"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Trump supporters and hangers-on boast the “success” of Trump’s immigration policies, demonstrated by the supposed drop in illegal entries. But this is merely an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to managing a very real problem. It was a giant sleight of hand which hid the actual number of people seeking entry into the U.S. Biden’s policies have pulled back the curtain and like so many other aspects of Trump’s administration, it is clear that the claims of success are nothing more than fantasies.
And yet the Biden administration is not off the hook. While it did agree to permit unaccompanied children to enter the U.S. despite the Title 42 ban, it did so following a preliminary injunction issued by a federal court last November. DHS continues to expel families, as well as single men and women, under the existing Title 42 order.
. . . .
Despite the clear moral and legal imperatives to stop Title 42 expulsions, the Biden administration is clearly worried that returning to pre-pandemic processing of asylum seekers will overwhelm the system. It is also clear that they fear a political backlash if critics are able to characterize the border as out of control.
Taking these final steps takes courage and political will. Those of us who support the rights of asylum seekers have to let the administration know that doing the right thing will not tarnish its reputation and that we will work even harder to ensure that making good on humane immigration policy is not political suicide.
Protecting asylum seekers is a woman’s issue of the first order. We must encourage and challenge both the administration and Congress to live up to U.S. obligations. We must turn out at the voting booth to support candidates and elected officials who act on behalf of asylum seekers. And we must push back, every way we can, against those who hope to weaponize the border in a callous effort to turn following the law into a political liability.
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Read Mary’s complete article at the link. Many thanks to Judge Alex Manuel of the ABA’s National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary for passing this along.
Surprisingly, “forced migration,” is exactly what it says it is: “FORCED migration” — not optional! As I have pointed out before: “We can diminish ourselves as nation (and are doing so), but it won’t stop human migration.”
Refugees come, because that’s what refugees do. They often come when the world is in crisis, because that’s one of the primary reasons why refugees flee. They seldom come in an orderly manner because flight to save your life doesn’t lend itself to “regularity.” How many Jews perished in Nazi-controlled areas before and during WWII waiting for visas that were never going to come?
And, what brings refugees to our borders actually has little to do with inane statements of politicos, bureaucrats, border cops, and the media. One of the main consequences of illegally “closing the border to asylum seekers” is that large numbers simply enter between ports of entry. Those who used to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol are encouraged by our short-sighted policies and unwillingness to follow our own laws just to keep on going.
We’d certainly do much better if we “canned” all the Trump-era illegal, racist nonsense, reopened border ports to asylum seekers, and encouraged them to apply there or in locations abroad. But, to make that happen we would also have to review their claims in a timely, fair, and humane manner — not “rocket science,” yet something that largely has eluded our nation, particularly since 2014.
It’s achievable. But not without much better leadership coming from experts who actually know how to deal with refugee situations in a humane and effective manner. Failed bureaucrats and grandstanding politicos, those who usually “drive the train heading for a wreck,” can’t do the job! That’s been proved time and again! Why do we insist on repeating all our mistakes? Cruelty and threats simply aren’t effective.
To emphasize Mary’s concluding point about women’s concerns, Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and Neo-Nazi Stephen Miller made misogyny a focus of their vicious attack on people of color seeking asylum. It started with Sessions’s atrocious decision ignorantly and unlawfully targeting women refugees in Matter of A-B- and continued through Miller’s now-enjoined effort to unlawfully eradicate gender-based asylum grants. Never mind that women form the largest group of clearly identifiable refugees in the world and that femicide and violence against them driven by sexual antipathy and issues of control are rampant worldwide, particularly in the Northern Triangle.
But, a large problem here is that more than two months into the Biden Administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to repudiate Matter of A-B- and the other debilitating racist and misogynist “precedents” and grotesquely illegal anti-asylum policies of Sessions and Barr. Worse yet, he has neither stood up for the reinstatement of asylum laws and compliance with Constitutionally-required due process at the border, nor has he removed and replaced “his” Board of Immigration Appeals and taken steps to curb those of “his” Immigration “Judges” who are still engaged in furthering the Sessions/Barr White Nationalist, misogynist, anti-asylum agenda!
Interesting lack of action from a distinguished former Federal Judge who several months ago claimed great gratitude that his ancestors were given refuge from harm by the U.S. Is there some reason that those people of color and others now arriving at our borders and claiming legal protections under our laws are less deserving of fair, generous, and humane treatment?
Judge Garland’s View Of Proper Treatment of Women Seeking Asylum? Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
CELEBRATING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH WITH THE BOYS FROM THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT!
Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160
PANEL: SMITH, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
OPINION BY: Judge Arnold
Because you have to “see it to believe it” that these three guys actually graduated from law school and got promoted to the Federal Judiciary, the opinion is set forth in full here:
United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________
No. 20-2248 ___________________________
Yeemy Guatemala-Pineda
lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner
v.
Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States1
lllllllllllllllllllllRespondent ____________
Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ____________
Submitted: February 17, 2021 Filed: March 26, 2021 ____________
Before SMITH, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and STRAS, Circuit Judges. ____________
ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
After Yeemy Guatemala-Pineda entered the United States unlawfully, she applied for asylum so she wouldn’t have to return to her home country of El Salvador.
1Merrick B. Garland is serving as Attorney General of the United States, and is substituted as respondent pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c).
She feared that if she returned there gangs would persecute her because of her religious activities. After a winding course of immigration proceedings that began more than ten years ago, the Board of Immigration Appeals ultimately denied her request for asylum. We deny the petition for review since we think substantial evidence supports the BIA’s decision.
Guatemala-Pineda, whom we will call Pineda as her real name is Yeemy Michael Pineda, attempted to enter the United States in 2010 at age 22 but was apprehended by immigration authorities and charged with being inadmissible as an alien without proper documentation. See U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). She conceded that the charge was true but applied for asylum, which protects, among others, refugees present in the United States who are unable or unwilling to return to their home country because they have a well-founded fear that others will persecute them on account of their religion. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(A). Pineda testified before an immigration judge that she was a practicing Christian who had participated in a church project of door-to-door evangelization that specifically targeted gang members. She related that a handful of gang members had at one time “cornered” and “grabbed” her during a church function and tried to recruit her to their gang, explicitly telling her that they did not want to see her working with the church. Though they also threatened to “take [her] by force” and find her wherever she went, they did not otherwise physically harm her.
After that incident Pineda stopped attending church, opting instead to participate in religious services at other people’s homes. During one of these home services, Pineda testified, gang members appeared outside and demanded that the group stop singing. She believed they were the same gang members who had threatened her before; they specifically called her by name and said they were “coming for” her. Two weeks later, at another home gathering, gang members again appeared outside, announced they were armed, and demanded that she come outside
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or “they were going to get” her. The people inside threw themselves on the ground and waited about two hours until the gang members departed.
At that point, Pineda testified, she obtained a job selling clothes in San Salvador, which was about ninety minutes from her home. She explained that gang members did not bother or threaten her while at work, though one time she had to crouch down when she heard gunshots directed toward another person.
The immigration judge concluded that, even though Pineda had not demonstrated past persecution, she did have a well-founded fear of future persecution, and so granted her application for asylum. When the government appealed to the BIA, the BIA remanded the case to the immigration judge to consider, among other things, whether Pineda could reasonably relocate within El Salvador to avoid future persecution. On remand, Pineda testified that, if forced to return to El Salvador, she would return to her mother’s house because she had no other place to go. She noted that her entire family lives in the same city and that she could not relocate to another city as a single Christian woman. She also elaborated on her time working in San Salvador, explaining that she commuted alone and worked three to five days a week for a few months before leaving for the United States. Pineda also testified that, though she did not experience difficulties from gang members in San Salvador or while commuting, thieves did steal her paycheck three or four times and her cell phone twice, often while she was riding on a bus.
Pineda also presented testimony from an expert on Central American gangs. He testified that El Salvador is “the most violent country in the world for women” and that four things put Pineda “at not only high but very predictable risk” of harm should she return to El Salvador: her religious practices and activities, her past refusal to comply with gang demands, her flight from El Salvador to escape gang threats, and the ability of gangs to learn of her return. Further, he opined, Pineda would be at high risk anywhere in El Salvador because she is a young, single woman with no
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protective family network, making “internal relocation a very, very difficult proposition.”
The immigration judge again granted Pineda’s request for asylum, concluding that she had carried her burden to show that internal relocation was unreasonable, as “[s]he is a young single woman returning to a country the size of Massachusetts where abuse and violence against women is one of the principal human rights problems.” The judge acknowledged that Pineda had worked in San Salvador for three months without interference from gangs but pointed out that during that time she had been robbed of her paycheck or cell phone at least five times and “did not proselytize in the streets.” In sum, there were simply no other parts of the country “that are any better than the area that gave rise to [Pineda’s] original claim.” On appeal, however, the BIA pointed out that Pineda was able to avoid gang persecution while working in San Salvador. It also noted that, even though Pineda was the victim of crimes during her commute, it was unclear whether she could have avoided these and similar crimes by moving to San Salvador instead of commuting from her hometown. The BIA therefore remanded for the immigration judge “to reconsider the overall reasonableness of any relocation by the respondent throughout El Salvador.”
On remand, Pineda’s case was assigned to a different immigration judge. The new judge concluded, after receiving additional arguments from the parties and what he termed “extensive country condition evidence,” that Pineda had failed to shoulder her burden to show that she could not relocate elsewhere in El Salvador since she was able to avoid gang persecution while working in San Salvador. The BIA upheld that determination.
In her petition for review from that holding, Pineda challenges the determination that she failed to show she could not safely relocate to another part of El Salvador. We review both the BIA’s decision and the immigration judge’s decision to the extent the BIA adopted the findings or reasoning of the immigration judge. See
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Degbe v. Sessions, 899 F.3d 651, 655 (8th Cir. 2018). We will uphold the decision so long as substantial evidence supports it. See Cinto-Velasquez v. Lynch, 817 F.3d 602, 607 (8th Cir. 2016). When applying that “extremely deferential” standard, we will not reverse “unless, after having reviewed the record as a whole, we determine that it would not be possible for a reasonable fact-finder to adopt the BIA’s position.” See Eusebio v. Ashcroft, 361 F.3d 1088, 1091 (8th Cir. 2004).
Since Pineda does not contend that she has shown past persecution, she must show she has a well-founded fear of future persecution to prevail. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A); see also 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b). But “[a]n applicant does not have a well-founded fear of persecution if the applicant could avoid persecution by relocating to another part of the applicant’s country of nationality.” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(ii). Because Pineda has not demonstrated past persecution, and the gangs she fears are not government or government sponsored, she bears the burden to show that relocation would not be reasonable. See id. § 1208.13(b)(3)(i). In these circumstances relocation is presumed to be reasonable. See id. § 1208.13(b)(3)(iii).
We hold that substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that Pineda could relocate to another part of El Salvador if forced to return. We believe that a reasonable factfinder could give substantial weight to the lack of gang harassment Pineda suffered while working in San Salvador for a number of months. Even if gangs generally have significant reach throughout the country and are able to locate people like her quickly, as Pineda maintains, the fact that they did nothing to her for months as she worked in San Salvador is hard to overlook. And even though the first immigration judge to preside over Pineda’s proceedings found that internal relocation would not be reasonable, that does not necessarily mean that substantial evidence did not support the second immigration judge’s decision. It might just go to show that the reasonableness of relocation in this case is one on which reasonable people could disagree.
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To bolster her case, Pineda emphasizes that she suffered other serious harm in San Salvador when she had paychecks and cell phones stolen from her. Pineda is right that, to prevail, she need not show that she suffered other serious harm on account of a protected ground, such as religion. See Hagi-Salad v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d 1044, 1048 n.5 (8th Cir. 2004). But that other harm must rise to “the severity of persecution” for her to carry the day. Id. “Persecution is an extreme concept,” involving things like death or the threat of death, torture, or injury to one’s person or freedom. See De Castro-Gutierrez v. Holder, 713 F.3d 375, 380 (8th Cir. 2013). Pineda did not describe anything that occurred to her during her commutes to and from San Salvador or her employment there that approaches this high standard.
We therefore conclude that substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination, considering that Pineda worked for months in San Salvador without trouble from gangs. Though we recognize that Pineda’s expert opined that she was at risk, we think the BIA did not unreasonably focus on there being no evidence that she was persecuted during the months she worked in San Salvador. We have upheld a decision on this kind of question based on less, as, for instance, where an asylum seeker had stayed in another part of a country without being harmed for five weeks. See Molina-Cabrera v. Sessions, 905 F.3d 1103, 1106 (8th Cir. 2018).
Though we sympathize with Pineda’s subjective fear of returning alone to a different part of El Salvador, we cannot say that the BIA’s relocation determination is unsupported by substantial evidence. Because we uphold this portion of the BIA’s decision, we do not consider whether substantial evidence supported the BIA’s conclusion that the government of El Salvador was unwilling or unable to control the gangs that Pineda feared.
Petition denied.
______________________________
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No, it’s not, as Judge Arnold disingenuously claims “something on which reasonable people could disagree.” No reasonable adjudicator qualified in asylum law and due process could reach this ridiculously wrong result!
Naturally, not understanding asylum law (why would that be a requirement for an Article III Judge, just because it’s probably the #1 and certainly most hotly contested topic in Federal Civil Litigation these days), Judge Arnold and his “boys club” out on the Great Plains fail to give this credible respondent “the benefit of the doubt” to which she is entitled under UNHCR guidance.
Indeed, as I used to tell my former BIA colleagues, usually to little avail before launching another dissent, “if reasonable people could differ, the result should be clear — the respondent wins because she gets ‘the benefit of the doubt.’” Sadly, even at a time when the BIA functioned at a much much higher level than it does today, it was the Immigration Judge and immigration enforcement who often in practice got the “benefit of the doubt” from many of my former colleagues, not the asylum applicant.
As my friend Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis Legal Community summed up: “Proves the point that ‘the only true refugee is a dead refugee.’” Unlike the various BIA Judges and Circuit Judges involved in this deadly travesty, Dan actually understands asylum law, due process, and human values.
One might fairly ask the question of why “practical scholars” like Dan are on the “outside” and lesser talents are on the Federal Bench at all levels? The answer has much to do with why there is an “institutionalized racism crisis” in today’s American justice system. “Trial By Ordeal,” really isn’t that great a “look” for 21st Century American Justice! (Any more than is institutionalized racism and “The New Jim Crow”).
Dan Kowalski Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)
Conveniently, this “gang of three” CJs showed little real understanding of 8 C.F.R. 208.13 as it existed at the time of the BIA’s second decision, which states:
adjudicators should consider, but are not limited to considering, whether the applicant would face other serious harm in the place of suggested relocation; any ongoing civil strife within the country; administrative, economic, or judicial infrastructure; geographical limitations; and social and cultural constraints, such as age, gender, health, and social and familial ties. Those factors may, or may not, be relevant, depending on all the circumstances of the case, and are not necessarily determinative of whether it would be reasonable for the applicant to relocate.
Just on the information regurgitated in their opinion, Ms. Guatemala-Pineda showed by expert witness testimony and by her own credible testimony and experiences that there is no “reasonably available relocation alternative” in El Salvador. There clearly is “ongoing civil strife” in El Salvador. And, anyone with even minimal knowledge of the country would know that (to put it charitably) the “administrative, economic, and judicial infrastructures” are somewhere in the zone between dysfunctional to non-existent. She also credibly pointed out why it would not be reasonable under the circumstances to require her to leave her mother’s home and move to San Salvador.
Forcing someone to commute to a job 90 minutes away, for 3-5 days per week work, in what is perhaps the most dangerous city in the country, during which she already suffered “three or four paycheck robberies and a cell phone robbery” in about three months — that’s a total of five robberies” in a relatively short span — is by no means a “reasonable internal relocation alternative” based on all relevant factors!
Additionally, that she felt unable to proselytize in accordance with her religious beliefs in San Salvador also indicates that relocation there is unreasonable. Freedom to carry out reasonable religious commitments without fear of harm is a fundamental human right.
Very interesting to compare how GOP Circuit Judges treated very clear interference with Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s ability to fulfill her religious beliefs in this case with how many GOP judges in the U.S. swoon over every minor interference with right wing religious beliefs — even those grounded in obvious bigotry — in the U.S. Here, by contrast, the GOP Circuit Judges fobbed off the interference with Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s evangelical activities — at one point she felt unable to worship publicly at her church — as of no particular concern.
Not to mention that Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s expert confirmed that:
El Salvador is “the most violent country in the world for women” and that four things put Pineda “at not only high but very predictable risk” of harm should she return to El Salvador: her religious practices and activities, her past refusal to comply with gang demands, her flight from El Salvador to escape gang threats, and the ability of gangs to learn of her return. Further, he opined, Pineda would be at high risk anywhere in El Salvador because she is a young, single woman with no protective family network, making “internal relocation a very, very difficult proposition.”
In plain terms, it’s only a matter of time before Ms. Guatemala-Pineda is persecuted, seriously harmed, or killed if returned to El Salvador. But, her life, as a woman of color, is obviously of little concern to the “gang of three.”
Let’s look at it another her way. Suppose we were tell Judges Smith, Arnold, and Staus that they had to relocate in a way that meant every third or fourth paycheck would be stolen and that they would be robbed of their cellphone every three months, with no recourse to a functioning police system. (Note that these dudes would be much better able to absorb such losses of income and expensive property than Ms. Guatemala-Pineda.) Or, that we were going to relocate their cushy ivory tower jobs to a place where they would be required to commute 90 minutes by public transportation every day. Or, that they might occasionally have to get down behind the bench to avoid rampant gunfire. Or, that they no longer could worship at their church of choice or openly engage in religious activities in their communities, but must limit themselves to “in-home worship” — not just during the pandemic, but permanently. Or, they had to live in a place where “GOP-Judiciacide” was at the highest level in the world and the police offered little or no protection, indeed were often involved themselves in abuse and killings of judges or turned a blind eye to the perpetrators.
Think our “tone-deaf group of guys in robes” would take a different view of “reasonable” if they put themselves in Ms. Guatemala-Pineda’s place and it were happening to them? You betcha!
A few other things to note about this gross miscarriage of justice:
Two panel members were appointed by Bush II, one by Trump;
Ms. Guatemala-Pineda originally won her case before the Immigration Judge, who after hearing all the evidence and carefully considering relocation found that Ms. Pineda has shown that there was no “reasonably available relocation alternative” in El Salvador;
The BIA baselessly remanded the case on ICE’s appeal to a new IJ to get the “preferred result” — a denial of relief and potential death sentence for a woman of color (See, e.g., Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions & Matter of A-B-);
In a functioning system staffed by asylum experts, this case could easily have been granted at the Asylum Office rather than kicking around the dysfunctional EOIR system for a decade — two merits hearings before the IJ — two appeals to the BIA — and Circuit Court review — all to REACH A CLEARLY INCORRECT AND UNJUST RESULT THAT NO TRUE ASYLUM EXPERT I KNOW WOULD AGREE WITH!
And, we wonder why EOIR has more than doubled the number of IJs yet still almost tripled their uncontrolled backlog to a mind-boggling 1.3 million cases! Ten years to turn an easy asylum grant into a denial (yet other cases are rushed through to denial on an assembly line without any real deli]beration or analysis) might give us a hint of why the system is totally dysfunctional and completely unfair (not to mention patently unconstitutional)!
Since EOIR is known for its incompetent record keeping, I’m willing to bet that there are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of additional “lost in space” files, warehoused somewhere that are simply “off docket” and unaccounted for.
Cases like this aren’t “academic exercises” — the judicial attitude that “screams off the pages” of this gross miscarriage of justice. They have real life, potentially deadly consequences for real humans beings, the most vulnerable of human beings, like Ms. Guatemala-Pineda. She has the same right to live as do the Circuit Judges, the BIA Judges, and the second Immigration Judge who got her case wrong!
After a decade, this monstrosity is the best our “justice system” can offer? Gimme a break! I think I could choose any three students over at the CALS Asylum Clinic at Georgetown Law who would run circles around the cavalier analysis of these three supposedly “senior jurists” in this case! Cases like this basically are indictments of our Article III system, not to mention the ongoing mockery of justice at EOIR.
The anti-asylum, anti-immigrant bias, incompetent adjudication, and systemic mis-management at EOIR are of monumental proportions! The gross inconsistencies, lack of overall immigration, human rights, sensitivity to racial justice, and “practical due process” expertise at the appellate level of the U.S. Courts and particularly at the Supremes is very disturbing and threatens the very existence and legitimacy of our legal system.
Judge Garland has the power to start fixing this, today! He must vacate all the bogus Trump-era anti-immigrant precedents; toss the entire BIA, and replace them with real judges who possess the required subject matter expertise and overriding commitment to due process and fundamental fairness; establish merit-selection criteria for Immigration Judges honoring experience representing asylum applicants in court, immigration knowledge, human rights expertise, commitment to due process for individuals under law, sensitivity to racial justice, and demonstrated practical problem solving experience.
Then, apply those criteria to new Immigration Judge selections as well as to retention decisions for all current Immigration Judges. And, for Pete’s sake, “can” the incompetent bureaucracy and get some real professionals in there who can run an independent court system — starting with a functioning nationwide e-filing system and some competent judicial training as well as assisting IJs in managing their own dockets rather than constantly interfering and trying to “micromanage” from Falls Church and the 5th Floor of the DOJ (a process known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” honed by the Trump kakistocracy @ DOJ).
When you’re done, Judge Garland, you’ll have: 1) many fewer bad decisions heading off the the Courts of Appeals; 2) a functioning Immigration Judiciary of experts who can help keep order and provide helpful expert guidance to the rest of the now out of control system; and 3) a great source of “battle trained and proven” well-qualified, progressive judicial talent who can change the trajectory of the now often moribund (yeah, even some of the younger Trump appointees are basically “brain dead,” so the term fits) and dilatory Article III Judiciary and who are also available to fill other high-level policy positions with competence, common sense, and humanity.
You’d also go down in history as a judge who got out of the ivory tower and actually solved pressing problems, implemented our Constitution, and built a better, fairer court system that made a difference in human lives and the future of our nation. Perhaps, even something like “thorough teamwork and innovation, built the world’s best courts guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” That’s quite a legacy for future generations.
I can only hope Judge Garland finally pays attention to what’s happening across the river in Falls Church and takes immediate action to end the deadly and debilitating clown show 🤡🦹🏿♂️ @ EOIR. Otherwise, I fear he will find himself buried in immigration litigation and his tenure mired in the muck of responsibility for grotesque racial injustice and “running” the worst, most incompetent, unfair, and blatantly unconstitutional “court” system in America!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽⚖️Due Process Forever! Hey Hey, Ho Ho, The Deadly EOIR Clown Show ☠️🤡 Has Got to Go!
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept
Hey, maybe next year, we could all celebrate Women’s History Month with some decisions incorporating serious scholarship by progressive women judges that actually recognize, honor, and institutionalize relief from the unfair struggles faced by refugee women and people of color.
Donald M. Kerwin Executive Director Center for Migration Studies
In a new essay for the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), CMS’s Executive Director Donald Kerwin writes:
The number of unaccompanied children and asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border in search of protection has increased in recent weeks. The former president, his acolytes, and both extremist and mainstream media have characterized this situation as a “border crisis,” a self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration, and even a failure of US asylum policy. It is none of these things. Rather, it is a response to compounding pressures, most prominently the previous administration’s evisceration of US asylum and anti-trafficking policies and procedures, and the failure to address the conditions that are displacing residents of the Northern Triangle states of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), as well as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and other countries…
The real immigration crisis is not at the border, but in the failure to respond effectively to the conditions driving forced migration, to establish orderly and viable legal immigration policies, to legalize the increasingly long-tenured undocumented population, and to reform and invest sufficiently in the US asylum and immigration court systems.
Thanks Don for speaking out against the scandalous GOP complete “border BS,” all too often parroted by the so-called “mainstream press.” Read the rest of Don’s essay at the link.
Don has spent his entire career solving migration and human rights problems. The Biden Administration and everyone who believes in American democracy should listen to “practical experts” like Don, rather than ignorant, racially-motivated GOP politicos and White Nationalist nativists spouting the “same old, same old” myths, fear-mongering, and unhelpful “non-solutions.”
If xenophobic rhetoric, cruelty, officially-sanctioned child abuse, evading our own legal and humanitarian responsibilities, and “enforcement only” were the “solutions,” the “problem at the Southern Border” — which has existed in one form or another for over a half century, would long ago have been solved. We can’t solve humanitarian situations that create forced migration with unilateral law enforcement gimmicks and cruelty toward the humans fighting for their lives. Human migration long pre-existed the formation of nation states and establishment of national boundaries.
Administration after administration, of both parties, have squandered time and taxpayer money on unsuccessful efforts to “enforce their way” out of forced migration situations. Contrary to GOP blather, Democratic Administrations have been almost as fixated as the GOP with unsuccessfully “detaining, deterring, and enforcing” their way out of human problems that demand more thoughtful human solutions.
All Administrations at some point prematurely claim that their efforts have “succeeded.” None actually have succeeded in addressing the causes of the migration. Therefore, none of these “false solutions” proves “durable.”
Significantly, Don is one of the few commentators to fully grasp the integral connection between the Trump regime’s complete destruction of the integrity of the Immigration Courts and its lawless, yet highly ineffective, border policies.
Real solutions don’t kill, harm, and maim refugees and forced migrants, encourage criminal cartels and corrupt foreign officials to prey on them, and stack up desperate humans in dangerous conditions just across the border because US Government officials were too biased and incompetent to operate under any semblance of the rule of law.
We can abide by our own laws, international norms, our Constitution, human decency, and common sense. It isn’t rocket science.
But, it does require a combination of expertise, courage, humanity, and practical problem solving that has been conspicuously absent from our governing structure since 2017, and severely undervalued before that.
Also, it’s certainly not that the Biden Administration has suddenly re-established due process and the rule of law at the border. Far from it!
The vast majority of those arriving at the border, even those who are applying at legal ports of entry, are unceremoniously and summarily removed without any process at all, let alone due process of law. This is all based on a largely bogus Trump-initiated exercise of authority by the CDC to use COVID-19 as a pretext to suspend the rule of law and constitutional due process at the border.
Moreover, we shouldn’t forget that even with the Biden Administration’s gradual efforts to re-establish a legal process for asylum seekers, unaccompanied children are still being held in Government detention for far longer than the 72-hours permitted under law. This problem won’t be solved, as some GOP nativists incredibly suggest, by dumping kids back across the Mexican Border, returning them to danger in their home countries without regard to their individual situations, or forcing them to turn to smugglers to make their way to relative safety in the interior of the U.S.
Nor will it be solved by long-term detention in disgraceful and inhumane “Baby Jails!” Ask my Georgetown Law colleague and author Professor Phil Schrag of the CALS Asylum Clinic about that!
Interestingly, some of the biggest complainers spreading the “open borders myth” are Greg Abbott and other Texas GOP politicos who have prematurely “reopened their state” in the middle of a pandemic in blatant contravention of best medical and public health advice. So, you can summarily dismiss their “crocodile tears” and bogus “hand wringing” about public health and safety.
That’s particularly true since the GOP is just coming off a massive example of how their incompetent mis-governance of Texascaused unnecessary misery and loss of life among Texas residents as a result of a highly predictable and long-foreseen “weather emergency.” Why does the mainstream media often continue to treat these “political hacks,” who couldn’t “govern” their way out of a paper bag, as credible spokespersons on anything, let alone human rights situations of which they have no expertise whatsoever?
🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! Re-Establish The Rule Of Law, Including Full, Robust Humanitarian Protections At The Border& In Our Disgracefully Dysfunctional Immigration “Courts.”
Elizabeth Gibson Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
COVID-19 & Closures
Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.
EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, April 16, 2021 (It is unclear when the next announcement will be. EOIR announced 4/16 on Fri. 3/5, 3/19 on Wed. 2/10, 2/19 on Mon. 1/25, 2/5 on Mon. 1/11, and 1/22 on Mon. 12/28). There is no announced date for reopening NYC non-detained at this time.
SCOTUSblog: Just over two weeks after the Supreme Court announced that it would review the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, which governs the admission of immigrants into the United States, the case (as well as two others presenting the same question) was dismissed on Tuesday, at the request of the Biden administration and the opponents who sued over the rule. See also States seek to take over defense of ‘public charge’ rule; A Supreme Court showdown over Trump’s legacy ends with a whimper.
Roll Call: He will lead a department that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, investigates civil rights violations at local law enforcement agencies or in voting laws, and scrutinizes business mergers in technology, health care and other industries.
Politico: The House is poised to vote on two immigration bills this week, both narrower pieces of legislation while Democrats weigh how ambitious to go with President Joe Biden’s comprehensive immigration plan. All of this is unfolding amid a growing debate about how to address the surging numbers of migrant children and families being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border.
NYT: More than 715 refugees from around the world who expected to start new lives in the United States have had their flights canceled in recent weeks because President Biden has postponed an overhaul of his predecessor’s sharp limits on new refugee admissions. Agencies that assist refugees poised to enter the country were notified by the State Department this week that all travel would be suspended until the president sets a new target for admissions this year.
WaPo: The number of immigrants taken into custody by ICE officers fell more than 60 percent in February compared with the last three months of the Trump administration, according to data reviewed by The Washington Post. Deportations fell by nearly the same amount, ICE statistics show.
WaPo: The coronavirus has been running rampant for months through Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s network of jails holding civil immigration detainees fighting deportation — but the agency has no vaccination program and, unlike the Bureau of Prisons, is relying on state and local health departments to procure vaccine doses. See also A border community, ICE at odds over release of detainees with covid.
NPR: The United States will offer temporary protected status to people from Myanmar who fear returning home, the Biden administration said Friday, as it tries to ratchet up pressure on military coup leaders in the Southeast Asian country, and provide protection to some of those criticizing it.
Law360: A bill introduced in the House on Monday would remove marijuana offenses and chronic alcohol abuse from the list of reasons to reject or mark down an application for U.S. citizenship.
CNN: Gelatt cautioned that we don’t yet know how the Internal Revenue Service will interpret the law with regard to the eligibility of undocumented people who have Social Security numbers. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.
ImmProf: Sanchez v. Mayorkas (April 19): Whether an immigrant who enters the United States without proper authorization but receives “temporary protected status” can become a lawful permanent resident. United States v. Palomar-Santiago (April 27): Whether charges that a non-citizen illegally reentered the United States should be dismissed when the non-citizen’s removal was based on the misclassification of a prior conviction.
Advance copy of USCIS final rule removing from the Code of Federal Regulations the regulatory text that DHS promulgated in the August 2019 public charge rule and restoring the regulatory text to appear as it did prior to the issuance of the August 2019 rule. AILA Doc. No. 21031142
A district court granted a motion for preliminary injunction and enjoined nationwide implementation of EOIR’s 12/16/20 final rule that made drastic changes to the procedures and regulations governing immigration courts. (Centro Legal De La Raza, et al., v. EOIR, et al., 3/10/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031134
DOS announced DHS and DOS have initiated phase one of reinstituting the CAM program to reunite qualified Central American children with their parents who are lawfully present in the U.S. The first phase will process eligible applications that were closed when the program was terminated in 2017. AILA Doc. No. 21031035
DHS and HHS issued a joint statement announcing the termination of a 2018 agreement that “had a chilling effect on potential sponsors . . . from stepping up to sponsor an unaccompanied child placed in the care of HHS.” In its place, HHS and DHS have signed a new agreement. AILA Doc. No. 21031235
DHS Secretary Mayorkas designated Burma for TPS for 18 months. Individuals who can demonstrate continuous residence in the United States as of March 11, 2021, are eligible for TPS under Burma’s designation. A forthcoming Federal Register notice will detail eligibility criteria. AILA Doc. No. 21031241
USCIS notice designating Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months, effective 3/9/21 through 9/9/22. The notice also provides information about Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) and DED-related EADs for eligible Venezuelans. (86 FR 13574, 3/9/21) AILA Doc. No. 21030846
On March 4, 2021, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition for certiorari based on a joint stipulation to dismiss filed by the parties. (Wilkinson v. City and County of San Francisco, 3/4/21) AILA Doc. No. 17042533
Following Matter of Wu, the BIA ruled that conviction for assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury in violation of §245(a)(4) of the California Penal Code is categorically one for a CIMT. Matter of Aguilar-Mendez, 28 I&N Dec. 262 (BIA 2021) AILA Doc. No. 21031234
Law360: A U.S. citizen in Connecticut and her adult daughter in the United Kingdom can reunite stateside after a Second Circuit panel affirmed the younger woman’s eligibility for an immediate-relative visa on Tuesday, even though she turned 21 before her mother naturalized.
AILA has recently been made aware that USCIS will be reaching out to stakeholders in the coming days whose I-485 applications were rejected for failure to complete boxes 9.a. and 10 in Part 2 of the Form I-485 with instructions on how to refile their application with USCIS. AILA Doc. No. 21010510
Notably, Stephen Miller’s cruel, stupid, racist, and counterproductive “public charge” rules were finally put to bed by the Biden Administration after unnecessarily protracted rancorous litigation.
Anybody remember the last time we interpreted the law or facts in favor of a human? https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/ Creative Commons License
“The question in this case is whether the categorical approach requires a petitioner seeking cancellation of removal to demonstrate both that the state offense he was convicted of is broader than the federal offense and that there is a realistic probability that the state actually prosecutes people for the conduct that makes the state offense broader than the federal offense. We conclude that it does not. … Because the BIA’s decision relied on a misinterpretation of the realistic probability inquiry, we grant the petition for review, vacate, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
Lastly, the government argues that we should defer to the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) in Matter of Zamora-Molina, 25 I. & N. Dec. 606, 611 (B.I.A. 2011), in which the BIA adopted the same interpretation as the Department of State. Even assuming, without deciding, that Chevron deference applies when one agency (the Department of State) seeks to rely on the interpretation of another agency (the Department of Justice), we agree with the district court and with the Ninth Circuit that Chevron deference does not apply here because “the intent of Congress is clear.” Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842 (1984); see also id. at 842–43 (“If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.”); Tovar, 882 F.3d at 900 (declining to apply Chevron deference to Zamora-Molina because “traditional tools of statutory construction” and “the irrationality of the result sought by the government” combine to “demonstrate beyond any question that Congress had a clear intent on the question at issue”). As discussed above, the text, structure, and
33
legislative history of the CSPA conclusively show the “unambiguously expressed intent of Congress” to protect beneficiaries like Diaz. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843.7
3) Ignoring Previous Circuit Ruling On Related Case — 10th Cir.
After we determined that conditions in China had materially worsened for Christians, Mr. Ni moved again for reopening. Despite our opinion in his wife’s case, the Board of Immigration Appeals concluded
2
again that Mr. Ni had failed to show a material change in country conditions.
This conclusion is unsupportable. Mr. Ni’s evidence of worsening
conditions in China largely mirrored his wife’s evidence, which had led us
to grant her petition for review. Mr. Ni’s evidence was even stronger than
his wife’s because China had recently adopted a regulatory crackdown on
practicing Christians. We thus grant Mr. Ni’s petition for review.
“To support his case for reopening, Mr. Lucaj submitted an affidavit complaining in particular about two events that occurred after his removal proceeding in 2006: The Socialist party took power in 2013, and then in 2019 the Socialists’ corruption and connections with organized crime deterred the opposition party from even participating in the 2019 elections. Mr. Lucaj provided, among other things, the State Department’s 2018 Human Rights Report on Albania, the Freedom House “Freedom in the World 2018” Report on Albania, and articles from 2018 and 2019 about corruption in Albania and the Socialist Party’s success in recent elections. We do not know whether those submissions show materially worsening conditions for Democratic Party members in Albania, however, because the BIA refused to compare those reports to available evidence of conditions from 2006, claiming that Mr. Lucaj had not “explained how the proffered . . . country condition documentation show[s] qualitatively different conditions from 2006.” Plainly, though, he did so by pointing out the two cited, post-2006 events as evidence of changed conditions. The BIA’s failure to assess whether those changes were sufficient was arbitrary and capricious. … Therefore, we reverse the decision by the BIA and remand Mr. Lucaj’s case so that the BIA can review available evidence to examine whether conditions for members of the Democratic Party in Albania have deteriorated since 2006 and, if so, whether Mr. Lucaj has established a prima facie case for relief.”
America and humanity deserve better from a supposed “expert tribunal” which actually functions more like a “denial factory” without much, if any, “quality control.” No wonder these guys are running an out of control, ever-expanding 1.3 million case backlog!
Denying continuances, not closing cases that belong at USCIS, rushed briefing, IJ’s “certifying” BIA remands to the Director (who should have no judicial role), dismissing applications for failure to fill in irrelevant blanks, raising fees, and a host of other nonsensical proposals that EOIR has had shot down by the Article III Courts recently won’t reduce the backlogs. They actually will make it worse, as have all the other “gimmicks” tried by EOIR to eradicate due process and dehumanize migrants over the past four years!
Who ever heard of lower court judges providing “quality control” for appellate judges, working through a bureaucrat who (at the time the proposal was supposedly “finalized”) had never presided over a case in Immigration Court? And, let’s remember, these are haphazardly selected trial judges, a decidedly non-diverse, non-representative group, whose own qualifications, expertise, judicial temperament, and training have been widely criticized by experts in the field.Few of today’s Immigration Judges and BIA Judges would be “household names” among immigration, human rights, and constitutional law experts and scholars!
The current mess is largely the result of Aimless Docket Reshuffling imposed on the Immigration Courts by unqualified politicos at the DOJ and their equally unqualified toadies at EOIR HQ. Also, DHS has more often than not ignored the realities of good docket management and the prudent exercise of prosecutorial discretion. It is not the fault of the vulnerable migrants and their lawyers victimized by this absurdly politicized, biased, and mal-administered system!
Restoration of justice at EOIR will require radical due process oriented changes starting with new, professional leadership from “practical scholars” in immigration and human rights as well as replacing BIA Judges with better qualified jurists selected from the ranks of those “practical scholars.” Quality control, expertise, competence, common sense, and human understanding are all lacking at today’s EOIR!
Here’s an excerpt from a report by Nichols Iovino @ Courthouse News:
. . . .
The judge added that she found an amicus brief submitted by 37 former immigration law judges particularly illuminating because it helped illustrate some of “real-life consequences” of the rule.
The former immigration judges wrote that the rule “makes it more difficult for applicants and defense counsel to brief relevant issues and present evidence, creates new challenges for immigration judges to consider extraordinary changes in circumstances and to control the timing of their own docket, and severely limits the [Board of Immigration Appeals’] authority to make legally sound decisions and remain an apolitical rung in the immigration system.”
A motion for a preliminary injunction is also pending in separate lawsuit challenging the same Trump-era rule in the District of Columbia.
Judge Illston referenced our brief four times throughout the opinion (p.5, n.2, and pp. 39, 52, and 55).
Jeffrey also added:
The brief (drafted by Steven Schulman and his team at Akin Gump) was based on our Round Table’s comments to the proposed regs. [Judge] Ilyce [Shugall] organized and filed the comments, and the drafting committee was made up of [Judges] Ilyce [Shugall], Rebecca [Jamil], Joan [Churchill], Cecelia [Espenoza] and myself.
So proud to be part of this team that is “making a difference for the NDPA,” and more importantly, for the vulnerable human lives at stake in the EOIR Star Chambers. 🏴☠️ And thanks so much to Steven Schulman and his pro bono team at Akin Gump for making this happen.
So, here’s my question:Why is the Biden Administration defending this totally illegal, disingenuous, not to mention stupid, attempt byEOIR to deny due process and fundamental fairness while implementing the “worst practices imaginable?”
Judge Garland must get a handle on the awful, festering mess 🤮🤡☠️ at EOIR sooner rather than later!
The Wrong Answer to the Right Question: How to Address the Failure of Protection for Gender-Based Claims?
By Professor Karen Musalo, Bank of America Professor of International Law, Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, UC Hastings
In 1996 I was honored to litigate the first case at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), Matter of Kasinga,[1] that opened the door to protection for women fleeing gender-based harms. To qualify for recognition as a refugee under U.S. law, an individual must establish “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution” on account of one of five grounds – “race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.”[2] This definition in the 1980 Refugee Act essentially adopts the standard set forth in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention[3] and its 1967 U.N. Refugee Protocol,[4] which the U.S. ratified in 1968.
The woman seeking asylum in the Kasinga case fled female genital cutting and forced marriage. In a ground-breaking decision, the BIA ruled that cutting was persecution, and it was “on account of” her membership in a gender-defined social group. In so ruling, the BIA was following the guidance that UNHCR has issued over a number of years, noting that the absence of gender as a protected ground should not impede protection for women fleeing persecution, because the particular social group ground encompasses gender-defined groups.[5]
The Kasinga decision was a breakthrough for women, and a highwater mark in U.S. adjudicators following international guidance. It also raised expectations that U.S. law would continue to evolve and extend protection to women fleeing the many forms of gender-based violence to which they are subject. However, that has not been the case, and there have been retreats from protection across administrations, although undoubtedly we witnessed the most dramatic attempts to end protection in gender claims during the Trump administration, which issued extremely limiting Attorney General decisions, such as Matter of A-B- I,[6] and Matter of A-B- II –[7] as well as regulations[8] – currently enjoined[9]—that explicitly rule out gender-based claims.
The Biden administration has committed itself to reviewing the issue of protection for those fleeing gender-based violence.[10] As we consider how to remedy the issue, some argue for a legislative amendment to the refugee definition, adding gender as a sixth ground to the statute’s five protected grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion and membership in a particular social group. This is the wrong solution. It would not only repeat the errors of the past (amending the refugee definition in 1996, discussed below), but it would also fail to adequately protect survivors of gender-based violence. At the same time, it would lead to the quite foreseeable consequence of leaving many deserving asylum seekers outside the ambit of refugee protection. It is also likely to signal to other Convention State parties that unless they also add a sixth ground, they could deny protection to women and girls without running afoul of the treaty’s obligations.
In order to prescribe a remedy, one first has to diagnose the illness; in order to understand why the sixth ground solution is wrong, we need to examine what occurred after Kasinga that limited protection in subsequent claims involving women fleeing gender-based persecution. . . . .
**********************
Read the rest of Karen’s outstanding analysis at the link.
Here’s a question from last summer’s “Jeopardy style” final exam in Immigration Law & Policy @ Georgetown Law:
A: Judge Schmidt’s favorite case.
Q: What is Matter of Kasinga?
Happy to say that everyone got that one right! Of course, I wrote the decision in Matter of Kasinga!
Karen’s bottom line: “We should be working to bring the U.S. into compliance with UNHCR’s social group interpretation, rather than surrendering to its flawed interpretation, by adding a sixth ground.”
The key is better Federal Judges, from the Immigration Courts all the way up to the Supremes: Judges who are “practical scholars” in human rights and applied due process; judges who have represented asylum seekers, particularly women, and understand their plight.
That’s a nice gesture. But, as I always say, actions are what really counts. So here are actions that Judge Garland can take immediately as Attorney General to finally fulfill the promise of Matter of Kasinga:
Vacate the atrocious, misogynist, perversion of asylum law (not to mention facts of record) by Sessions in Matter of A-B-;
Appoint some female “practical scholars in human rights” to appellate judgeships on the BIA.
That’s how to really honor Women’s History Month!
To understand the human impact of Sessions’s grotesque misconstruction of asylum law and the relevant facts in Matter of A-B-, check out this video short featuring Karen and others along with Ms. A-B-: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRQpXRWlQL0
I generally agree with Karen’s concerns about specific gender-based legislation potentially having an unintended negative effect. That is certainly the fate of past unsuccessful attempts to include gender-based asylum in the regulations.
They essentially were “hijacked” by DOJ litigators and enforcement-oriented policy officials looking for ways to facially appease women’s rights groups, while actually proposing to restrict eligibility and make it easier for OIL and the SG’s Office to defend denials of asylum. They also sought to create hyper-technical requirements that would have effectively made it impossible for any unrepresented individual to properly set forth a “cognizable particular social group.”
These, in and of themselves, are reasons for removing the Immigration Courts from the DOJ and creating an independent Article I structure. The “ultimate insult to injury” was when EOIR enthusiastically participated in Stephen Miller’s currently-enjoined attempt to completely write gender-based asylum out of the law. Absurdly, that came at a time when gender-based persecution has become endemic throughout the world!
Not surprisingly, the DOJ, a prosecutorial agency at heart, is most often interested in “litigation strategies” to make it easier for the Government to successfully defend the burgeoning immigration litigation in Federal Court, rather than guaranteeing justice for asylum seekers and other migrants. Quite ironically, what would really reduce the volume of civil immigration litigation is more practical, expert decision making from better qualified Immigration Judges at the “retail level” of the system.
Gimmicks to “game” the Federal Court system against asylum seekers and other migrants by skirting due process and fundamental fairness have actually contributed to, rather than reduced, the amount of civil immigration litigation the Circuits. It has also generated many avoidable “Circuit conflicts” that require attention on Supremes’ limited docket. The failure of the DOJ, the Immigration Courts, and the Federal Courts to recognize and protect the due process rights of asylum seekers and other migrants has directly carried over into the failure of our justice system to achieve equal justice under law for racial minorities.
“Institutionalized racism” is inextricably linked to “Dred Scottification” of migrants of color in the Immigration Courts! The Biden Administration can’t solve the former without addressing the latter!
Bad judging and skewed policies on the “retail level” create multiple problems that adversely affect the entire Federal Justice system. I guarantee that they will not be solved by more restrictionist gimmicks and and unduly narrow and tone-deaf interpretations by judges and policy officials who lack the necessary expertise in immigration and human rights laws and the real-life understanding and perspective of the human consequences of the choices that judges make on a daily basis.
But, I also think that in addition to better judges, it is important to revise the statutory language to make it more explicitly inclusive and clarify that gender-based asylum, family based asylum, and other protected groups are examples, but not limits, of those covered by “particular social group.” Also, the statute should reverse the BIA’s stilted restrictionist interpretations (all too often incorrectly given “deference” by Circuit Courts shirking their duty) of “nexus” as a vehicle to deny asylum rather than an expansive concept that can and should be used to extend life-saving protections where necessary.
Otherwise, as Trump, Sessions, Barr, and Miller demonstrated, needed protection becomes largely a matter of who is appointing the judges at any particular point in time. Protection must and should be more durable — for all refugees including, but not limited, to those seeking gender-based protection!
Better Federal Judges are the beginning, but by no means the end, of what is needed to make due process, fundamental fairness, and genuine refugee protections the hallmarks of American law. They are also required to turn institutionalized racism into equal justice for all persons in America, regardless of race, religion, gender, or other defining personal characteristics.
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Asylum Laws Must Protect, Not Reject!🧑🏽⚖️🛡
Reade Levinson Reporter, ReutersKristina Cooke Reporter, ReutersMica Rosenberg National Immigration Reporter, ReutersBIA Asylum Panel In Action Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Reade Levinson, Kristina Cooke, & Mica Rosenberg report for Reuters:
(Reuters) – On a rainy September day in 2018, Jeff Sessions, then U.S. attorney general, addressed one of the largest classes of newly hired immigration judges in American history.
“The vast majority of asylum claims are not valid,” he said during a swearing-in ceremony in Falls Church, Virginia, according to his prepared remarks. If judges do their job, he said, “the number of illegal aliens and the number of baseless claims will fall.”
It was a clear message to the incoming class: Most of the immigrants who appear in court do not deserve to remain in the United States.
As U.S. President Joe Biden works to undo many of the restrictive immigration policies enacted by former President Donald Trump, he will confront one of his predecessor’s indelible legacies: the legion of immigration judges Trump’s administration hired.
The administration filled two-thirds of the immigration courts’ 520 lifetime positions with judges who, as a whole, have disproportionately ordered deportation, according to a Reuters analysis of more than 800,000 immigration cases decided over the past 20 years.
Judges hired under Trump ordered immigrants deported in 69% of cases, compared to 58% for judges hired as far back as the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Because hundreds of thousands of immigrants have cases before the court each year, that 11 percentage-point difference translates to tens of thousands more people ordered deported each year. Appeals are rarely successful.
Biden has promised to dramatically expand the courts by doubling the number of immigration judges and other staff. That’s a worthwhile effort, said Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services who is now a professor emeritus at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. “But the challenge is going to be tremendous.”
Although there are no statutory limits on the number of judges who can be hired, expanding the court would be costly and could take years, immigration law experts said.
“The fact that these (Trump-era) judges are already in place inhibits him a great deal,” Legomsky said of Biden.
Stephen Miller, the key architect of Trump’s immigration agenda, told Reuters that the administration had aimed to hire more immigration judges as part of an effort to “create more integrity in the asylum process” and quickly resolve what he termed meritless claims to cut down on a massive backlog.
“Most of the people that are coming unlawfully between ports of entry on the southwest border are not eligible for any recognized form of asylum,” Miller said in an interview. “There should be a very high rejection rate.”
Under U.S. law, immigrants are eligible for asylum only if they can prove they were being persecuted in their home countries on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or their political opinions. Miller said many migrants arriving at the border are coming for economic reasons and present fraudulent asylum claims.
Sessions, who as attorney general had the final say in hiring immigration judges, told Reuters that “the problem is not with the Trump judges. The problem was with some of the other judges that seemed to not be able to manage their dockets, or, in many cases, rendered rulings that were not consistent with the law.
The Trump administration’s successors to Sessions, who was forced out in 2018, did not respond to requests for comment.
. . . .
“There has been a significant lack of basic understanding of immigration law and policy with many – not all – but many of the new hires under the Trump administration,” said Susan Roy, an attorney and former immigration judge appointed during the administration of President George W. Bush who has represented immigrants before some new judges.
Reuters spoke with eight other former immigration judges, five of whom served under Trump, who generally echoed her view. Sitting immigration judges are not permitted to speak to the media.
Even for judges with immigration backgrounds, the type of experience they have has been controversial. In 2017, a report commissioned by the Justice Department found a lack of diversity of experience among judges hired, due to an excess of former prosecutors here from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
. . . .
******************
Read the rest of the report at the link.
Hon. Sue Roy is a distinguished member of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges 🛡⚔️ now in private practice representing asylum seekers and other migrants in Immigration Court.
Hon. Charles Honeyman, quoted elsewhere in the article, is also a member of the Round Table who actually was removed from a case for failing to carry out what he believed to be improper instructions from his “supervisors” who were implementing Sessions’s anti-immigrant policies.
Stephen Legomsky is a former USCIS SeniorExecutive and esteemed retired Professor who generally is acknowledged as one of American’s leading scholar-experts on immigration and human rights.
Judge Dana Leigh Marks, quoted elsewhere in the article, is a former President of the NationalAssociation of Immigration Judges who also successfully argued the landmarkSupreme Courtcase INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, which established the generous well-founded fear standard for asylum.
Sessions and Miller are notorious White Nationalist xenophobes who have neither represented asylum seekers nor been Immigration Judges. Their efforts to eradicate international norms and legal protections for vulnerable asylum seekers, and their particular bias against female asylum seekers, have been widely criticized and panned by human rights experts throughout the world, as well as enjoined or overruled by some U.S. Courts. They were architects of the widely condemned child separation policy and the New American Gulag (“NAG”).
EOIR is the failed DOJ agency that houses the dysfunctional Immigration Courts.
Elections truly do have consequences. The Biden administration in its early days has removed some high profile immigration cases from the Supreme Court docket, moving in a different direction than the Trump administration. NBC News reports (see also CNN and Bloomberg) that, yesterday, the Justice Department asked the Court to dismiss three lawsuits over the lawfulness of the Trump administration’s efforts to de-fund “sanctuary’ cities.
In brief letters to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department said the cases should be dismissed, indicating that the government will no longer seek to enforce that policy.
Lower courts were divided on the legality of the Trump de-funding policy. The Supreme Court had been deferring action on the appeals while the new administration decided how to handle the cases. The cases are Wilkinson v. San Francisco, 20-666; New York v. Department of Justice, 20-795; and City of New York v. Department of Justice, 20-796.
KJ
***********************
Thanks for the nice summary and links, Kevin!
The Trump regime waged a four-year unsuccessful war against American local governments who were seeking to protect their ethnic communities from ICE abuses and to encourage community cooperation with police in addressing violent crime in those communities. How did they go about it: By threatening to cut off certain Federal funding for local law enforcement.
If it sounds stupid and wasteful, that’s because it was. It also helped make ICE probably “the most despised law enforcement agency in America.” Again, not an effective strategy for real cooperative law enforcement.
But, despite all his bluster and false claims, Trump never, ever was about “law enforcement.” That was clear even before he sent his “magamorons” out to attack our Capitol. No, it always was about stoking fear, hate, and throwing “red meat” to his base for political purposes.
For the Republicans, justice is not something that “rolls down like waters,” it’s something that comes down like a hammer.
This was a failure that Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) aimed to make clear when he asked Garland whether he was familiar with a biblical reference to justice that advises to “act justly and to love mercy.” Much of Booker’s questioning centered around racism within the criminal justice system — the disproportionate arrests of minorities, lousy legal representation for the poor, sentencing imbalances and the issue that caused Kennedy such befuddlement, implicit bias.
Garland acknowledged these issues, the flaws in the system, the need to change. And then he told in public, the story he’d told Booker in private about why he wanted to leave a lifetime appointment on the federal bench to do this job. It’s the most reasonable question, but one that so often is never asked: Why do you want to do this?
Garland acknowledged these issues, the flaws in the system, the need to change. And then he told in public, the story he’d told Booker in private about why he wanted to leave a lifetime appointment on the federal bench to do this job. It’s the most reasonable question, but one that so often is never asked: Why do you want to do this?
“I come from a family where my grandparents fled antisemitism and persecution,” Garland said. And then he stopped. He sat in silence for more than a few beats. And when he resumed, his voice cracked. “The country took us in and protected us. And I feel an obligation to the country, to pay back.”
“This is the highest, best use of my one set of skills,” Garland said. “And so I want very much to be the kind of attorney general you’re saying I could be.”
And that would be one focused on protecting the rights of the greatest and the least — and even the worst. Punishment is part of the job. But it’s not the definition of justice.
*******************
Read Robin’s complete article at the link. She can write! So delighted the Post got her off the “fashion beat” where her talents were being squandered, and got her onto more serious stuff!
Judge Garland’s awareness and humility are refreshing. But, unless he takes immediate action to redo EOIR and the rest of the DOJ’s immigration kakistocracy, it won’t mean much.
Judge, it could have been YOUR family forced to suffer kidnapping, extortion, murder threats, family separation, and other overtly cruel and inhuman treatment in squalid camps in Mexico, waiting for “hearings” that would never come before “judges” known for denying almost 100% of claims regardless of merit! YOUR family’s plea for refugee could have been rejected by some nativist bureaucrat or “hand-selected by the prosecutor” “Deportation Judge” for specious, biased reasons!
YOUR family was welcomed! But what if the only thought had been how to “best deter” “you and others like you” from coming?
Maybe because you and yours are White and hail from Eastern Europe, the “rule of law” has a different meaning and impact than it would if you were Brown, Black, or some other “non-White” skin color and had the misfortune to be from a “shithole” country where we have no concern for what happens to humanity? Or, worse yet, what if your family’s claim had been based on your Grandmother’s gender status? You would really be out of luck under today’s overtly misogynist approach to refugee law flowing out of EOIR!
Then, where would you and your nice family be today? Would you even be? THOSE are the questions you should be asking yourself!
Unfortunately, it’s easy to see that folks like Cotton, Hawley, Cruz, and Kennedy will be deeply offended if you attack their White Nationalist privilege, views, and agendas in any meaningful way.
And, if you actually make progress in holding the Capitol insurrectionists accountable, you’ll have to deal with the unapologetic, disingenuous, anti-democracy, insurrectionist actions of folks like Hawley and Cruz. That won’t be too “bipartisanly popular” with a GOP gang that just overwhelmingly worked and voted to ignore the evidence and “acquit” the “Chief Insurrectionist.”Who, by the way, was a main purveyor of the institutionalized racism that infects EOIR and the rest of the DOJ. It’s no real secret that “America’s anti-democracy party” aids, abets, encourages, and exonerates White Supremacists and domestic terrorists.
In the GOP world, “mercy” and “due process” are reserved for White guys like Trump, Flynn, Stone, White Supremacists, and “Q-Anoners.” Folks of color and migrants exist largely below the floor level of the GOP’s definition of “person” or “human.” For them, justice is a “hammer” to beat them into submission and punish them for asserting their rights.
So, restoring the rule of law at the DOJ is going to be a tough job —you need to clean house and get the right folks (mostly from outside Government) in to help you. And, you must examine carefully the roles of many career civil servants who chose to be part of the problems outlined by Chairman Durbin in his opening remarks.
You’re also going to have to “tune out” the criticism, harassment, and unhelpful “input” you’re likely to get from GOP legislators in both Houses who are firmly committed to the former regime’s White Nationalist agenda of “Dred Scottification,” disenfranchisement, nativism, and preventing equal justice for persons of color, of any status!
Think about all the reasons why you and your family are grateful for the treatment you received from our country. Then, think of the ways you could make those things a reality for all persons seeking refuge or just treatment, regardless of skin color, creed, or status. That’s the way you can “give back” at today’s DOJ! That’s the way you can be remembered as the “father of the diverse, representative, independent, due-process exemplifying21st Century Immigration Judiciary!” 🧑🏽⚖️👩⚖️👨🏻⚖️
Judge Merrick B. Garland Official White House Photo Public Realm
. . . .
The President nominates the Attorney General to be the lawyer — not for any individual, but for the people of the United States. July 2020 marked the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Justice, making this a fitting time to remember the mission of the Attorney General and the Department.
It is a fitting time to reaffirm that the role of the Attorney General is to serve the Rule of Law and to ensure equal justice under the law. And it is a fitting time to recognize the more than 115,000 career employees of the Department and its law enforcement agencies, and their commitment to serve the cause of justice and protect the safety of our communities.
If I am confirmed, serving as Attorney General will be the culmination of a career I have dedicated to ensuring that the laws of our country are fairly and faithfully enforced, and that the rights of all Americans are protected.
. . . .
That mission remains urgent because we do not yet have equal justice. Communities of color and other minorities still face discrimination in housing, education, employment, and the criminal justice system; and bear the brunt of the harm caused by pandemic, pollution, and
climate change.
150 years after the Department’s founding, battling extremist attacks on our democratic institutions also remains central to its mission.
At the opening of the hearing, he told Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL):
Garland also distanced himself from the Trump administration’s child separation immigration policy, calling it ‘shameful’ and committing to aiding a Senate investigation into the matter.
‘I think that the policy was shameful. I can’t imagine anything worse than tearing parents from their children, and we will provide all of the cooperation that we possibility can,’ Garland told Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin.
Yet, the harsh reality is that the DOJ is still actively engaged in furthering the operation of “Baby Jails” and “Family Gulags.” Indeed, disgracefully, the DOJ’s EOIR actually operates “judicial star chambers” euphemistically called “Detained Immigration Courts” in DHS Gulags throughout America.
There, bonds are unconstitutionally denied, the right to legal representation is aggressively hindered and discouraged, some individuals have their asylum claims wrongfully denied, while others are pressured under duress into giving up their legal rights.
As all of this is ongoing, EOIR’s so-called “judges” assert that they “lack power” to examine the life-threatening, dangerous, unconstitutionally substandard conditions and abusive custody present throughout the “New American Gulag” operated by DHS that they serve.(How do “judges” work for the AG under the Due Process Clause of our Constitution?)
What kind of “courts” are these? What does Judge Garland intend to do to stop official child abusers and illegal and unethical “civil detention?”
Judge Garland’s tone is an obvious improvement over the past two turkeys 🦃to hold the job! But, words are words; actions are what counts! Unfortunately, I couldn’t discern any “plan of action” here!
Without being unduly picky:
You should have said “This President nominates;” obviously, the last one did view the AG as his personal lawyer and the DOJ as just another of the many law firms on his retainer — one working pro bono at the people’s expense against the people’s interests — how perverted is that;
In a way it’s nice and expected to acknowledge the many hard-working civil servants in the DOJ; but, the reality is that far too many of them were part of the problem — failing to stand up for “the people’s” (actually, as you know, immigrants regardless of status are “persons” under our Constitution — real, live, breathing, feeling “people” if you will) individual rights and ignoring their oaths of office to carry out the White Nationalist, anti-democracy agenda of the past regime; like it or not, Judge, if you are going to turn your elevated thoughts into policy and practice, you are going to have to deal with the folks who “went along to get along” over the past four years; like it or not, you’re going to need a broom 🧹 and a plunger 🪠 to get this dirty job done;
Of course equal justice for all should be the goal (it’s not a new idea, except in GOP Administrations — if you remember it was actually Janet Reno’s motto) and obviously we’re not close to being there; “communities of color” faced more than “discrimination” — over the past four years, it was an active and concerted policy of “Dred Scottification” — willful dehumanization of the other and trashing their Constitutional rights: to vote, to due process, to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” on many occasions — mostly with the participation, encouragement, and often unethicalactions of the DOJ, sometimes endorsed and enabled by Federal Courts, all the way up to the Supremes; it’s going to take some real bold, and undoubtedly unpleasant, actions at the DOJ to make the rhetoric a reality, not to mention standing up to some of the lousy Federal Judicial appointments from the last four years;
How are you going to do any of this without acknowledging that immigration is where it starts; as you deliver your remarks today, some EOIR “judges,” soon to be “your judges,” will be actively applying racist, misogynist, anti-due process, “worst practices” “precedents” to dehumanize, disparage, and wrongfully deny and remove the very “people in the United States,” among our most vulnerable and often deserving, whose rights you claim to be dedicated to protecting and enhancing; how are you going to do that without a definitive plan for immediately reforming EOIR, OIL, the SG’s Office, OLC, OLP, the Civil Division, the Civil Rights Division, the Criminal Division and a host of other “components” who participated, and continue to participate, in these legal travesties and mockeries of due process, humanity, and the rule of law on a daily basis;
I understand your commitment to addressing domestic terrorism; but, you can’t do that without addressing its most obvious manifestation in the DOJ: EOIR; you can draw a straight line from the White Nationalist, racist agenda of Stephen Miller to the lies, misogyny, racism, and disrespect for immigrants, particularly those of color, “institutionalized and weaponized” @ EOIR, to the empowered political thugs who thought they were entitled to forcibly attack democracy and its representatives (many among the GOP who were actively complicit) at our Capitol!
How do you intend to deal constructively, professionally, and constitutionally with the stunning, yet largely self-created, 1.3 million plus case Immigration Court backlog that threatens to topple our entire justice system; what’s your plan for ending “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” @ EOIR, returning control to local judges while keeping politicos and bureaucrats @ EOIR & DOJ from further destructive meddling;
How are you gonna credibly fight “domestic terrorism” with these folks as “your judges?”
BIA Asylum Panel In Action Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
I, of course, appreciate your lofty thoughts and wish you all the best. You remind us all of something sadly lost over the past four years and something still glaringly missing from the GOP and its supporters: Values matter! But, values require implementation — action!
I won’t be convinced that you will actually be able to accomplish your goals and carry out your values until I witness your bold action to “deconstruct” the EOIR that Stephen Miller, Gene Hamilton, “Gonzo” Sessions, and “Billy the Bigot” Barr built and replace it with a real court system with real progressive, due-process/equal justice-committed expert judges and professional judicial administrators as an essential step to the creation of a long-overdue and urgently needed Article I U.S. Immigration Court.
I look forward to seeing your EOIR Reform Plan in action, very soon! Good luck!
President Biden’s Executive Actions on Immigration
A new webpage from the Center for Migration Studies summarizes and analyzes recent executive orders, proclamations, and directives from the Biden administration.
On his first day in office, President Biden issued a number of orders, proclamations, and directives that reversed policies enacted by the Trump administration and sought to put the US immigration system on a far different course. These executive actions:
Ended the discriminatory travel bans;
Revised US immigration enforcement priorities
Protected Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients;
Temporarily halted construction of the US-Mexico Border Wall;
Ensured that all US-residents, including undocumented immigrants, are counted in the 2020 Census; and
Reinstated Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberians.
President Biden also sent the US Citizenship Act of 2021 to Congress. If passed by the Senate and House, this bill would represent the most sweeping immigration reform legislation in decades and lead to the largest legalization program in US history.
President Biden has since issued several additional Executive Orders (EOs), which:
Created a task force to reunify separated migrant families;
Require federal agencies to review the Trump administration’s actions related to immigration;
Provide for safe and orderly processing of asylum applications at the border;
Call for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of State (DOS) to rebuild and strengthen the US Refugee Admissions Program.
The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) is a New York-based educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. For more information, please visit www.cmsny.org.
Claudia R. Cubas, Litigation Director at CAIR writes: “Judge Tigar at the Northern District California Court issued a Preliminary Injunction in the East Bay II case enjoining the final transit ban rule nationwide from being applied to asylum cases at both the immigration court and by USCIS. This Final rule was issued on Dec. 17, 2020, and took effect on Jan 19, 2021. While the interim rule had previously been vacated in the case CAIR Coalition v. Trump, 471 F.Supp.3d 25 (D.D.C. 2020), and ruled unlawful in the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr, 964 F.3d 832 (9th Cir. 2020) case, the government issued the final version of the rule last minute in December. The ACLU and other organizations in the East Bay case, amended their original challenge and requested a new PI to enjoin this final version of the rule. Thanks to the ACLU, and other orgs in the East Bay case!”
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Thanks, Claudia!
Yet another Trump regime lawless and contemptuous action to destroy our asylum system and interfere with the transition of power to the Biden Administration “outed.”
By Julia Ainsley, Jacob Soboroff and Geoff Bennett
WASHINGTON — The White House is expected to select Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission as the executive director of the task force to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration, three sources familiar with the decision tell NBC News.
The selection of Brané, director of migrant rights and justice programs at the Women’s Refugee Commission, is welcome news to the immigration advocate community, as most of the task force is made of government officials.
“If selected, Michelle would be a fantastic choice. She would bring deep expertise on the issues and the perfect mixture of passion and common sense,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
Good news indeed!
Michelle was an Attorney Advisor at the BIA during part of my tenure as Chair, before moving on to a distinguished career in the NGO sector.
She is brilliant, tough, practical, humane, a leader, and a true pro who has been getting the job done for refugees and the most vulnerable among us for years. Michelle is just who America needs to bring expertise, organizational skills, and moral as well as intellectual leadership to a Government that has been missing those essential qualities for far, far too long!
Always satisfying to see the “best and brightest” whom I’ve worked with over my career rise to the leadership positions they deserve where they can use their skills to lead America to a better future!
Government Misleadingly Posts Enjoined Asylum Regs
As we all know, on December 10, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security jointly published final rules widely referred to as the “Death to Asylum” regulations. On January 8, a U.S. District Court Judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking those rules from taking effect. The rules remain enjoined at present.
However, EOIR, the agency housing the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals, maintains a Virtual Law Library (“VLL”) on its website. Most EOIR judges, staff attorneys, and law clerks use the VLL to reference applicable law when drafting decisions. Many private lawyers and other interested individuals outside of government use the VLL as a resource as well. In addition to listing all precedent decisions of the BIA and the Attorney General, the VLL contains links to the most current versions of both the Immigration & Nationality Act and the regulations that interpret it.
One clicking on the link to the federal regulations on the VLL is taken to a site called e-CFR, which is maintained by the U.S. Government Printing Office. At present, that site displays the enjoined “Death to Asylum” rules as if they are presently in effect. The site does not state that the regulations have been enjoined, and therefore may not be relied on.
This means that at present, an Immigration Judge, Board Member, law clerk, staff attorney, or anyone else involved in the decision-making process who researches the law applicable to a pending asylum case will read rules that are not actually in force, but that mandate the denial of asylum in cases that should be granted under the actual applicable law. The judges and their staff will see “rules” that require an overly narrow view of what constitutes political opinion or a particular social group; of who may be a persecutor and of how nexus is established. They will see language making it more difficult to find that an asylum seeker could not have reasonably relocated within their country; that discourage reliance on country condition information critical to establishing many elements of individual claims; and that, in some cases, call for the termination of bona fide asylum claims as “frivolous,” a classification that carries a lifetime bar to any and all immigration benefits.
Remarkably, when made aware of the problem, government officials defended the posting of the non-applicable rules on the grounds that their “effective date” had been reached, and seemed unable to understand what the problem was. I would hope that the Biden Administration might instruct these officials why it might actually be a problem for judges to access rules requiring them to deny asylum claims they should actually be granting. They might want to add that it would be a particularly good practice to double-check before posting any rule commonly referred to as “Death to Something.”
In the meantime, attorneys should carefully review all written decisions from EOIR, checking whether they cite to the inapplicable regs.
Copyright 2021 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
Republished by permission.
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They might want to add that it would be a particularly good practice to double-check before posting any rule commonly referred to as “Death to Something.”
In the meantime, attorneys should carefully review all written decisions from EOIR, checking whether they cite to the inapplicable regs.
Says it all! EOIR = FUBAR 🤡🦹🏿♂️☠️
Hey, it’s only human lives and futures at stake!
And, of course, it’s the job of the job of the private bar to “cite check” the (non) experts @ EOIR!
Just think how justice could be achieved with real expert judges who understand asylum law in the first place and competent judicial (not bureaucratic) management focused on quality, efficiency, best practices, and most of all, correct, just results that comply with due process and fundamental fairness? What if all Federal Courts (including the Supremes) functioned in the manner set forth in the previous sentence: Racial justice might become a reality rather than an unfulfilled promise!
Fold up the tent on the “Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿♂️ and replace it with real judges and real courts. The right folks are out there! But, they are mostly fighting the “malicious incompetence” from the outside, rather than solving problems and promoting justice “from the inside.”
EOIR might not be using the correct version of 8 CFR. But, they DO have wasteful and unnecessary “Judicial Dashboards” on every bench to jack up stress levels, promote “corner cutting and sloppy work,” and check to make sure “deportation quotas” are being made!
