AND DUE PROCESS!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/us/politics/immigration-judges-jeff-sessions.html

Katie writes:

TYSONS, Va. — As the nation’s immigration judges gathered here for training this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions had a message: They needed to help “end the lawlessness that now exists in our immigration system.”

But to many of the judges, Mr. Sessions’s hard-line immigration agenda is increasingly standing in the way of their ability to mete out justice.

In interviews, some objected to quotas he imposed on them this spring of 700 cases per year, as well as his ban on a bureaucratic tool they used to reduce their caseloads. Others expressed concern about the impact his zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration could have on their dockets, and his push for faster rulings. They viewed those together as leaving them at risk of creating a system that sacrifices due process for efficiency.

“Sessions is treating them like immigration officers, not judges,” said Paul Schmidt, a former judge in the immigration courts, which count more than 300 judges in their ranks and another two dozen or so on an immigration appeals board.

Mr. Sessions’s carrying out of his immigration agenda has reignited a long-running debate about the independence of immigration judges, who are part of the Justice Department, not the judicial branch. Some of the judges fear that they could be used to help fulfill the administration’s priorities, endangering their independence.

“The Justice Department is the premier law enforcement agency, but the role of law enforcement is different from that of a neutral court,” said Dana Leigh Marks, the president emeritus of the immigration judges’ union. She said the organization believes the time has come to separate immigration courts from the department.

. . . .

In a speech on Monday at the judges’ conference outside Washington, hosted by the Justice Department, Mr. Sessions asked them to look for inefficiencies to finish cases more quickly.

“We have to be very productive,” he said. “Volume is critical.”

Three judges said they were struck by his emphasis on speed, prosecutions and policy matters without acknowledgment of the need to balance those demands with ensuring due process for immigrants. They said they feared the focus on metrics and closing cases would make it harder to sort through complicated cases and easier to simply deny applications for entry into the United States.

Scores of attendees wore American flag pins in support of “judicial independence and integrity in our courts,” according to a note accompanying the pins.

Dozens of judges who gathered early Monday evening expressed anxiety over their treatment, according to one person present who was not authorized to share the details of the private meeting.

They said they lacked specifics on which cases would count toward their quotas. They pointed to Mr. Sessions’s ban on their use of administrative closure, the tool that effectively allowed them to close cases. And they worried that his zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration would flood the system with new cases and make it hard for them to decrease the system backlog of about 700,000 cases.

The potential impact of Mr. Sessions’s zero-tolerance policy toward immigration has been of particular concern to judges who are already grappling with a large caseload. “It’s as if local police and prosecutors decided to prosecute every traffic ticket of anyone going 2 miles per hour over the speed limit and filled the court system with those cases,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Judges are also resigning in large numbers, Ms. Marks said, a pattern she expected to continue. As of last year, 39 percent of immigration judges were eligible for retirement, according to a study conducted by the Government Accountability Office. Many immigration judges were sworn in during a wave of hiring in the 1990s.

The Justice Department has said it is on pace to hire 100 more judges this year, and its data shows that the department has never filled every slot. Currently there are 336 judges out of the 484 authorized slots.

In a conference session on Tuesday afternoon with Mr. McHenry, one judge asked if they could delay disciplining judges on the attorney general’s directives about metrics and streamlining the system. The room erupted in applause, but the question went unanswered.

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Read Katie’s full article at the above link!

Immigration is an incredibly complex area of the law — often compared with the Tax Code. And, it almost certainly has more direct and potentially life-threatening and life-changing effects than does tax law (with due apologies to my tax lawyer colleagues). For better or worse, when they have an opportunity to get together at annual conferences (which aren’t necessarily held annually), most Immigration Judges love to “talk shop.”

Normally, you’d expect to hear things like questions about pending Supreme Court cases, the latest BIA precedent decision, immigration reform legislation, or how to constructively react to some of the criticism dished out by Circuit Courts, as well as sharing “best practices” to achieve fundamental fairness with efficiency.

But, while I was waiting in the lobby to meet my “dinner group” of some former colleagues, the “hall chatter” was all about things like “judicial dashboards,” “production quotas,” “what counts as a completion,” “docket rearrangement without consultation,” “required retraining” (sounded very much like a judicial version of the former Soviet “re-educaton camps”), “stress relief,” “not losing it in court,” “retirement estimates,” and, perhaps most tellingly “how can I remain true to my oath of office and job description without getting harassed, fired, or reassigned?”

Not much room for talk of law, Due Process, best methods and practices, and how to insure that folks, including the unrepresented, get the relief they might be entitled to under the immigration laws.

Appropriate for a judicial conference? Of course not! But, when your “keynote address” is delivered by a totally non-judicial Enforcement Cheerleader in a tone and with content more appropriate to a class of new Border Patrol officers than a group of supposedly independent, senior, quasi-judicial officers of the U.S. Government, that’s what you’re going to get. What must newly appointed U.S. Immigration Judges — some who gave up other good jobs to serve in these positions — have thought?

What made it even worse was the misuse of the judicial conference as a “platform” to release a “personal rewrite” by Sessions (although I suspect some outside group actually drafted it for him or gave him the outline) of established asylum principles in a way that dripped with overt hostility to legitimate asylum seekers, most of them desperate abused women, and was accompanied by unsupported statements about asylum fraud and bogus statistics that could have come right out of a “restrictionist group’s backgrounder.” The message to the judges was very clear — most asylum seekers are fraudsters, so you should cut corners, prejudge cases, look for any reason to deny asylum, preferably at the preliminary stage without wasting time on a full hearing, and crank out those denials to deter folks from fraudulently seeking refuge under our laws — or start looking for a new job!

From a legal, ethical, moral, and intellectual honesty standpoint, the Attorney General’s speech to the Immigration Judges was simply jaw-droppingly inappropriate! How is a quasi-judicial officer sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution and charged by regulation with “exercising independent judgment” supposed to “negotiate” a system where the “boss” is basically saying “to heck with fairness, respect, and quality — just crank up the volume.”

Contrary to what Sessions said, DHS isn’t EOIR’s “partner.” No, DHS is a party in interest to every adversary proceeding in Immigration Court! They are legally entitled to no better treatment or consideration than any foreign national respondent, even an unrepresented one!

Indeed, the Due Process Clause of our Constitution applies to respondents but not to the DHS! The “founding fathers” weren’t trying to protect the rights of the Government under the Bill of Rights. They were seeking to protect individuals against Govenment overreach and abuses. Jeff Sessions is just the type of overbearing Government official that the founding fathers might have envisioned abusing the power and authority of his office.

“Rumored” assertions by some EOIR management officials that “we don’t care how you decide these cases” are patently absurd! Of course, Jeff Sessions cares about the results! He wants removal orders — fast and by the truckload!

He certainly wasn’t talking about racing through hundreds of thousands of cases to grant 43%-56% of the asylum cases that are decided on the merits, which is what should happen based on past performance had Sessions not reached in to “tilt” the law against asylum seekers and to use detention and family separation to coerce individuals into giving up potentially winnable claims. Anybody who perceived Sessions’s remarks to the judges on Monday as an encouragement to treat asylum applicants fairly, impartially, humanely, respectfully, and to insure that the generous interpretation of well-founded fear set forth by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca was followed would need their head examined!

Even though immigrants, both legal and undocumented, forced and voluntary, built America and are primarily responsible for our success as a nation, I can’t remember ever hearing Jeff Sessions say anything kind or nice about any foreign national! Indeed, it’s hard to think of any public occasion when Sessions addressed immigration without providing some false narrative, ethnic slur, bogus or misleading statistic, denigrating the contributions of immigrants, dehumanizing them, or seeking to drum up xenophobia by touting false links between migrants and crime.

Sessions’s other message to the judges:  By the way, folks, this backlog mess that we and our predecessors have created and are now intentionally aggravating by aimlessly reshuffling dockets, cranking up needless detention, poor enforcement policies, lousy management and hiring practices, absurdly inadequate technology, and attempting to use the Immigration Courts as “deterrents” is  your fault (along with the respondents and their attorneys) because you don’t work hard enough or smart enough!  You’re going to “take the fall” when we aren’t able to stop human migration by using the Immigration Court as an enforcement tool! We’re giving you “mission impossible,” and if you can’t carry it out, you’re not doing your job!

Congress — which is ultimately responsible for this mess — and the Article III Courts who have knowingly and intentionally swept the glaring Due Process deficiencies, stunning ethical conflicts, lack of quality control, and failure to consistently provide fundamental fairness under their “Ivory Tower carpets” for far too long are going to have to step up and put an end to this parody of justice or accept responsibility for the implosion of the Immigration Courts and Constitutional Due Process that are looming on the horizon.

One thing is for certain: You can’t run a Due Process, fundamentally fair court system under Jeff Sessions. He proved that this week — beyond any reasonable doubt! Anybody who doubts that, isn’t being reasonable — or isn’t paying attention!

PWS

06-13-18

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  2. MORE ARTICLES FEATURE “GANG OF RETIRED JUDGES’ STATEMENT” RE: SESSIONS’S OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON SETTLED PRINCIPLES OF PROTECTION LAW! — Media Exposing Corrupt, Inherently Unfair, Biased “Court” System Where The Prejudiced Prosecutor “Cooks” The Results to His Liking! — Jeff Sessions Degrades The American Legal System & Our National Values Each Day He Remains In Office!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

MICHELLE GOLDBERG @ NYT: DON’T FRET ABOUT THE “LOOMING THREAT OF FASCISM IN AMERICA” — IT’S ALREADY ARRIVED — Just Ask Migrants, Hispanics, & Vulnerable Women — You Could Be Next On The Trump/Sessions “Hit List!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/opinion/trump-border-migrants-separation.html?WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&action=click&clickSource=story-heading&emc=edit_ty_20180612&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&nl=opinion-today&nlid=79213886n-today&pgtype=Homepage&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&te=1

 

Michelle writes:

The sci-fi writer William Gibson once said, “The future has arrived — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.” In America in 2018, the same could be said of authoritarianism.

Since Donald Trump was elected, there’s been a boom in best-selling books about the fragility of liberal democracy, including Madeleine Albright’s “Fascism: A Warning,” and Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny.” Many have noted that the president’s rhetoric abounds in classic fascist tropes, including the demonization of minorities and attempts to paint the press as treasonous. Trump is obviously more comfortable with despots like Russia’s Vladimir Putin than democrats like Canada’s Justin Trudeau.

We still talk about American fascism as a looming threat, something that could happen if we’re not vigilant. But for undocumented immigrants, it’s already here.

There are countless horror stories about what’s happening to immigrants under Trump. Just last week, we learned that a teenager from Iowa who had lived in America since he was 3 was killed shortly after his forced return to Mexico. This month, an Ecuadorean immigrant with an American citizen wife and a pending green card application was detained at a Brooklyn military base where he’d gone to deliver a pizza; a judge has temporarily halted his deportation, but he remains locked up. Immigration officers are boarding trains and buses and demanding that passengers show them their papers. On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions decreed that most people fleeing domestic abuse or gang violence would no longer be eligible for asylum.

But what really makes Trump’s America feel like a rogue state is the administration’s policy of taking children from migrants caught crossing the border unlawfully, even if the parents immediately present themselves to the authorities to make asylum claims. “This is as bad as I’ve ever seen in 25 years of doing this work,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the A.C.L.U.’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told me. “The little kids are literally being terrorized.”

Family separations began last year — immigrant advocates aren’t sure exactly when — and have ramped up with the administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting everyone who crosses the border without authorization. Over two weeks in May, more than 650 children were snatched from their parents.

. .  . .

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

Read the rest of Michelle’s article at the above link!

In case you haven’t noticed (and Trump supporters either haven’t, or have ignored it), everyone around Trump, including friends, family, business associates, political supporters, Cabinet members, allies, lawyers, campaign workers, former girlfriends and liaisons, is “expendable.” The only “non-expendable” person in Trump’s universe is, no surprise here, Trump.

And, like any authoritarian despot, he picks people off one by one or in vulnerable groups by isolating, bullying, demeaning, dehumanizing, and then destroying them while the others look on offering no help to the fallen and just thinking “glad it wasn’t me!”

But, when your time comes (and it well may, if we allow Trump to continue in office long enough) who will be there to stand up for you? Who will speak up for your rights? Indeed, what “rights” will you have after Trump, Sessions, Pence & Co have finished destroying our Constitution and stomping on the real rule of law to institute their White Nationalist Empire?

And what kind of country with what kind of people make terrorizing already traumatized kids a national policy?

PWS

06-12-18

 

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  2. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: AS SESSIONS RAMPS UP THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG,” RAMPANT SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE DETAINEES CERTAIN TO INCREASE! – AG’S Child Abuse Also Makes Him Complicit In Sexual Abuse! – See The Short Video By Emily Kassie Here!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

“GANG” OF RETIRED US IMMIGRATION JUDGES IMMEDIATELY CONDEMNS LATEST OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAW, DUE PROCESS, & HUMAN RIGHTS BY SESSIONS IN MATTER OF A-B-!

http://www.aila.org/infonet/retired-ijs-and-former-members-of-the-bia-issue

Retired Immigration Judges and Former Members of the Board of Immigration Appeals Statement in Response to Attorney General’s Decision in Matter of A-B-.

As former Immigration Judges with decades of experience at the trial and appellate level, we consider the Attorney General’s decision an affront to the rule of law. As former judges, we understand that in order to be fair, case law must develop through a process of impartial judicial analysis applying statute, regulations, case law, and other proper sources to the facts of the case.

The life-or-death consequences facing asylum applicants makes it extremely important to keep such analysis immune from the political considerations that appointed cabinet members are subject to.

The BIA’s acknowledgment that a victim of domestic violence may qualify for asylum as a member of a
particular social group was the culmination of a 15 year process through the immigration courts and BIA. The issue was certified by three different Attorneys General (one Democrat and two Republican), who all chose in the end to leave the final determination to the immigration judges and the BIA. The private bar, law enforcement agencies (including DHS), the BIA, and the circuit courts all agreed with this final determination.

What is more, a person who suffers persecution that is perpetrated by private parties whom their government cannot or will not control, is equally eligible for asylum protection under both US law and international refugee treaties.

For reasons understood only by himself, the Attorney General today erased an important legal development
that was universally agreed to be correct. Today we are deeply disappointed that our country will no longer offer legal protection to women seeking refuge from terrible forms of domestic violence from which their home countries are unable or unwilling to protect them. We hope that appellate courts or Congress through legislation will reverse this unilateral action and return the rule of law to asylum adjudications.

Sincerely,

Honorable Steven R. Abrams

Honorable Sarah M. Burr

Honorable Jeffrey S. Chase

Honorable Bruce J. Einhorn

Honorable Cecelia Espenoza

Honorable Noel Ferris

Honorable John F. Gossart, Jr.

Honorable William P. Joyce

Honorable Carol King

Honorable Elizabeth A. Lamb

Honorable Margaret McManus

Honorable Susan Roy

Honorable Lory D. Rosenberg

Honorable Paul W. Schmidt

Honorable Polly A. Webber

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AILA Doc. No. 18061134. (Posted 6/11/18)

List of Retired Immigration Judges and Former BIA Members
The Honorable Steven R. Abrams served as an Immigration Judge in New York City from 1997 to 2013 at JFK Airport, Varick Street, and 26 Federal Plaza. From 1979 to 1997, he worked for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in various capacities, including a general attorney; district counsel; a Special U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York and Alaska. Presently lectures on Immigration law in Raleigh, NC.
The Honorable Sarah M. Burr served as a U.S. Immigration Judge in New York from 1994 and was appointed as Assistant Chief Immigration Judge in charge of the New York, Fishkill, Ulster, Bedford Hills and Varick Street immigration courts in 2006. She served in this capacity until January 2011, when she returned to the bench full-time until she retired in 2012. Prior to her appointment, she worked as a staff attorney for the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society in its trial and appeals bureaus and also as the supervising attorney in its immigration unit. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Immigrant Justice Corps.
The Honorable Jeffrey S. Chase served as an Immigration Judge in New York City from 1995 to 2007 and was an attorney advisor and senior legal advisor at the Board from 2007 to 2017. He is presently in private practice as an independent consultant on immigration law, and is of counsel to the law firm of DiRaimondo & Masi in New York City. Prior to his appointment, he was a sole practitioner and volunteer staff attorney at Human Rights First. He also was the recipient of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s annual pro bono award in 1994 and chaired AILA’s Asylum Reform Task Force.
The Honorable Bruce J. Einhorn served as a United States Immigration Judge in Los Angeles from 1990 to 2007. He now serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California, and a Visiting Professor of International, Immigration, and Refugee Law at the University of Oxford, England. He is also a contributing op-ed columnist at D.C.-based The Hill newspaper. He is a member of the Bars of Washington D.C., New York, Pennsylvania, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Honorable Cecelia M. Espenoza served as a Member of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”) Board of Immigration Appeals from 2000-2003 and in the Office of the General Counsel from 2003- 2017 where she served as Senior Associate General Counsel, Privacy Officer, Records Officer and Senior FOIA Counsel. She is presently in private practice as an independent consultant on immigration law, and a member of the World Bank’s Access to Information Appeals Board. Prior to her EOIR appointments, she was a law professor at St. Mary’s University (1997-2000) and the University of Denver College of Law (1990-1997) where she taught Immigration Law and Crimes and supervised students in the Immigration and Criminal Law Clinics. She has published several articles on Immigration Law. She is a graduate of the University of Utah and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. She was recognized as the University of Utah Law School’s Alumna of the Year in 2014 and received the Outstanding Service Award from the Colorado Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 1997 and the Distinguished Lawyer in Public Service Award from the Utah State Bar in 1989-1990.
The Honorable Noel Ferris served as an Immigration Judge in New York from 1994 to 2013 and an attorney advisor to the Board from 2013 to 2016, until her retirement. Previously, she served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1985 to 1990 and as Chief of the Immigration Unit from 1987 to 1990.
The Honorable John F. Gossart, Jr. served as a U.S. Immigration Judge from 1982 until his retirement in 2013 and is the former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. At the time of his retirement, he was the third most senior immigration judge in the United States. Judge Gossart was awarded the Attorney General Medal by then Attorney General Eric Holder. From 1975 to 1982, he served in various positions with the former Immigration Naturalization Service, including as general attorney, naturalization attorney, trial attorney, and deputy assistant commissioner for naturalization. He is also the co-author of the National Immigration Court Practice Manual, which is used by all practitioners throughout the United States in
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AILA Doc. No. 18061134. (Posted 6/11/18)

immigration court proceedings. From 1997 to 2016, Judge Gossart was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law teaching immigration law, and more recently was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Maryland School of Law also teaching immigration law. He has been a faculty member of the National Judicial College, and has guest lectured at numerous law schools, the Judicial Institute of Maryland and the former Maryland Institute for the Continuing Education of Lawyers. He is also a past board member of the Immigration Law Section of the Federal Bar Association. Judge Gossart served in the United States Army from 1967 to 1969 and is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
The Honorable William P. Joyce served as an Immigration Judge in Boston, Massachusetts. Subsequent to retiring from the bench, he has been the Managing Partner of Joyce and Associates with 1,500 active immigration cases. Prior to his appointment to the bench, he served as legal counsel to the Chief Immigration Judge. Judge Joyce also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Associate General Counsel for enforcement for INS. He is a graduate of Georgetown School of Foreign Service and Georgetown Law School.
The Honorable Carol King served as an Immigration Judge from 1995 to 2017 in San Francisco and was a temporary Board member for six months between 2010 and 2011. She previously practiced immigration law for ten years, both with the Law Offices of Marc Van Der Hout and in her own private practice. She also taught immigration law for five years at Golden Gate University School of Law and is currently on the faculty of the Stanford University Law School Trial Advocacy Program. Judge King now works as a Removal Defense Strategist, advising attorneys and assisting with research and writing related to complex removal defense issues. The Honorable Elizabeth A. Lamb
Judge Margaret McManus was appointed as an Immigration Judge in 1991 and retired from the bench after twenty-seven years in January 2018. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Catholic University of America in 1973, and a Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School in 1983. Judge McManus was an attorney for Marion Ginsberg, Esquire from 1989 to 1990 in New York. She was in private practice in 1987 and 1990, also in New York. Judge McManus worked as a consultant to various nonprofit organizations on immigration matters including Catholic Charities and Volunteers of Legal Services from 1987 to 1988 in New York. She was an adjunct clinical law professor for City University of New York Law School from 1988 to 1989. Judge McManus served as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, Immigration Unit, in New York, from 1983 to 1987. She is a member of the New York Bar.
The Honorable Lory D. Rosenberg served on the Board from 1995 to 2002. She then served as Director of the Defending Immigrants Partnership of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association from 2002 until 2004. Prior to her appointment, she worked with the American Immigration Law Foundation from 1991 to 1995. She was also an adjunct Immigration Professor at American University Washington College of Law from 1997 to 2004. She is the founder of IDEAS Consulting and Coaching, LLC., a consulting service for immigration lawyers, and is the author of Immigration Law and Crimes. She currently works as Senior Advisor for the Immigrant Defenders Law Group.
The Honorable Susan Roy started her legal career as a Staff Attorney at the Board of Immigration Appeals, a position she received through the Attorney General Honors Program. She served as Assistant Chief Counsel, National Security Attorney, and Senior Attorney for the DHS Office of Chief Counsel in Newark, NJ, and then became an Immigration Judge, also in Newark. Sue has been in private practice for nearly 5 years, and two years ago, opened her own immigration law firm. Sue is the NJ AILA Chapter Liaison to EOIR, is the Vice Chair of
was appointed as an Immigration Judge in September 1995. She received
a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Mt. St. Vincent in 1968, and a Juris Doctorate in 1975 from St.
John’s University. From 1983 to 1995, she was in private practice in New York. Judge Lamb also served as an
adjunct professor at Manhattan Community College from 1990 to 1992. From 1987 to 1995, Judge Lamb
served as an attorney for the Archdiocese of New York as an immigration consultant. From 1980 to 1983, she
worked as senior equal employment attorney for the St. Regis Paper Company in West Mark, New York. From
1978 to 1980, Judge Lamb served as a lawyer for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services in
New York. She is a member of the New York Bar.
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AILA Doc. No. 18061134. (Posted 6/11/18)

the Immigration Law Section of the NJ State Bar Association, and in 2016 was awarded the Outstanding Pro Bono Attorney of the Year by the NJ Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.
The Honorable Paul W. Schmidt served as an Immigration Judge from 2003 to 2016 in Arlington, virginia. He previously served as Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals from 1995 to 2001, and as a Board Member from 2001 to 2003. He authored the landmark decision Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1995) extending asylum protection to victims of female genital mutilation. He served as Deputy General Counsel of the former INS from 1978 to 1987, serving as Acting General Counsel from 1986-87 and 1979-81. He was the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Fragomen, Del Rey & Bernsen from 1993 to 1995, and practiced business immigration law with the Washington, D.C. office of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue from 1987 to 1992, where he was a partner from 1990 to 1992. He served as an adjunct professor of law at George Mason University School of Law in 1989, and at Georgetown University Law Center from 2012 to 2014 and 2017 to present. He was a founding member of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ), which he presently serves as Americas Vice President. He also serves on the Advisory Board of AYUDA, and assists the National Immigrant Justice Center/Heartland Alliance on various projects; and speaks, writes and lectures at various forums throughout the country on immigration law topics. He also created the immigration law blog immigrationcourtside.com.
The Honorable Polly A. Webber served as an Immigration Judge from 1995 to 2016 in San Francisco, with details in Tacoma, Port Isabel, Boise, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Orlando Immigration Courts. Previously, she practiced immigration law from 1980 to 1995 in her own private practice in San Jose, California, initially in partnership with the Honorable Member of Congress, Zoe Lofgren. She served as National President of AILA from 1989 to 1990 and was a national officer in AILA from 1985 to 1991. She has also taught Immigration and Nationality Law for five years at Santa Clara University School of Law. She has spoken at seminars and has published extensively in this field, and is a graduate of Hastings College of the Law (University of California), J.D., and the University of California, Berkeley, A.B., Abstract Mathematics.
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AILA Doc. No. 18061134. (Posted 6/11/18)

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

The AP already picked up our statement in this article:

https://townhall.com/news/us/2018/06/12/sessions-excludes-domestic-gang-violence-from-asylum-claims-n2489683

 

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said the decision was “despicable and should be immediately reversed.” And 15 former immigration judges and Board of Immigration Appeals members signed a letter calling Sessions’ decision “an affront to the rule of law.”

“For reasons understood only by himself, the Attorney General today erased an important legal development that was universally agreed to be correct,” the former judges wrote. “Today we are deeply disappointed that our country will no longer offer legal protection to women seeking refuge from terrible forms of domestic violence from which their home countries are unable or unwilling to protect them.”

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

Also, I was quoted in this article by Alan Pyke posted yesterday in ThinkProgress:

https://thinkprogress.org/jeff-sessions-asylum-domestic-violence-5e1a3e1aa996/

Marching orders, not friendly advice

The attorney general also took care to remind the judges that his decisions aren’t advice from a fellow lawyer but binding instructions from their one true boss. Though they are termed “judges” and wear robes behind a bench in court, the immigration judiciary is essentially a staff arm of the Attorney General rather than the independent arbiters that most envision when hearing their job titles.

“I’ve never seen an AG come and basically tell the judges they’re part of the border enforcement effort. It’s outrageous,” Schmidt said. “Whether they’re inside DOJ or not, this is supposed to be an administrative court that exercises independent judgment and decisionmaking. And he’s reduced to to where they’re little enforcement officers running around carrying out the AG’s border policies.”

Sessions did go briefly off-book on Monday to offer one conciliatory note, looking up from his notes after calling the current backlog in immigration courts“unacceptable” to acknowledge that it’s been a tougher problem than he expected. “We thought we could get those numbers down, but they’re not going down yet,” Sessions said, before returning to his prepared remarks. He did not acknowledge that his own policies have contributed to the swelling of the backlog, which hit an all-time high in May.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a meeting about the government's response to hurricanes on Wednesday. CREDIT: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

Immigration court backlog hits all-time high, days before Sessions speech to immigration judges

Sessions is redrawing lines more tightly atop an already perversely narrow system.

A separate ruling last Friday helps underline the severity of the limits on traumatized migrants’ rights to seek protection in the United States. In a decision pertaining to the immigration courts’ handling of those accused of providing “material support” to terrorist organizations abroad, the Board of Immigration Appeals decided even labor compelled with death threats counts as grounds to bar someone from the United States.

The Salvadoran woman whose appeals gave rise to the case had been married to a sergeant in El Salvador’s army during a bloody civil war there. Guerrillas kidnapped the woman and her husband, made her watch as he dug his own grave and was shot dead, then made her wash clothes and do other menial chores for the rebel fighters while in captivity.

This clothes-washing and death-avoiding makes her, in the DOJ’s immigration overseers’ eyes, a terrorist no better than the unnamed group — presumably the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMNL) — who killed her husband in front of her and forced her into servitude.

The board denied her appeals and used the case to set a broader line across all immigration courts. Violently coerced labor while imprisoned by a terror organization will permanently bar you from crossing the U.S. border to seek protection. If you try it, we’ll send you back to your captors — presumably after first taking your kids away from you, pursuant to Sessions’ new policy mandating all immigrants crossing the border without documentation be referred to criminal court and thus separated from any minors who accompanied them.

This piece has been updated with additional context about Sessions’ immigration policies and further perspective from immigration policy experts.

Read Alan’s full analysis at the above link. According to many observers, the “small aside” by Sessions in the article is the closest he’s ever come to accepting responsibility for a mess that he, the Trump Administration, and the two previous Administrations actually have caused with their horrible and highly politicized mismanagement of the U.S Immigration Courts.

For the most part, the ever disingenuous Sessions, has tried to shift blame for his gross mismanagement to the victims: migrants (particularly asylum seekers); private attorneys (particularly those heroic attorneys performing pro bono); and the beleaguered, totally demoralized U.S. Immigration Judges themselves who have been stripped of dignity, wrongfully accused of laziness, and placed under inane, sophomoric, “performance standards” — incredibly developed by Sessions and other politicos and “Ivory tower” bureaucrats who have never themselves been Immigration Judges, have no idea what is happening in Immigration Court, and are driven entirely by political bias and/or a desire to keep their comfy jobs on the 5th floor of the DOJ or in the Falls Church Tower — well away from the results of the havoc they are wreaking on local Immigration Courts every day!

What a way to “manage” one of the nation’s largest and most important court systems! The real blame here goes to Congress which created this awful mess, yet has done nothing to remove this joke of a system from the toxic incompetence of the DOJ and create an independent court system where fairness, Due Process, quality, respect, and efficient, unbiased decision-making will be the hallmarks!

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

UPDATE:

The fabulous Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis also reminds me that our statement was the “banner, above the fold” headline on today’s bibdailyonline!

Here’s the link which also includes tons of other “great stuff” that Dan publishes!

http://www.bibdaily.com/

PWS

06-12-18

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. MORE ARTICLES FEATURE “GANG OF RETIRED JUDGES’ STATEMENT” RE: SESSIONS’S OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON SETTLED PRINCIPLES OF PROTECTION LAW! — Media Exposing Corrupt, Inherently Unfair, Biased “Court” System Where The Prejudiced Prosecutor “Cooks” The Results to His Liking! — Jeff Sessions Degrades The American Legal System & Our National Values Each Day He Remains In Office!
  4. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”

SESSIONS USES SPEECH TO U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES TO SPREAD LIES, MOUNT ALL OUT ATTACK ON US ASYLUM LAW AND INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION LAWS – Targets Most Vulnerable Refugee Women Of Color For Latest Round Of Legal Abuses – Orders Judges To Prejudge Applications In Accordance With His Rewrite Of Law – It’s “Kangaroo Court” – The Only Question Now Is Whether Congress & Article III’s Will Let Him Get Away With Latest Perversion Of Justice @ Justice!

“Top Kangaroo lays down the law to EOIR Judges”

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-executive-office-immigration-review-legal

Attorney General Sessions Delivers Remarks to the Executive Office for Immigration Review Legal Training Program
Washington, DC

~

Monday, June 11, 2018

Remarks as prepared for delivery

Thank you, James, for that introduction, and thank you for your years of superb service to the Department as an SAUSA, at Main Justice, and now here at EOIR.  James has been doing a fabulous job.  He understands these issues, knows exactly what our challenges are, and is working steadfastly every day to meet them.

Thank you also to Katherine Reilly, Kate Sheehy, Chris Santoro, Edward So, David Neal, Chief Judge Keller, Lisa Ward, Jean King, Robin Sutman, and all of the leadership team.

It is good to be with you today.

Each one of you plays an important role in the administration of our immigration laws.  Immigration judges are critical to ensuring that the Department of Justice carries out its responsibilities under the INA. You have an obligation to decide cases efficiently and to keep our federal laws functioning effectively, fairly, and consistently.   As the statute states, Immigration Judges conduct designated proceedings “subject to such supervision and shall perform such duties as the Attorney General shall prescribe”.

This responsibility seeks to ensure that our immigration system operates in a manner that is consistent with the laws enacted by Congress. As you know, the INA was established to ensure a rational system of immigration in the national interest.

Of course there are provisions in the INA, consent decrees, regulations, and court decisions where the commonsense enforceability of the plain intent of the INA has been made more difficult.  That’s what you wrestle with frequently.

President Trump is correct: Congress needs to clarify a number of these matters.  Without Congressional action, clarity and consistency for us is much more difficult.

Let’s be clear: we have a firm goal, and that is to end the lawlessness that now exists in our immigration system.  This Department of Justice is committed to using every available resource to meet that goal. We will act strategically with our colleagues at DHS and across the government, and we will not hesitate to redeploy resources and alter policies to meet new challenges as they arise.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it will begin to refer as close to 100 percent of illegal Southwest Border crossers as possible to the Department of Justice for prosecution.  The Department of Justice will take up those cases.

I have put in place a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal entry on our Southwest border.  If you cross the Southwest border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you.  It’s that simple.

If someone is smuggling illegal aliens across our Southwest border, then we will prosecute them.  Period.

I have sent 35 prosecutors to the Southwest and moved 18 immigration judges to detention centers near the border.  That is about a 50 percent increase in the number of immigration judges who will be handling cases at the border.”

All of us should agree that, by definition, we ought to have zero illegal immigration in this country.

Each of us is a part of the Executive Branch, and it is our duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Ours is a public trust.

And the United States of America is not a vague idea.  It is not just a landmass or an economy.  Ours is a sovereign nation state with a constitution, laws, elections, and borders.

As you all well know, one of our major difficulties today is the asylum process.

The asylum system is being abused to the detriment of the rule of law, sound public policy, and public safety— and to the detriment of people with just claims.  Saying a few simple words—claiming a fear of return—is now transforming a straightforward arrest for illegal entry and immediate return into a prolonged legal process, where an alien may be released from custody into the United States and possibly never show up for an immigration hearing. This is a large part of what has been accurately called, “catch and release”.

Beginning in 2009, more and more aliens who passed an initial USCIS credible fear review were released from custody into the United States pending a full hearing.  Powerful incentives were created for aliens to come here illegally and claim a fear of return. In effect, word spread that by asserting this fear, they could remain in the United States one way or the other. Far too often, that rumor proved to be true.

The results are just what one would expect.  The number of illegal entrants has surged. Credible fear claims have skyrocketed, and the percentage of asylum claims found meritorious by our judges declined.

That’s because the vast majority of the current asylum claims are not valid.  For the last five years, only 20 percent of claims have been found to be meritorious after a hearing before an Immigration Judge. In addition, some fifteen percent are found invalid by USCIS as a part of their initial screening.

Further illustrating this point, in 2009, DHS conducted more than 5,000 credible fear reviews.  By 2016, only seven years later, that number had increased to 94,000.  The number of these aliens placed in immigration court proceedings went from fewer than 4,000 to more than 73,000 by 2016—nearly a 19-fold increase—overwhelming the system and leaving legitimate claims buried.

Now we all know that many of those crossing our border illegally are leaving difficult and dangerous situations.  And we understand all are due proper respect and the proper legal process.  But we cannot abandon legal discipline and sound legal concepts.

Under the INA, asylum is available for those who leave their home country because of persecution or fear on account of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion.  Asylum was never meant to alleviate all problems— even all serious problems— that people face every day all over the world.

Today, exercising the responsibility given to me under the INA, I will be issuing a decision that restores sound principles of asylum and long standing principles of immigration law.

We have not acted hastily, but carefully. In my judgment, this is a correct interpretation of the law. It advances the original intent and purpose of the INA, and it will be your duty to carry out this ruling.

This decision will provide more clarity for you. It will help you to rule consistently and fairly.

The fact is we have a backlog of about 700,000 immigration cases, and it’s still growing.   That’s more than triple what it was in 2009.  This is not acceptable.  We cannot allow it to continue.

At this time, when our immigration system and our immigration judges are under great stress, I am calling on you to use your best efforts and proper policies to enhance our effectiveness.  To end the lawlessness and move to the virtuous cycle, we have to be very productive. Volume is critical.  It just is.  We ask you to evaluate your processes and disposition rates.

We ask each one of you to complete at least 700 cases a year.  It’s about the average.  We are all accountable. Setting this expectation is a rational management policy to ensure consistency, accountability, and efficiency in our immigration court system. Thank you for working every day to meet and exceed this goal. You can be sure that this administration and this Department of Justice supports you in this critically important and historic effort.

That’s why we are hiring more than 100 new immigration judges this calendar year.  And we are actively working with our partners at DHS to ensure that we can deploy judges electronically and by video-teleconference where needed and to obtain appropriate courtroom facilities.

Let’s be clear. These actions will not end or reduce legal immigration. These actions will be directed at reducing illegal immigration. Only Congress can change legal immigration.

This is a great nation—the greatest in the history of the world.  It is no surprise that people want to come here.  But they must do so according to law.

When we lose clarity or have decisions that hold out hope where a fair reading of the law gives none, we have cruelly hurt many people. As we resolutely strive to consistently and fairly enforce the law, we will be doing the right thing.

The world will know what our rules are, and great numbers will no longer undertake this dangerous journey. The number of illegal aliens and the number of baseless claims will fall. A virtuous cycle will be created, rather than a vicious cycle of expanding illegality.

The American people have spoken.  They have spoken in our laws and they have spoken in our elections.  They want a safe, secure border and a lawful system of immigration that actually works.  Let’s deliver it for them.

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

It’s all about numbers — volume over justice! What a total farce!

Sessions also lied about the low asylum grant rate.  Of cases in which a merits decisions on asylum is actually rendered by an Immigration Judge after hearing, here are the actual asylum grant rates from the EOIR’s own website

Figure 16

 

page37image189719840

Asylum Grant Rate

Grants

Denials

Grant Rate

FY 12

10,575

8,444

56%

FY 13

9,767

8,777

53%

FY 14

8,672

9,191

49%

FY 15

8,184

8,816

48%

FY 16

8,726

11,643

43%

In other words, for the last five years available, nearly half of the asylum applications actually decided on the merits were granted. And, that doesn’t even include individuals granted other types of protection such as withholding of removal and CAT after a merits hearing.

It’s a far cry from the bogus 20% figure Sessions used. In any event, it’s well established law that denial of an asylum application does not in any way show that it was “fraudulent” or “frivolous” as Sessions implies.

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

As usual, the ever-amazing Tal Kopan was one of the first to “hit the net running” with her analysis of the Sessions speech to EOIR.

Jeff Sessions primed to overhaul asylum law

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce a major decision that could impact thousands of asylum seekers from Central America on Monday — his latest move to use his unique authority to single-handedly reshape immigration law.

Sessions made the announcement at an annual training conference for the nation’s hundreds of immigration judges, telling them the decision would be coming and reminding them that they will be obligated to follow his interpretation of the law.

Though Sessions did not explicitly name the decision, it is widely expected to be a case involving asylum protections for domestic violence victims. Sessions referred the case to himself earlier this year and invited interested parties to submit briefs. In his remarks, Sessions implied he would be restricting the use of asylum for victims of crime, which would reverse previous court decisions and overrule a significant 2014 Board of Immigration Appeals decision that ruled Central American domestic violence victims who cannot escape their abusive partners can qualify under asylum law for protection in the US.

“Asylum was never meant to alleviate all problems, even all serious problems, that people face every day all over the world,” Sessions said, reiterating the particular requirements of asylum under the law. “Today I will be exercising the responsibility given to me under the (Immigration and Nationality Act), I will be issuing a decision that restores sound principles of asylum and long standing principles of immigration law.”

The ruling and announcement is the latest evidence of Sessions taking full advantage of his authority over the immigration courts — a separate court system designed by law to be under the auspices of the Justice Department. The attorney general functions as a one-person Supreme Court in the system, in addition to hiring and evaluating the lower court judges themselves.

Sessions also reminded judges that his decision will be final, unless a federal appellate court were to overturn it on appeal.

In addition to impacting domestic violence victims, the case could also have large-scale implications for victims of other forms of crime and violence — rampant in Central America, where a majority of US asylum seekers at the southern border come from.

Related: Judge in case Sessions picked for immigrant domestic violence asylum review issued ‘clearly erroneous’ decisions, says appellate court

“In my judgment, this will be a correct interpretation of the law,” Sessions said. “It advances the original intent and purpose of the INA, and it will be your duty, of course, to carry that out.”

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/politics/jeff-sessions-asylum-decision/index.html

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

According to Tal, the National Association  of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”) immediately criticized Sessions’s overemphasis on numerical quotas that are actually still supposed to be the subject of “good faith” labor negotiations with the NAIJ before going into effect in the Fall.

Nevertheless, Tal’s longer article (linked above) would lead one to believe that many U.S Immigration Judges look forward their new well-defined role as an “asylum denial workforce” working as part of the law enforcement “team” to send vulnerable individuals, including children, back to death, rape, extortion, or constant beatings, in probable violation of international standards, as part of the DHS enforcement effort headed by Sessions.

Sessions received a warm welcome and reception from the judges present, who gave him multiple standing ovations at the beginning and end of his speech. But some leading immigration judges reacted unfavorably to the announcement.

Denying applications based on “precedents” intentionally misinterpreting the law will definitely make dockets move faster and might even allow some Immigration Judges to earn “gold stars” — and perhaps even recognition from the Chief Enforcer himself at next year’s conference — for exceeding their deportation quotas — at least until those pesky Article III Courts get involved.

We’ll see whether the Administration’s policies of intentional cruelty, criminal prosecution, child abuse, and sending folks back to places where their lives will be endangered without fairly considering their claims of protection works as a “deterrent” (never has in the past) or merely diminishes us as a society and a country.

As I always say, “We can diminish ourselves as a nation (and we are), but that won’t stop human migration.”

It’s a far cry from when the late Attorney General Janet Reno used to appear at Immigration Judge Conferences and urge us to do our duty to provide fairness, Due Process, and “equal justice for all.”

Stay tuned for the release of the AG’s decision and more reaction.

PWS

06-11-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. EOIR TARGETS UNACCOMPANIED KIDS FOR DEPORATION RAILROAD!
  3. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

SCOFFLAWS: SESSIONS & NIELSEN LIE, CONFUSE, AND OBFUSCATE TO HIDE REAL ILLEGAL INTENT BEHIND CHILD ABUSE POLICY!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-family-separation-policy-is-meant-to-deter-immigration-that-could-make-it-illegal_us_5b194b89e4b0599bc6e17605

Roque Planas reports for HuffPost:

You won’t hear Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen call this “deterrence.”
headshot
By Roque Planas

The aim of President Donald Trump’s new policy of splitting kids from their mothers at the border is, in a word, deterrence: The White House wants to discourage more immigrants from trying to enter the United States.

Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s secretary of homeland security, is careful not to say this outright — she dodged a direct question on the subject from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) at a hearing last month.

Central American immigrants walk after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents in Febru

JOHN MOORE VIA GETTY IMAGES
Central American immigrants walk after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents in February near McAllen, Texas. The Trump administration adopted a policy in May of intentionally separating mothers from their children at the border in order to deter migrants from crossing illegally into the U.S.

There’s a reason Nielsen and other administration officials shy away from attaching the word “deterrence” to the new policy: Changing immigrant detention policy as a way to deter undocumented people from coming to the U.S. is illegal, federal courts have repeatedly ruled. So now she and other Trump administration officials find themselves struggling to defend a family separation policy whose clear ambition is deterrence.

A growing number of mothers have crossed into the United States since 2014, often from Central America and often requesting asylum. Other administration officials were blunter in the past when discussing a policy that would split the families up to scare them away from coming.

The Department of Homeland Security was considering separating children from their parents “in order to deter” undocumented immigration, White House chief of staff John Kelly told CNN while serving as Nielsen’s predecessor last year. And Gene Hamilton, a former aide to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asked participants at a meeting last August on the policy to “generate paperwork laying out everything we could do to deter immigrants from coming to the U.S. illegally,” according to The New Yorker.

Whether or not the deterrence goal is spelled out, the strategy is likely to backfire. Former President Barack Obama learned that lesson in 2015, when a federal judge in Washington blocked his plans to lock up Central American immigrant mothers and their kids without bond to deter others from trying to cross the border.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the federal government can’t detain immigrants indefinitely for the sake of deterrence alone. Instead, the decision to detain needed to be based on whether the immigrant posed a threat to the community or a flight risk.

The Obama administration was forced to provide bond hearings to the migrants in family detention. A separate ruling that year ordered the Obama administration to start releasing people from family detention after three weeks in order to comply with the Flores settlement, a 1997 deal that bars the government from locking up children in detention centers.

The Trump administration hopes to skirt the rulings that got Obama officials into trouble by prosecuting immigrant parents at the border. The federal government can’t jail children while their mothers await trial, so immigration authorities transfer them to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to find a sponsor or to non-secured facility to hold them, as if they arrived by themselves.

But this legal maneuver stands on the same shaky ground.

“Whether the deterrence to seeking protection is being done by detaining families or separating families doesn’t make a whole lot of difference,” said Michelle Brané, the director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “They’re both punishing families for seeking protection, and protection to which they have the right under U.S. law.”

The Trump administration is already running into legal trouble over its policy. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Southern California to overturn Trump’s family separation policy, asking U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw for a nationwide injunction to halt the practice. At a hearing on May 4, Sabraw repeatedly asked whether the Trump administration had adopted the family separation policy to deter others.

“If there were a blanket policy to separate for deterrence value, would that be legal?” Sabraw asked, according to a transcript of the hearing. “Would that pass muster under the Fifth Amendment?”

The judge did not receive a straight answer. The government’s lawyer, Sarah Fabian, instead argued that the government wasn’t separating mothers from their kids systematically, and only following existing immigration law to do so.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions undermined her argument three days later, when he announced that the Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy for prosecuting border-crossers included mothers who cross with their children.

Lee Gelernt, the lawyer leading the ACLU lawsuit, called the government lawyer’s unwillingness or inability to defend family separation on the merits without resorting to the legally fraught term “deterrence” significant.

“The government still needs a persuasive justification for separating children,” Gelernt wrote in an email. “And the government has not provided one.”

On Wednesday, Sabraw ordered that the case against family separation can move forward, over the Trump administration’s objections. Although he has yet to rule on the case’s merits, his order did not augur well for the federal government.

Implementing a family separation policy to deter other migrants “arbitrarily tears at the sacred bond between parent and child,” Sabraw wrote. “Such conduct, if true, as it is assumed to be on the present motion, is brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency.”

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

Ah, the never-ending legal, moral, and intellectual corruption and dishonesty of the Trumpsters!

Take depositions — force them to lie under oath or admit they have been lying publicly. And, as I recently pointed out, most Article III Federal Judges, who actually have contempt of court authority, take a dim view of perjury by Cabinet Officers in their court proceedings.

I also think that even under the Supreme’s restrictive standards, there is an ever increasing possibility of actually imposing monetary damages on Nielsen, Sessions, and others for their intentional denial of Constitutional rights and their dishonest schemes to conceal their true intent. I actually think that when the full truth some day comes out, we will find not only illegal deterrence, but rather clear evidence of racial animus underlying Sessions’s policies. To be honest, Sessions has turned the entire U.S. Immigration Court system into a tool for enforcement deterrence — a huge violation of Due Process, as well as an astounding conflict of interest and violation of ethics.

Also, not surprisingly, the name of Sessions’s restrictionist crony Gene Hamilton has surfaced in connection with this scheme.

PWS

06-11-18

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  3. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

GONZO’S WORLD: FROM PLUM TO PRUNE IN NO TIME FLAT — Once The Premier Assignment For Top Government Lawyers, The USDOJ Has Become A Legal Cesspool Where Nobody Really Wants To Work Under The Toxic Leadership Of Trump, Sessions, & Co!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-justice-department-vacancies?mbid=nl_th_5b185e9a63b65d128d354892&CNDID=48297443&spMailingID=13649278&spUserID=MjMzNDQ1MzU1ODE2S0&spJobID=1420576926&spReportId=MTQyMDU3NjkyNgS2

Abigail Tracy in Vanity Fair:

One of the great under-reported stories of the Trump era is the extent to which the toxicity of the current administration has made high-level government appointments—once among the nation’s most prestigious vocations, and a stepping stone to more lucrative careers—virtually radioactive. John Kelly is said to be hard-pressed to fill out the ranks; State Department departures amount to “a hit on personnel that lasts a decade,” per one former official; and in policy areas from international trade to negotiations with North Korea, Donald Trump’sWhite House has failed to attract much-needed expertise. Perhaps nowhere is this more true than at the Justice Department, where 500 days into Trump’s term, his administration is still struggling to fill top spots. According to a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday, the White House has failed to persuade at least three people to accept the traditionally plum position of associate attorney general, the No. 3 job at the D.O.J., prompting an official pause to the search.

Given the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the perilous position of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whoever fills the spot could realistically find themselves overseeing Robert Mueller’s probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. The possibility has already (reportedly) scared away one associate A.G.: Rachel Brand, who left the role in February for an executive position at Walmart, told officials the job was too good to pass up. But sources close to Brand told NBC News that she was “frustrated by vacancies at the department and feared she would be asked to oversee the Russia investigation.” (A Justice Department spokeswoman pushed back on the report, calling it “false and frankly ridiculous.”) Two other candidates, attorneys Helgi Walker and Kate Todd— both veterans of the George W. Bush administration and Clarence Thomas clerkships—turned down the job, sources told the Journal, though their motivations for doing so are unclear. Nor is the No. 3 spot the only D.O.J. position the White House has failed to fill: according to the Journal, at least five high-profile units at the Justice Department still don’t have permanent, politically appointed leaders, including the criminal, civil, and tax divisions.

In a few cases, the Trump administration’s picks have been stalled in the confirmation process—the heads of both the criminal and civil units were named a year ago, for instance, but still haven’t been scheduled for a Senate vote. Per the Journal, the Russia probe is at play here, too: Democrats are “pressing nominees about how they would handle the probe should they become involved in it,” and Republicans, too, have been slow to push for a vote.

The pall of the Russia probe hangs equally heavy over current D.O.J. officials, who are constantly dodging attacks from the president over their own roles. Trump has repeatedly and publicly admonished Sessions over his recusal; in his latest attack, Trump blamed the top lawyer for the probe’s indefinite timeline. “The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself . . . I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined,” Trump tweeted, adding, “Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!” The Trump-Sessions relationship has reportedly deteriorated to the point that Trump refuses to say the former Alabama senator’s name out loud, a practice his stop aides have also picked up:

Trump’s fury with Sessions is so ever-present it has taken to darkening his moods even during otherwise happy moments. On Thursday, Trump was on Air Force One returning from a trip to Texas, reveling in both a successful day of fundraising and the heads-up he had received from economic adviser Larry Kudlow that the next day’s jobs report would be positive.

But when an aide mentioned Sessions, Trump abruptly ended the conversation and unmuted the television in his office broadcasting Fox News, dismissing the staffer to resume watching cable, according to a person familiar with the exchange.

Rosenstein, too, has been a frequent presidential punching bag. While Trump has targeted Sessions for his “original sin” of recusal, the deputy attorney general is the one responsible for appointing Mueller in the first place, not to mention for signing off on the F.B.I. raid of Michael Cohen. He’s battled with Trump allies over D.O.J. document requests and has come under scrutiny for the role he played in James Comey’s firing: on Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters that Rosenstein should be a key witness in the obstruction of justice aspect of the investigation, considering he penned a letter recommending Comey’s dismissal on the grounds that the former F.B.I. director mishandled the probe into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Graham also sent the D.A.G. a letter questioning Rosenstein’s oversight of the investigation late last month.

The White House’s struggle to fill out the ranks would result in an unusual situation should Rosenstein recuse himself, resign, or be fired—all possible outcomes. With Jesse Panuccio serving in an acting capacity as the associate attorney general, the responsibility of overseeing the Russia probe would likely fall to Solicitor General Noel Francisco. Typically, Francisco’s job is to argue on the government’s behalf in cases that go before the Supreme Court. And while it’s unclear how Francisco would treat the role, what’s much less ambiguous is how Trump would want him to treat it. “When you look at the I.R.S. scandal, when you look at the guns for whatever, when you look at all of the tremendous, aah, real problems they had, not made-up problems like Russian collusion, these were real problems,” Trump told The New York Times. “When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest.”

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

Gee, I remember how totally excited I was the day I got my job offer to serve as a GS-11 Attorney Adviser at the BIA under the DOJ Honors Program in 1973. Short of family events, it was one of the most exciting and satisfying events of my life. Who would have thought that 45 years later the once-proud DOJ would be run by a Jim Crow wannabe working for a White Nationalist regime?

Most of the “vibes” that I get are that everyone eligible or nearly eligible for retirement at the DOJ is getting those retirement estimates updated. Better hurry, though, before Trump & the GOP Know Nothings put the finishing touches on their plan to destroy the retirement system, the merit Civil Service, and return to the “good old days” of the spoils system where jobs could be handed out to political cronies and sycophants who could be hired and fired at will. And, of course, anyone with the integrity to stand up to these political hacks could be unceremoniously fired on the spot to make way for the kakistocracy.

Just like destroying the Constitution disingenuously is called “restoring the rule of law” in the Trump Administration, replacing the merit-based career Civil Service with a sycophantic kakistocracy is what disingenuously is termed “promoting accountability.”

PWS

06-11-18

Related posts:

  1. ON SATURDAY, “COURTSIDE” & SLATE’S JEREMY STAHL GAVE YOU THE “REAL LOWDOWN” ON AAG RACHEL BRAND’S “FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE!” — Two Days Later, NBC News Confirms What We Already Said!
  2. BILL BARR – Unqualified For Office – Unfit To Act In A Quasi-Judicial Capacity
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: PERVERSION @ JUSTICE: IN THE NAME OF TRUMP & WHITE NATIONALISM, HE’S TRASHED THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, THE RULE OF LAW, THE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES, GAYS, IMMIGRANTS, WOMEN, & OTHERS, AND OVERALL HUMAN COMPASSION & DECENCY– BUT, SESSIONS’S ONE NOTABLE INSTANCE OF ACTING ETHICALLY AND LAWFULLY IS UNFORGIVABLE IN TRUMP’S EYES!
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚖️⚰️👎🏻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 ☠️⚰️

Political Cartoonist Steve Sack @ Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Here’s What “Zero Tolerance” Looks Like!

Here’s Steve’s cartoon:

http://www.startribune.com/sack-cartoon-immigration-policy/484354261/

And, here’s what Steve Sack looks like:

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

America’s most notorious child abuser operates from a big U.S. Government Office on 10th & Pennsylvania, N.W., Washington, D.C.

PWS

06-10-18

 

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  2. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  3. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  4. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!

MIKE MILLER @ WASHPOST EXPOSES “TURNSTILE JUSTICE” AT BORDER US DISTRICT COURT: US Magistrate Presides Over “Clown Court” Where Traumatized, Bewildered, Migrants Are Coerced Into Pleading Guilty To Crimes Without Understanding The Consequences — Assistant US Attorney “High Fives” Speedy Finish, Turning “Trials” Into A “Sporting Event” — Even The Public Defender Partakes Of The Clown Show By Purporting To Represent 71 Individuals Simultaneously! — Come On, Folks, Whatever Happened To Due Process, Ethics & Professional Responsibility?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/they-just-took-them-frantic-parents-separated-from-their-kids-fill-courts-on-the-border/2018/06/09/e3f5170c-6aa9-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html

Miller writes:

MCALLEN, Texas — The words “all rise” were still ringing in the brightly lit South Texas courtroom last week when Peter E. Ormsby slipped unceremoniously into his seat.

“Good morning,” the 62-year-old federal magistrate said as the courtroom filled with the clanking of shackled defendants returning to their wooden benches. “We’re here to take up a number of criminal cases that allege that the defendants violated the immigration laws of the United States.”

Seated in front of Ormsby were 71 disheveled immigrants caught illegally crossing the Rio Grande. The number of defendants has soared amid President Trump’s crackdown on a new surge of border crossers. But the mass hearing was remarkable less for its size than for who it included: parents.

For the first time, federal courtrooms here and across the Southwest are being flooded with distraught mothers and fathers who have been charged with misdemeanor illegal entry and separated from their children — a shift in policy touted by the administration as a way to stop families from trying to reach the United States but decried by critics as traumatizing and inhumane. Last month a Honduran father separated from his wife and 3-year-old son killed himself in a Texas jail cell, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

In McAllen alone, 415 children had been stripped from their parents between May 21 and June 5, according to federal public defenders.

Now, on the morning of June 6, 14 more parents from Central America were facing an agonizing choice with uncertain consequences. They could plead guilty in the hope of speeding up their reunification with their children, but risk damaging their chances of receiving asylum in the United States. Or they could plead innocent and head to trial, a process that could take days or weeks and prolong their separation from their kids.

Seven miles from Mexico and surrounded by brushlands that are home to the border’s busiest smuggling routes, the Bentsen Tower federal courthouse has become one of the anguished epicenters of family separation.

On Wednesday morning, the evidence of that was the tears on the parents’ faces. Many clutched fliers with a phone number they could call to try to get their kids back from the increasingly crowded federal shelters where they are being housed.

. . . .

By day’s end, he would sentence more than 100 people, including 28 parents. Most would receive the lightest punishment possible — time served — before they were handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The frenzied pace of the proceedings was no accident. As Moody emerged from court in the afternoon, she and a colleague exchanged a high-five.

“I said I’d get done by 3:20,” the prosecutor said, checking the time to see she was only nine minutes behind schedule.

‘Prosecuting everybody’

Aleman-Bendiks had arrived at the tall, dark glass courthouse shortly after dawn that morning. After preparing for an hour in an office decorated with her diplomas from Rice University and Harvard Law, the 52-year-old federal public defender headed upstairs to the courtroom, where the air smelled like sweat and the 71 immigrants were already seated. She was representing all of them.

“How many of you were traveling with children?” she asked in Spanish. More than a dozen hands shot up.

“How did they separate you?” she said to a Guatemalan woman whose 8-year-old daughter was taken away.

“How long since you saw her?” she asked a Honduran separated from her 6-year-old girl.

“They just took them?” she said to a Salvadoran whose two daughters were gone.

This is what Trump’s zero-tolerance policy looked like to Aleman-Bendiks and scores of other federal public defenders along the border.

. . . .

For Meyers, the challenge is not only logistics but the wrenching stories of families being torn apart. In a conference call with her assistant federal public defenders last month, she said she told them to force judges to confront the issue.

“We think it’s important for the court and everybody to hear what’s happening,” she said.

On May 22, Aleman-Bendiks asked Ormsby in court to pressure the government to provide more information about the fate of families being separated. On May 31, she and her boss, Kyle B. Welch, met with ten officials from ICE, Border Patrol, the Justice Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for the children separated from their parents as well as “unaccompanied minors”who arrived in the United States on their own.

“The idea was to try and give us a sense of what’s happening here,” Aleman-Bendiks said, but the meeting delivered little clear information.

One Border Patrol official did say agents in and around McAllen had a policy of not separating children under 5 from their parents — although that policy does not appear to be in place elsewhere along the border. Children as young as 18 months have been taken from their parents.

On Wednesday, Aleman-Bendiks asked Ormsby to order the government to hand over lists of children separated from their parents so that immigration attorneys could ensure they were reunited.

“My concern is that there are lost children here in the system,” she said. “We are hearing it every day, your honor, and it’s not right.”

Ormsby noted that “children are not within the jurisdiction of this court. These people are here because they have a criminal case here.”

He invited her to prepare a brief on how he could order the government to provide lists. “But on its face,” he added, “it seems questionable to me that the court would have the authority to do that.”

. . . .

But immigration advocates aren’t so sure. “They are now convicted of a crime,” said Leah Chavla of the Women’s Refugee Commission. “Under U.S. law, that could be a bar to them receiving asylum, so they’d have to get a waiver.”

In the end, those complications mattered less to the parents in Ormsby’s courtroom than seeing their kids again. All of them pleaded guilty to illegally crossing the border and were sentenced to time served.

“Obviously, in each of your situations, you committed a crime and so the government was within their rights to pursue that,” the magistrate said. “Whether or not they should exercise their discretion that way is something that is obviously being debated.”

“As someone who has children myself,” he added, “it would be a terrible situation to be separated under those conditions.”

Then the guards put handcuffs back on the parents and led them out of the courtroom, where their future remained as unclear as the location of their children.

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

Read Mike’s complete report at the above link.

As described in Mike Miller’s article, U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby appears to preside over a “court” where “justice” for traumatized, obviously bewildered, and coerced migrants is a cross between a sporting event and a bad joke.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that understanding the immigration consequences of a conviction is a critical element in a migrant’s voluntary decision to plead guilty. Many of these migrant defendants obviously wanted to know whether a guilty plea would 1) free them from detention, 2) reunite them with their children, and 3) adversely affect their asylum cases. Neither Judge Ormsby nor anyone else in his courtroom was able to answer accurately. Judge Ormsby had the authority to defer accepting the pleas until the Assistant U.S. Attorney provided the answers. Yet, he did not do so. These guilty pleas appeared to be neither informed nor voluntary. A federal judge therefore should not have accepted them.

No wonder the prosecuting Assistant U.S Attorney “high fived” at the end of this farce. Likewise, the Public Defender’s claim to simultaneously represent 71 non-English-speaking defendants was a remarkable twist on the canons of ethics and professional responsibility.

Would a group of white, middle class, mostly first-time misdemeanor defendants have been treated this way in federal court? I doubt it. Yet, due process applies equally to everyone in the U.S. regardless of status.

PWS

06-10-18

 

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  3. EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: KID KILLERS ON THE LOOSE: “Sixteen-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died horribly and needlessly. The Trump administration’s policy of deliberate, punishing cruelty toward Latin American migrants killed him.”
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

BLACK PERSPECTIVE: AFRICAN AMERICANS KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TRUMP & SESSIONS MEAN WHEN THEY DISINGENUOUSLY REFER TO THE “RULE OF LAW” — For Most Of Our History, The Law Has Been A “Whites Only” Device — “Turner, eight-months pregnant at the time of her murder, was stripped naked, hanged upside down and burned to death; her stomach was cut open to let her baby fall to the ground and its head was stomped into the red Georgia dirt. Her murderers never spent a day in jail.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-anderson-rule-of-law_us_

Carol Anderson writes in HuffPost:

On Monday, President Donald Trump made it clear: He was not answerable to any law, constitutional or otherwise. “I have the absolute right to PARDON myself,” he tweeted. His attorney, Rudy Giuliani, even said that Trump could shoot former FBI Director James Comey in the Oval Office and, legally, be in the clear.

Many were stunned. They shouldn’t have been.

The rule of law has been under siege for a long time. Most Americans haven’t noticed because it appeared that they weren’t directly affected, and that the system worked. But African Americans have lived with the reality of abuse of power and contempt for the law for generations. For more than a century, each lynching, each murder, each ethnic cleansing, each wink, wink, nod, nod “not guilty,” especially in the face of overwhelming evidence, loosened and discredited the norms of a law-abiding society and put American democracy in Trump’s crosshairs.

That is what should stun so many who are now apoplectic about his threat. The destruction of the rule of law has actually been going on for a long, long time.

The destruction of the rule of law has actually been going on for a long, long time.

In 1918, Walter White, the associate secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, futilely demanded that Georgia’s governor bring to justice the known killers of Mary Turner, who had lived near Valdosta. Turner, eight-months pregnant at the time of her murder, was stripped naked, hanged upside down and burned to death; her stomach was cut open to let her baby fall to the ground and its head was stomped into the red Georgia dirt. Her murderers never spent a day in jail.

In 1921, whites burned and bombed black Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the ground, destroying a thriving, vibrant community and killing up to 300 African Americans. One photo of the destruction happily proclaimed “running the Negro out of Tulsa.” Pleas from Walter White went unheeded. As did the 21st-century work of Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, who attempted to wrench from the warped system some semblance of justice for the surviving victims. Over the span of more than 80 years, though, despite the carnage and the destruction, the lawyers, the politicians and the courts couldn’t fathom that any law had been broken.

In 1951, Florida Sheriff Willis McCall, who saw himself as the alpha and omega of the law in citrus-growing Lake County, was determined to stem the tide of liberalism that appeared to be encroaching on his world. He loved running slave labor camps for the growers. He loved having interracial couples taken into the woods and savagely beaten by his deputies. And he loved putting “uppity” Negroes in their place. When a white woman falsely accused several black men of rape, he was ready for their execution, until the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a new trial. An angry McCall then drove two of the men into the woods and gunned them down. One survived to tell the grisly story of murder and attempted murder. McCall, however, as I previously wrote in LitHub, “kept his job for twenty-one additional years until he finally lost a re-election bid (but was found ‘not guilty’) after bludgeoning yet another black man to death.”

Black residents search through rubble after the Tulsa Race Riot of June 1921.

OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY VIA GETTY IMAGES
Black residents search through rubble after the Tulsa Race Riot of June 1921.

As the deaths in Valdosta, Tulsa, and Florida make clear, the rule of law, one of the bedrocks of American democracy, was brutally and willfully trampled on, then dismissed. The justice system looked at the killers ― sheriffs, deputies, store owners, salesmen, and farmers ― and saw nothing untoward, nothing villainous, nothing murderous. Nothing except white respectability.

Even the incredible power of the Civil Rights Movement and the seismic transformation of American society couldn’t shake that reality and make the rule of law viable.

Even the incredible power of the Civil Rights Movement couldn’t make the rule of law viable for black citizens.

In 1969, the Chicago Police Department, aided by the FBI, raided the apartment headquarters of Black Panther Fred Hampton, killing him and fellow Panther Mark Clark, and seriously wounding four others. The next day the Cook County state’s attorney, Edward V. Hanrahan, told the tale of a massive gun battle in which the Panthers opened fire, their shotguns blasting through the door. In this retelling, the police had no choice but to defend themselves with deadly force. Hanrahan pointed to pictures of bullet holes that riddled the small apartment, leaving plaster and wood looking like dirty Swiss cheese.

There was just one problem: It was all a lie. He and 13 other members of law enforcement made it all up to obstruct an investigation into the killings. Forensic specialists proved that the first shot was in fact fired by police, followed by an errant bullet from Mark Clark, and then a volley of nearly 100 police shots raining into the small first-floor apartment. Yet, for blatantly lying about a double murder, Hanrahan and other members of law enforcement were found “not guilty,” and walked away.

The Black Panthers' Fred Hampton speaks at a rally in Chicago's Grant Park in September 1969. Hampton and fellow Panther Mark

CHICAGO TRIBUNE VIA GETTY IMAGES
The Black Panthers’ Fred Hampton speaks at a rally in Chicago’s Grant Park in September 1969. Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark were killed by police later that year.

This isn’t ancient history or living in the past. This is the condition of justice and the rule of law right now. It was apparent when four NYPD officers fired 41 shots at unarmed Amadou Diallo in 1999 and were found “not guilty” of any wrongdoing. And when George Zimmerman walked out of court a free man, although the unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, whom he had stalked through the neighborhood with a loaded 9 mm in 2013, lay dead with a bullet in his heart. And when 12-year-old Tamir Rice… when 7-year old Aiyana Stanley Jones… when Jonathan Ferrell… when Philando Castile…

This willingness on the part of court systems, law enforcement and the respectable folk in society to ignore or explain away egregious violations of the law has consequences beyond the black lives it ruins. Eventually, rampant but selective disregard for the rule of law taints and corrupts the entire system ― it leads to a culture of impunity. Trump’s recent boast makes clear that lawlessness can’t be contained to cops on the ground killing black people.

Eventually, rampant but selective disregard for the rule of law taints and corrupts the entire system.

Nevertheless, many whites believed for so long that they were safe; that this contempt didn’t and couldn’t affect them. They were wrong. A culture of impunity is dangerous and seductive. It creates a heady sense of immunity ― so heady that a presidential candidate can brag that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and not lose a single vote. Trump is already in the habit of circumventing procedures without consequence, having pardoned Joe Arpaio, a known torturer who defied a federal court order. He also pardoned I. Lewis ”Scooter” Libby, who was convicted of outing a CIA agent and lying to federal authorities about it. Just last week, he pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, a blatant racist and anti-Semite who used straw donors to make illegal campaign contributions.

Trump now insists that he has more pardons in his pocket, including one for himself, for whatever crimes he may or may not have committed. The president of the United States, a man long accustomed to circumventing the rules that apply to most other people, looks around and sees a system that hasn’t deigned to hold the powerful accountable.

And so, he declares that he might make himself president for life, and appears to exchange U.S. national security for some Chinese trademarks for his daughter, and rails against “fake news” and calls the media “the enemies of the American people,” and attacks the Department of Justice and special counsel Robert Mueller because they won’t do his bidding. When he does those stunning-to-some things, remember that this unrelenting assault on the rule of law is just another version of the same contempt for the nation’s statutes and American democracy that left Mary Turner hanging upside down, disemboweled and burning.

The canary in the American mine is once again gasping for breath. The air is toxic and the poison of lawlessness is likely to take us all down. Maybe this time America will listen.

Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. She is the author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and the forthcoming One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy.

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

The White Nationalist approach to the Constitution and law has been with us since the founding of our republic (by a group that contained many slaveholders, smart enough to know that slavery was wrong but too corrupted by it to do the right thing).

But, Trump is more than a “garden variety” racist/White Nationalist (that’s Jeff Sessions, Tom Cotton, Stephen Miller, etc.). He is a dangerous, lawless, “populist” authoritarian in the Mussolini mold. Although many of Trump’s supporters don’t recognize it, they and their rights will be “expendable” at his pleasure.

That leaves it to the rest of us (who actually are the majority of Americans) to save folks from Trump and, in far too many cases, from themselves and their short-sighted prejudices and selfishness. It’s a tall order; but the  alternative is the end of our republic and a descent into the worst type of authoritarian dystopia.

PWS

06-10-18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”
  2. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  3. COURTSIDE HISTORY: HOW THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ RACISM ERASED A PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER! — ALSO MY: “FRIDAY ESSAY — FROM MONTICELLO TO TRUMP, MILLER, SESSIONS, AND THE GOP WHITE NATIONALISTS”
  4. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!

DUE PROCESS UPDATE: COULD ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CONSTITUTIONAL SCOFFLAWS SESSIONS & NIELSEN BE ON THE HORIZON? – US District Judge Finds “At a minimum, the facts alleged are sufficient to show the government conduct at issue “shocks the conscience” and violates Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to family integrity. Accordingly, Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ due process claim is denied.”

Judge rules that challenge to family separation at border can proceed

By Tal Kopan, CNN

A federal judge in California ruled Wednesday that a challenge to the practice of separating parents seeking asylum from children at the border can proceed.

The ACLU brought the case against the Trump administration.

In her opinion, the  said “at a minimum, the facts alleged are sufficient to show the government conduct at issue ‘shocks the conscience’ and violates Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to family integrity. Accordingly, Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ due process claim is denied.”

The ruling is a victory for critics of the administration’s separation of families — though plenty of hurdles remain before the practice is outlawed.

The ruling does not mean the challenge will ultimately succeed — but it is a substantial step for critics of any separating families who say the practice is abhorrent enough that it should be unconstitutional in any case. The judge’s ruling Wednesday keeps that argument alive.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics/family-separation-ruling/index.html

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

Here’s a copy of Judge Dana Sabraw’s complete order in Ms. L v. ICE.  I particularly recommend Part II (E) which sets forth an excellent discussion of how Due Process applies to individuals physically in the U.S. regardless of status.

Interestingly, although the statement of the law of Due Process was basically uncontested by the DOJ attorneys on the case, it conflicts in both tone and substance from most, if not all, of the statements about foreign nationals made by Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, Miller, Cotton, Goodlatte, and the rest of the GOP “White Nationalist gang” who seldom acknowledge that migrants coming to our Southern Border are human beings, let alone that they are actually protected by our Constitution!

Ms L v ICE order 6-6-18

Thanks to my good friend and “immigration guru” Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr of Cornell Law for sending me this decision!

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

I hope that the ACLU will depose Sessions in connection with this case. He has “spun” and lied about what’s really happening to asylum applicants, including those who appear at the border and apply for asylum without making an unlawful entry. Indeed, the “named plaintiff Ms L” is just such an individual who was, for no apparent reason other than cruelty and “deterrence,” separated from her young daughter for 4 months. She was only released when the ACLU filed this case.

Read this account by Jenny Samuels, ACLU Editorial Staff, about Sessions’s web of deceit, legal misrepresentation, and lack of human decency and morality. https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention/jeff-sessions-deceitful-spin-family

Sessions has a history of bias, lawless behavior, and being a less than credible witness under oath. And, a U.S. District Judge might take misrepresentations or perjury more seriously than did the GOP Senators (Sessions’s former colleagues) on the Judiciary Committee.

Although the ultimate resolution of this case might be years down the line, it also raises an interesting question of whether Sessions, Nielsen, and other DHS officials can be held personally liable for a “Bivens Constitutional Tort” if they knowingly and intentionally violated the established Due Process rights of the plaintiffs. If the plaintiffs are correct in their allegations, it certainly seems that this is exactly what happened. Sessions is quickly establishing himself as one of the worst, probably the very worst, “Constitutional Scofflaws” in recent memory.

How bad is Sessions’s lack of respect for the Constitution? Bad enough that the three career DOJ Attorneys assigned to defend the ACA withdrew from the case for ethical reason after Sessions’s latest all out attack on the “rule of law:” His completely disingenuous political decision not to defend further the Government’s previously-established position that the ACA is Constitutional. See https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/6/8/17442238/trump-aca-obamacare-texas-department-of-justice-rule-of-law

While the scared asylum applicants and their children that Sessions and his cronies seek to persecute present no real threat to our security as a nation, Jeff Sessions and his continuing war on equal justice for all, human decency, the law, ethics, and our Constitution is an existential threat to our national security and future as a democracy. He must be thwarted and eventually removed from office through our Constitutional system before it’s too late for everyone!

PWS

06-09-18

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  2. INSIDE THE CHILD ABUSE CONSPIRACY: LIKE MANY CRIMINALS, TRUMP’S “GANG OF SIX” CAN’T KEEP THEIR STORIES STRAIGHT — But, There Is One Consistency — Everything These “Kakistocrats” Say Is A Lie!
  3. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  4. SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S ILLEGAL ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAW: ORDERS PROCESSING OF ALL WHO APPLY TO RESUME! — “Whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden!”

THREE NEW ARTICLES FROM MICA ROSENBERG & FRIENDS @ REUTERS SHOW SESSIONS’S DEEP MORAL CORRUPTION!I

I wanted to pass along our latest story about the U.S. Mexico border:

EXCLUSIVE: Nearly 1,800 families separated at U.S.-Mexico border in 17 months through February

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children-exclusive/exclusive-nearly-1800-families-separated-at-u-s-mexico-border-in-17-months-through-february-idUSKCN1J42UE

 

and for a deeper dive on the new “zero tolerance”’ prosecution policy:

Concerns over U.S. court backlog grow with rising border prosecutions

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-prosecutions/concerns-over-u-s-court-backlog-grow-with-rising-border-prosecutions-idUSKBN1IA310

 

Two colleagues also recently dug into the immigration detention squeeze:

Exclusive: U.S. sending 1,600 immigration detainees to federal prisons

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-prisons-exclusi ve/exclusive-u-s-immigration-authorities-sending-1600-detainees-to-federal-prisons-idUSKCN1J32W1

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

Corruption takes many forms.

PWS

06-08-18

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. 9TH CIRCUIT JUDGES COMPLICIT IN HUMAN RIGHTS & LEGAL VIOLATIONS INFLICTED ON TERRIFIED TEEN ASYLUM APPLICANTS: Reuters Study Exposes How Disingenuous Article III Judges Are Letting Trump Administration “Get Away With Potential Murder” Under Clearly Illegal, Unconstitutional, & Incompetently Administered “Remain In Mexico” Abomination!
  2. NPR: FRONTLINE TAKES YOU INSIDE THE POLICY DECISIONS THAT LED TO FAMILY SEPARATION — Featuring Michelle Brane Of The Women’s Refugee Commission
  3. CRIME BLOTTER: CHILD ABUSE🤮☠️⚰️🦹🏿‍♀️: DOJ IG REPORT CONFIRMS WHAT COURTSIDE & OTHERS KNEW FROM THE START: Trump, Sessions, Miller, Rosenstein, Hamilton Are Cowards🐓, Lying 🤥 Criminals, Child Abusers🦹🏿‍♀️, Who Belong Behind Bars For Intentionally Abusing Asylum Seeking Families & Kids & Then Having Their Sleazy DOJ Lawyers Lie To Federal Judges! — What Happened To “Due Diligence” As An Ethical Requirement For Government Lawyers?
  4. KAREN TUMULTY @ WASHPOST: Trump Is The Ugliest American – Amazingly, He Keeps Getting Uglier!

NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: IT’S NOW THE OFFICIAL POLICY OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATON – The Damage: Irreparable – The Stain On Our National Values: Indelible!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/us/children-immigration-borders-family-separation.html

Miriam Jordan reports for the NY Times:

When he landed in Michigan in late May, all the weary little boy carried was a trash bag stuffed with dirty clothes from his dayslong trek across Mexico, and two small pieces of paper — one a stick-figure drawing of his family from Honduras, the other a sketch of his father, who had been arrested and led away after they arrived at the United States border in El Paso.

An American government escort handed over the 5-year-old child, identified on his travel documents as José, to the American woman whose family was entrusted with caring for him. He refused to take her hand. He did not cry. He was silent on the ride “home.”

The first few nights, he cried himself to sleep. Then it turned into “just moaning and moaning,” said Janice, his foster mother. He recently slept through the night for the first time, though he still insists on tucking the family pictures under his pillow.

José’s separation from his father is part of the Trump administration’s latest and most widely debated border enforcement policy. Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the government would criminally prosecute everyone who crosses the border illegally, a directive that is already leading to the breakup of hundreds of migrant families and channeling children into shelters and foster homes across the country.

The goal, according to administration officials, is to discourage Central American families from making the perilous journey to the United States’ southwest border, where they have been arriving in swelling numbers this year to claim asylum.

In just the first two weeks under President Trump’s new policy, 638 parents who arrived with 658 children had been prosecuted, administration officials told Congress.

Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, emphasized that separating families was not the aim but merely the effect of a decision to step up prosecutions of those who cross the border illegally. “We do not have a policy to separate children from their parents. Our policy is, if you break the law we will prosecute you,” she told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 15.

She said the Trump administration is doing a better job than its predecessors in assuring that migrant children are placed with sponsors who are carefully screened. “We can make sure that the children go to people who are actually family members and who are not traffickers and who won’t abuse them,” she said.

Whether the policy will succeed as a deterrent remains an open question. What is clear is that it is creating heartbreak and trauma for those subjected to it, with parents and children often unaware of one another’s whereabouts.

. . . .

In several letters to the Department of Homeland Security, the American Academy of Pediatrics has urged an end to parent-child separation, which researchers have said can cause lifelong trauma in children. When the policy was unveiled, the academy’s president, Dr. Colleen Kraft, said she was dismayed at its “sweeping cruelty.”

José’s last name and that of his foster family, as well as where they live, are not being published in order to protect their privacy.

Since his arrival in Michigan, family members said, a day has not gone by when the boy has failed to ask in Spanish, “When will I see my papa?”

They tell him the truth. They do not know. No one knows.

José’s father is in detention, and parent and child until this week had not spoken since they were taken into the custody of United States authorities.

Image
Immigrants near McAllen, Tex., in April. Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the government would criminally prosecute everyone who crosses the border illegally.CreditLoren Elliott/Reuters

“I am watching history happen before my eyes. It’s horrendous,” said Janice, 53.

Janice, her husband, Chris, and their two teenage daughters have firsthand experience with underage migrants. They are among a number of families who have in recent years provided a temporary home, called transitional foster care, to minors seeking refuge in the United States, usually after fleeing violence and economic uncertainty in Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala.

In the last two years, 12 children, including two sets of siblings, have occupied the room upstairs with its soothing white-and-light-blue walls and twin beds with colorful bedding. All had arrived in the United States alone and remained in the family’s care for a few weeks or months until a long-term sponsor already in the country, often a relative, was identified and cleared by the authorities to receive them.

“They had access to their parents on a daily basis,” Janice said. “They talked to them on the phone. We have done video chats with Mom and Dad and siblings with every placement — except now.”

José is the first child they have hosted who crossed the border with a parent, rather than alone, then was forcibly separated and left with no ability to contact them. On his flight to Michigan were two other Central American boys in similar circumstances who were placed with families in the area.

The majority of youths apprehended at the border over the past several years have been housed in government shelters and most of them are teenagers who came alone, often expecting to join family members already in the United States. About 11,000 children are currently in these facilities, which are at 95 percent capacity, according to Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. The department has reserved an additional 1,218 beds in various places for migrant children, including some at military bases, he said.

On May 10, three days after Mr. Sessions announced the zero-tolerance policy, the government issued a call for proposals from “shelter care providers, including group homes and transitional foster care” in anticipation of a surge in children separated from their parents who would require housing.

. . . .

“For two days, he didn’t shower, he didn’t change his clothes. I literally had to peel the socks off his feet. They were so old and smelly,” Janice said. “I realized that he didn’t want anyone to take anything away from him.”

Image

A drawing of José’s father. Since the child’s arrival in Michigan, his foster family said, a day has not gone by when he has failed to ask in Spanish, “When will I see my papa?”

The one thing that animated him was discussing his “photos,” as he called the family drawings.

He introduced “mi familia,” pointing to the figures of his parents, brother and younger sister. Staring intensely at the sketch of his father, with a slight mustache and a cap, he repeated his name out loud again and again.

It was “just me and him” on the trip from Honduras, he told Janice one night as he lay in bed shuffling the pictures, taking turns looking at one and then the other.

“He holds onto the two pictures for dear life,” Janice said, through tears. “It’s heart-wrenching.”

Janice does not blame José’s parents for putting him through the ordeal.

In early May, she traveled to Central America to see for herself the conditions on the ground, and returned convinced that gang-fueled violence, extortion and recruitment of children were compelling parents to make the arduous journey over land with their children to the United States. “I have nothing but sorrow and compassion for the families,” she said.

When sirens pierced the quiet of the night last week, José’s eyes widened with fear. “La violencia, la violencia,” he said. The family assured him that it was not violence; it was fire trucks.

In recent days, the boy began attending a multi-age kindergarten at Bethany with about a dozen other migrant children.

. . . .

Earlier this week, José spoke with his parents for the first time since their lives had diverged. The phone calls were separate: His father remains in detention, and his mother is in Honduras.

The calls went smoothly, according to the case manager.

But they changed everything. Somehow, it had sunk in that there was no way of knowing when he would see his family. “It triggered all the separation trauma again,” said Janice.

She tried to offer him his toys, but he erupted in anger, screaming and crying at the kitchen table for almost an hour.

“It was really hard to watch. The look on his face was anguish,” said Janice, her voice breaking.

When his fury subsided, the boy collapsed on the kitchen floor, still sobbing. “Mama, Papa,” he said, over and over.

Nearby lay the family pictures, which he had flung on the floor.

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Read the entire, totally disturbing and enraging, article at the link.
Is this the way we want to be remembered by our children, grandchildren, and future generations? As nation that put cruel, arrogant, and inhumane individuals in charge of our Government and then stood by and watched while they abused children, spread xenophobia, enriched the rich, mocked ethics, and thumbed their noses at human decency.
Assuming that the “Joses of the world” live to grow up, there will be a horrible price to pay for future generations of Americans as they are forced to come to grips with the grotesque human rights abuses committed in the name of a perverted nationalism. Very much like the reckoning that the Catholic Church has had to undergo for tolerating and covering up decades and generations of sexual, physical, and mental abuse of youth!
Get out the vote to limit the power of the horrible minority that has taken over our Government and our nation and to eventually remove them from office at all levels. America cannot and will not “be great again” until the stain of Trumpism is removed from our national Government!
Due Process Forever! Trump & Sessions, Never!
Join the New Due Process Army today!
PWS
06-07-18

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: AS SESSIONS RAMPS UP THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG,” RAMPANT SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE DETAINEES CERTAIN TO INCREASE! – AG’S Child Abuse Also Makes Him Complicit In Sexual Abuse! – See The Short Video By Emily Kassie Here!
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THREE FROM “TIRELESS TAL” @ CNN: 1) First, Salvadoran Women Was Forced To Perform Slave Labor By Salvadoran Guerrillas, Then The BIA Shafted Her; 2) Trump/Sessions Scofflaw Attack On “Sanctuary Cities” Stomped By Yet Another U.S. Judge; 3) GOP Continues Internal Immigration Negotiations!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/politics/woman-el-salvador-guerillas-ruling/index.html

 

Woman’s forced labor for Salvadoran guerillas means she must leave US, court rules

By Tal Kopan, CNN

She was kidnapped by Salvadoran guerillas three decades ago, watched her husband be killed and forced to cook and clean for the militants. Now she can’t stay in the US.

The main appellate body of the immigration courts issued a divided opinion Wednesday with broad implications, finding that a woman from El Salvador is ineligible for status in the US because her 1990 abduction and forced labor amount to “material support” of a terrorist organization.

According to the court documents, the woman was kidnapped by the guerillas in El Salvador and made to do the cooking and cleaning “under threat of death.” She was also “forced to witness her husband, a sergeant in the Salvadoran Army, dig his own grave before being killed.”

Nevertheless, the 2-1 opinion holds that the woman’s coerced duties for the group constituted “material support” for a terrorist organization, and thus made her ineligible to be granted asylum or have her deportation order canceled in the US — though a lower court judge had ruled she would otherwise be eligible for such relief. The woman first came to the US illegally in 1991 but gained Temporary Protected Status — which is granted to countries that suffer natural disasters and other mass problems and was afforded to El Salvador for decades.

But she left the US and tried to return in 2004, when the government began deportation proceedings against her. Wednesday’s decision is the product of years of litigation regarding her case in the immigration courts — a judicial body for immigration-related claims run by the Justice Department.

Writing for the majority, Board of Immigration Appeals Judge Roger Pauley ruled that “material support” can be virtually anything that is provided to a terrorist organization that supports their overall mission that they would otherwise would need to seek somewhere else.

“In fact, no court has held that the kind of support an alien provides, if related to promoting the goals of a terrorist organization, is exempt from the material support bar, and we discern no basis to import such a limitation,” Pauley wrote.

Pauley also concluded there was no exception for support given “under duress” under US law and the actions do not need to be “voluntary.”

Dissenting board member and Judge Linda Wendtland blasted the court’s interpretation, pointing out the relevant statute lists a number of examples of “material support” like offering safe houses, transportation, funds and other tangible furtherance of their mission.

“I cannot conclude that the menial and incidental tasks that the respondent performed — as a slave — for Salvadoran guerrillas, including cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes, are of ‘the same class’ as the enumerated forms of assistance set forth in the statute,” Wendtland wrote. “Under the majority’s strained interpretation, providing a glass of water to a thirsty individual who happened to belong to a terrorist organization would constitute material support of that organization, because the individual otherwise would have needed to obtain water from another source.”

For the decision to be overturned, the woman in the case would have to appeal to a federal circuit court or succeed in persuading Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who serves as a functional one-man Supreme Court of the immigration courts — to intervene.

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Judge slaps Sessions, feds over ‘sanctuary cities’

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

A federal judge has once again rebuked the administration’s efforts to pressure so-called sanctuary cities, going further than any to date in using a recent Supreme Court decision to rule an existing federal law unconstitutional.

The ruling Wednesday from Judge Michael Baylson, a George W. Bush appointee, thus far applies only to his district in the Philadelphia area, but it could lay the groundwork for even more rulings that further limit what the administration can do to punish sanctuary cities — a key priority of the administration.

The decision relies, in part, on a May ruling from the Supreme Court on state gambling laws.

Baylson had already blocked the Justice Department from imposing new conditions on federal law enforcement grants that Philadelphia has received in the past, limiting his November ruling to the city, which had challenged the move by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. A federal judge in Chicago also has already blocked the new conditions nationwide, a ruling that was upheld in April by an appeals court. The effort from Sessions to impose the conditions had been an attempt to punish sanctuary cities after a federal judge in California had blocked the administration from pursuing broader funding threats.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/politics/sanctuary-cities-court-ruling-sessions-immigration/index.html

 

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House GOP immigration negotiations continue ahead of key Thursday meeting

By: Tal Kopan and Lauren Fox, CNN

House Republicans are bracing for a two-hour conference meeting Thursday morning on immigration, which could determine the fate of moderate members’ efforts to force a vote on several immigration bills.

“I think a lot of it hangs on that meeting tomorrow,” said Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, who has signed a  House procedural maneuver — known as a discharge petition — that allows lawmakers to bypass leadership and force a vote on the floor if they can get a majority of members to sign on.

Ahead of that consequential gathering, the key leaders on the moderate and conservative sides of the issue were huddling with party leadership in Speaker Paul Ryan’s effort in hopes of reaching a consensus that could be presented to their colleagues in the morning.

On their way to the Wednesday meeting and earlier in the day, negotiators expressed optimism but were still far apart on the issue of establishing citizenship for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/politics/immigration-daca-discharge-petition/index.html

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Tal’s range, depth, productivity, and readability are simply breathtaking! Don’t know how she does it, but I’m glad she does! I also love her description of Sessions as a “functional one-man Supreme Court.” Wish I’d thought of that one!

Thanks and kudos also to Tal’s terrific colleague Lauren Fox (below) who also is a “Courtside regular.”

PWS

06-06-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
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