Category: Equal Protection

🤮☠️ AMERICA’S KIDDIE GULAG:  CRUEL, INHUMAN, GROTESQUE, UNNECESSARY, INDEFENSIBLE! — The Biden Administration Knows That! — Yet, They Destroy Our World’s Future Promise For A Thoroughly Debunked & Discredited White Nativist Immigration/Racial Agenda! — WHY? 🤯

Julia Preston
Julia Preston
American Journalist
The Marshall Project
Anna Flagg
Anna Flagg
Senior Data Reporter
The Marshall Project

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/16/border-patrol-migrant-children-detention-00039291

INVESTIGATION

‘No Place for a Child’: 1 in 3 Migrants Held in Border Patrol Facilities Is a Minor

Thousands of kids have been routinely detained in cold, overcrowded cells built for adults, while authorities have resisted improving conditions.

By ANNA FLAGG and JULIA PRESTON

06/16/2022 04:30 AM EDT

  • .ST1{FILL-RULE:EVENODD;CLIP-RULE:EVENODD;FILL:#FFF}

Anna Flagg is The Marshall Project’s senior data reporter.

Julia Preston is a contributing writer at The Marshall Project.

This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

During their harrowing journey from Venezuela to the Texas border, the three Zaragoza children liked to imagine the refuge they would find when they reached the United States, a place where they would finally be free from hunger and police harassment and could simply be kids

Instead, when they reached the border in March, they were detained — dirty with mud from the Rio Grande and shivering with cold — in frigid cinder block cells. They spent sleepless nights on cement floors, packed in with dozens of other children under the glare of white lights, with agents in green uniforms shouting orders.

The siblings were booked by officers who asked questions they didn’t understand and were told to sign documents in English they couldn’t read. Even after their release three days later, they feared the U.S. would never be the haven they had longed for.

Since early 2017, one of every three people held in a Border Patrol facility was a minor, a far bigger share than has been reported before now, according to an analysis by The Marshall Project of previously unpublished official records. Out of almost 2 million people detained by the Border Patrol from February 2017 through June 2021, more than 650,000 were under 18, the analysis showed. More than 220,000 of those children, about one-third, were held for longer than 72 hours, the period established by federal court rulings and an anti-trafficking statute as a limit for border detention of children.

For most young migrants crossing without documents, the first stop in the U.S. is one of some 70 Border Patrol stations along the boundary line. The records reveal that detaining children and teenagers has become a major part of the Border Patrol’s everyday work. The records also show that conditions for minors have not significantly improved under President Joe Biden. While the numbers of kids in Border Patrol custody peaked in 2019 under former President Donald Trump, they rose again when Biden took office and have remained high.

Those numbers could surge to new highs when the Biden administration eventually lifts Title 42, a public health order that border authorities have used for more than two years to swiftly expel most unauthorized border crossers, including many children.

But the Border Patrol has resisted making changes to its facilities and practices to adapt to children, even while officials acknowledge that the conditions young people routinely face are often unsafe.

“A Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the nation’s highest immigration official, has repeatedly said. However, even now, as authorities are scrambling to beef up enforcement and expand detention capacity in preparation for a post-Title 42 influx, the Border Patrol’s basic approach to kids remains the same: Just move them out of custody as fast as possible.

Without broader changes, many thousands of kids seeking protection will remain at risk for harsh, demeaning and sometimes dangerous treatment as their first experience of the United States.

. . . .

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Read Anna’s and Julia’s complete, disturbing, infuriating report at the link. Unnecessary, immoral, inappropriate, and just plain stupid and evil! Did I mention stupid and evil?

Thanks, in part, to the Trump Administration’s policies of racist child abuse masquerading as “immigration enforcement,” there is a large body of recent, available, accessible empirical data on the devastating effects on children, families, society, and our world’s future of immigration enforcement that targets children, teens, and other vulnerable groups! 

The “perps” of these repulsive policies will “check out” at some point in the future. The Biden Administration, which pledged to do better but disgracefully hasn’t delivered, also can’t and should not escape accountability. 

The damage they are inflicting on future generations and the ability of our world to harness and utilize in a cooperative fashion the “human capital” needed for our planet’s and humanity’s survival is totally unacceptable! People of intelligence, courage, energy, innovation, and compassion must work together to stop this disgraceful abuse. Those chosen as responsible leaders and officials in the future must represent “our better angels!” 😇

While those of us in the “senior generation” who believe in social justice and a better future for humanity will continue the fight, our “time on the stage” is inexorably winding down. It will be up to the NDPA and the rest of the upcoming generation — in America and elsewhere — to decide what kind of world they want to live in and what they are willing to do, and sometimes sacrifice, to make it happen. 

As I have said many times: “We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!” 

It’s past time for a better, more realistic, more human, and “robustly humane” approach to human migration!😎 One that focuses on the long-term welfare of children and society, NOT short-term mythical “enforcement goals” or fears!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-20-22

Related posts:

  1. RISKING LIVES TO KEEP THE DEPORTATION RAILWAY RUNNING — FOR UNACCOMPANIED KIDS! — “It is inexplicable and dangerous that the Trump administration has insisted that detained unaccompanied children are still required to go to court,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense.” — Julia Preston Reports For The Marshall Project
  2. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻: Victims Of Trump, Miller, Sessions Child Abuse May Suffer Lifelong Damage Similar To That Of Holocaust Survivors! — “My mom and I have learned along the way that nothing seems to make it go away. Not her prayers. Not my ‘American Dream’ success. Not any logical explanation of how governments work or don’t work. My mother’s touch will always feel foreign to me.” — PLUS: BREAKING UPDATE: Just Released House Report Documents Regime’s Massive Human Rights Criminal Conspiracy Against CHILDREN!
  3. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!
  4. 🤮NO PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARD MEN (WOMEN, OR ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) FROM REGIME OF “BAD SANTAS” 🦹🏿‍♂️🎅🏻— Illegally Separated Families Continue To Suffer Irreparable Trauma, 😰 Volunteer Groups 😇🗽⚖️ Left To Pick Up Pieces — A Reminder That Defeated Regime Has Mocked, Disparaged, & Trashed Christ’s Values & Assaulted Humanity Over Four Christmases!🏴‍☠️🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻

🏴‍☠️“ANY REASON TO DENY ASYLUM” BIA HITS ROUGH SLEDDING FROM COAST TO COAST — 1st Cir. (Bogus Adverse Credibility) & 9th Cir. (Ludicrous “Not Persecution” Finding) — But, EOIR’s “Asylum Denial Assembly Line” Wins Love From Trumpy 9th Cir. Judge!

 

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-persecution-nicaragua-flores-molina-v-garland-2-1

CA9 on Persecution, Nicaragua: Flores Molina v. Garland (2-1)

Flores Molina v. Garland

“Petitioner Mario Rajib Flores Molina (“Flores Molina”) participated in demonstrations against the ruling regime in his native Nicaragua, where he witnessed the murder of his friend and fellow protester by police and paramilitary members. Thereafter, he was publicly marked as a terrorist, threatened with torture and death by government operatives, and forced to flee his home. Flores Molina, however, was tracked down at his hideaway by armed paramilitary members, and was forced to flee for his life a second time. Flores Molina still was not safe. He was discovered, yet again, assaulted, and threatened with death by a government-aligned group. Flores Molina ultimately fled a third time— from Nicaragua altogether—out of fear for his safety. He eventually presented himself to authorities at the United States border and sought asylum and other relief. When Flores Molina sought asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) determined that his past experiences in Nicaragua did not rise to the level of persecution. They also determined that Flores Molina did not establish a well-founded fear of future persecution. The IJ and BIA denied all forms of relief and ordered Flores Molina’s removal to Nicaragua. Flores Molina petitions for review of the BIA’s denial of his appeal of the IJ’s decision, as well as of the BIA’s subsequent denial of his motion to reopen proceedings. Because the record compels a finding that Flores Molina’s past experiences constitute persecution and because the BIA erred in its analysis of the other issues, we grant the first petition and remand for further proceedings. Accordingly, we dismiss the second petition as moot.

[Hats off to Mary-Christine Sungaila (argued) and Joshua R. Ostrer, Buchalter APC, Irvine, California; Paula M. Mitchell, Attorney; Tina Kuang (argued) and Natalie Kalbakian (argued), Certified Law Students, Loyola Law School!]

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EOIR’s deadly, incorrect approach to sending refugees back to face persecution is legally incorrect, factually erroneous, and morally bankrupt. But, it does have one huge fan. Recently appointed Trump Ninth Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke: 

In the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), Congress codified the highly deferential substantial evidence test and established what should be our court’s guiding star in the review of immigration decisions: that “administrative findings of fact are conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” INA § 242(b)(4)(B) (codified as 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B) (emphasis added)). Congress later amended the INA by passing the REAL ID Act, further reining in our role and discretion as a reviewing court and stripping federal courts of jurisdiction to hear certain immigration claims. See Nasrallah v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1683, 1698 (2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). Over time, however, this court’s decisions have chipped away at these statutory standards—broadening the scope and standard of our review far beyond the limited and deferential posture that Congress unmistakably set out in the INA. See id.

To properly apply our deferential standard of review, we are supposed to scour the record to answer a single question: could any reasonable adjudicator have agreed with the agency’s result, or does the record as a whole compel a different conclusion? See INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 (1992) (explaining that substantial evidence review requires that we review “the record considered as a whole” and reverse the agency only if no reasonable factfinder could agree with its conclusion); see also Prasad v. INS, 47 F.3d 336, 339 (9th Cir. 1995) (describing Elias-Zacarias as “the touchstone” and “definitive statement of ‘substantial evidence’ in the context of . . . factual determinations in asylum cases”). On its face, this is an exceptionally deferential standard of review. But there’s more.

“Scour the record” to defeat asylum claims that should have been granted below, huh? That clearly defective, biased, one-sided approach is “due process and fundamental fairness” for a “person” under our Constitution? Or maybe asylum seekers of color aren’t “persons” to VanDyke and his righty cronies? That’s how VanDyke would like the Constitution applied if his life were at stake?

He’d like to use legal mumbo-jumbo to allow refugees to have their lives ended or threatened by non-expert decision makers making it up as the go along to deny meritorious claims. Under his “standard of review,” judicial review would be no review at all. Just scour the record for any obscure reason to deny asylum or, failing that, just make one up. Doesn’t matter as long as the individual loses and gets removed! That’s pretty much what too many EOIR judges and BIA “panels” (which can be a single judge) are already doing. Why add another layer of intellectual dishonesty, moral corruption,  and absence of judicial ethics to the mess?

Mr. Flores-Molina is not buy any means the only one subjected to Judge VanDyke’s loony right-wing legal nonsense.  You can “meet” the judge right here:

https://newrepublic.com/article/165169/lawrence-vandyke-judge-ninth-circuit-appeals-trump-bonkers-opinions

“The Rude Trump Judge Who’s Writing the Most Bonkers Opinions in America.”

One might legitimately ask why already vulnerable asylum seekers and their courageous lawyers are being subjected to such judicial abuse at all levels of our system. Why doesn’t Garland just appoint “real, expert, fair EOIR Judges” who will do the right thing at the “retail level” without having to enter the “appellate circus” 🤡 that Trump and the GOP have created?

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https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-credibility-reyes-pujols-v-garland

CA1 on Credibility: Reyes Pujols v. Garland

Reyes Pujols v. Garland

“[T]he BIA upheld an adverse credibility determination that the IJ reached in part based on an inconsistency in Reyes’s story that simply was not an inconsistency. Nor can we say that absent the adverse credibility finding, Reyes’s CAT claim would necessarily fail. We therefore must vacate the BIA’s ruling affirming the IJ’s denial of that claim. …  Reyes’s petition for review is granted, the ruling of the BIA is vacated, and we remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Ethan Horowitz!]

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REALITY CHECK: 

Here’s a key sentence from the preamble to the L.A. Declaration on Migration and Protection:

We are committed to protecting the safety, dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms of all migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced and stateless persons regardless of their migratory status.

So I’d like to know how the following fit within our solemn commitment to “protecting the safety, dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms of all migrants, refugees, asylum seekers?”

  • Falsely finding that systematic assaults, death threats, being driven from your home, and being tracked down after fleeing, carried out by a Nicaraguan Government so repressive that it wasn’t even invited to the L.A. Conference, do not constitute persecution; and
  • Inventing a bogus inconsistency in an asylum seeker’s testimony and using it to wrongfully deny asylum.

Clearly they don’t! And, this kind of official misconduct goes on somewhere at EOIR on both levels every day! Just ask any experienced asylum practitioner! So, why hasn’t Garland replaced the EOIR judges who are not qualified to be deciding asylum claims with readily available expert talent? 

Asylum seekers face systematically unfair treatment by “judges” who serve at Garland’s pleasure. Many of those judges, particularly at the BIA, were appointed or “elevated” by Garland’s openly xenophobic, virulently anti-asylum predecessors during the Trump regime. Yet, inexplicably, they continue to inflict bad decisions and sloppy, legally defective, morally vapid work on the most vulnerable? Why?

What if we had an expert, due-process-oriented Immigration Court that uniformly interpreted asylum law correctly and actually granted much-needed and well-deserved protection? What if asylum seekers didn’t have to enter the “Circuit Court crap shoot” — or deal with bad “no review is judicial review” judges like Judge VanDyke — to get life-saving justice? What if the rule of law and human rights were honored and advanced in Immigration Court rather than being mocked and disparaged? What if Immigration Courts modeled good judicial behavior instead of operating as a shockingly dysfunctional parody of due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices?

Wouldn’t it be better for everyone?

Perhaps there is some modest movement in the right direction. I’ve received reports from at least two Immigration Courts that unqualified Trump-era appointees have been removed over over the past week. That’s a start! But, it will take lots more “removals or reassignments” and a complete “redo” of the mal-functioning BIA to get due process, expertise, fundamental fairness, and best (as opposed to worst) judicial practices back on track at EOIR!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-16-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  2. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻ERROR SUPPLY: EOIR’s Anti-Asylum Bias, Failure To Apply Precedents, Earns Yet Another Rebuke From 3d Cir.  — Blanco v. AG
  4. 😎WIN ONE, LOSE ONE☹️:  9TH CIR. ANNIHILATES MATTER OF ARMENDAREZ-MENDEZ (SUA SPONTE REOPENING), WHILE 11TH  CIR. WOODENLY ENDORSES 👎🏻 MATTER OF L-E-A- (NEXUS)!☠️⚰️

🤮SUPREMES SAY FOREVER IMPRISONMENT IN GULAG OK UNDER INA — DUCK 🦆CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE — JUSTICE THOMAS ANNOUNCES PLANS TO REWRITE HISTORY & STRIP IMMIGRANTS OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, THUS CHANNELING NATIVISTS’ DREAMS OF A FULLY FASCIST AMERICA!🏴‍☠️

C’mon now!

(Let’s lock the door and throw away the key now)

(shom-dooby-dom, dooby-dom-dom)

— Jay and the Americans, 

“Let’s Lock the Door (And Throw Away the Key),” 1965

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Johnson v. Ortega-Martinez

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-896_2135.pdf

SYLLABUS BY COURT STAFF:

Syllabus

JOHNSON, ACTING DIRECTOR OF U. S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, ET AL. v. ARTEAGA-MARTINEZ

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 19–896. Argued January 11, 2022—Decided June 13, 2022

Respondent Antonio Arteaga-Martinez is a citizen of Mexico who was re- moved in July 2012 and reentered the United States in September 2012. U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a warrant for Arteaga-Martinez’s arrest in 2018. ICE reinstated Arte- aga-Martinez’s earlier removal order and detained him pursuant to its authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act. See 8 U. S. C. §1231(a). Arteaga-Martinez applied for withholding of removal under §1231(b)(3), as well as relief under regulations implementing the Con- vention Against Torture, based on his fear that he would be persecuted or tortured if he returned to Mexico. An asylum officer determined he had established a reasonable fear of persecution or torture, and the Department of Homeland Security referred him for withholding-only proceedings before an immigration judge.

After being detained for four months, Arteaga-Martinez filed a peti- tion for a writ of habeas corpus in District Court challenging, on both statutory and constitutional grounds, his continued detention without a bond hearing. The Government conceded that Arteaga-Martinez would be entitled to a bond hearing after six months of detention based on circuit precedent holding that a noncitizen facing prolonged deten- tion under §1231(a)(6) is entitled by statute to a bond hearing before an immigration judge and must be released unless the Government establishes, by clear and convincing evidence, that the noncitizen poses a risk of flight or a danger to the community. The District Court granted relief on Arteaga-Martinez’s statutory claim and ordered the Government to provide Arteaga-Martinez a bond hearing. The Third Circuit summarily affirmed. At the bond hearing, the Immigration

2 JOHNSON v. ARTEAGA-MARTINEZ Syllabus

Judge considered Arteaga-Martinez’s flight risk and dangerousness and ultimately authorized his release pending resolution of his appli- cation for withholding of removal.

Held: Section 1231(a)(6) does not require the Government to provide noncitizens detained for six months with bond hearings in which the Government bears the burden of proving, by clear and convincing evi- dence, that a noncitizen poses a flight risk or a danger to the commu- nity. Pp. 4–10.

(a) Section 1231(a)(6) cannot be read to require the hearing proce- dures imposed below. After the entry of a final order of removal against a noncitizen, the Government generally must secure the noncitizen’s removal during a 90-day removal period, during which the Government “shall” detain the noncitizen. 8 U. S. C. §§1231(a)(1), (2). Beyond the removal period, §1231(a)(6) defines four categories of noncitizens who “may be detained . . . and, if released, shall be subject to [certain] terms of supervision.” There is no plausible construction of the text of §1231(a)(6) that requires the Government to provide bond hearings with the procedures mandated by the Third Circuit. The statute says nothing about bond hearings before immigration judges or burdens of proof, nor does it provide any other indication that such procedures are required. Faithfully applying precedent, the Court cannot discern the bond hearing procedures required below from §1231(a)(6)’s text. Pp. 4–6.

(b) Arteaga-Martinez argues that §1231(a)(6)’s references to flight risk, dangerousness, and terms of supervision, support the relief or- dered below. Similarly, respondents in the companion case, see Gar- land v. Gonzalez, 594 U. S. ___, analogize the text of §1231(a)(6) to that of 8 U. S. C. §1226(a), noting that noncitizens detained under §1226(a) have long received bond hearings at the outset of detention. Assuming without deciding that an express statutory reference to “bond” (as in §1226(a)) might be read to require an initial bond hearing, §1231(a)(6) contains no such reference, and §1231(a)(6)’s oblique reference to terms of supervision does not suffice. The parties agree that the Gov- ernment possesses discretion to provide bond hearings under §1231(a)(6) or otherwise, but this Court cannot say the statute re- quires them.

Finally, Arteaga-Martinez argues that Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U. S. 678, which identified ambiguity in §1231(a)(6)’s permissive language, supports a view that §1231(a)(6) implicitly incorporates the specific bond hearing requirements and procedures imposed by the Court of Appeals. In Zadvydas, this Court construed §1231(a)(6) “in light of the Constitution’s demands” and determined that §1231(a)(6) “does not permit indefinite detention” but instead “limits an alien’s post-re- moval-period detention to a period reasonably necessary to bring about

Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 3 Syllabus

that alien’s removal from the United States.” 533 U. S., at 689. The bond hearing requirements articulated by the Third Circuit, however, reach substantially beyond the limitation on detention authority Zadvydas recognized. Zadvydas does not require, and Jennings v. Ro- driguez, 583 U. S. ___, does not permit, the Third Circuit’s application of the canon of constitutional avoidance. Pp. 6–8.

(c) Constitutional challenges to prolonged detention under §1231(a)(6) were not addressed below, in part because those courts read §1231(a)(6) to require a bond hearing. Arteaga-Martinez’s alter- native theory that he is presumptively entitled to release under Zadvydas also was not addressed below. The Court leaves these argu- ments for the lower courts to consider in the first instance. See Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718, n. 7. Pp. 8–10.

Reversed and remanded.

SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, KAGAN, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which GORSUCH, J., joined as to Part I. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

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I suppose the only good news here is:

  • The Constitutional issue remains viable (but, don’t hold your breath); and
  • Nobody else joined Thomas’s astounding, anti-historical, anti-
    American bogus arguments on stripping immigrants of all due process rights and leaving their fate entirely in the hands of politicos.

Yet, the fact that an individual with views as outrageous, legally and morally wrong, and deeply anti-American as Thomas sits on our highest Court says something is seriously wrong with our justice system and our democracy.

Also outrageously, Thomas called for the overruling of Zadvydas v. Davis, an important case that prevents the Government from subjecting certain deportable, but unremovable, individuals to lifetime “civil imprisonment and punishment” in the “New American Gulag.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-13-22

Related posts:

  1. ☹️HE BEAT THE GOVERNMENT TWICE IN COURT — But, After Three Years In Jail Without Being Charged With Any Crime, Omar Ameen Still Can’t Get A Bond From Garland’s Courts —  How Can A System Where The Prosecutor Makes The Rules & Picks The Judges, Mostly From The Ranks Of Former Prosecutors, Provide The “Fair & Impartial Judging” Required By Due Process?
  2. ☠️HE SURVIVED 22 YEARS IN CAL STATE PRISONS — 2 YEARS IN DHS DETENTION “BROKE” HIM, DESPITE WINNING HIS CASE BEFORE AN IJ! — Welcome To America & Biden’s Gulag, Where Asylum Seekers Get Treated Worse Than Convicted Felons!🤮
  3. ☠️⚰️👎🏽BIDEN ADMINISTRATION EMBRACES “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” — SUPREMES LIKELY TO HELP THEM OUT!🤮
  4. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!

🌎THE AMERICAS: THE L.A. DECLARATION ON MIGRATION & PROTECTION — Blueprint For Action Or More Empty Rhetoric?

 

Here’s what the document says:

https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2022/06/10/los-angeles-declaration-migration-and-protection

Lot of promises, no specifics, as you can see!

Here’s the “White House Fact Sheet” which lists specifics from apparent “side agreements” by the various signatories:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/10/fact-sheet-the-los-angeles-declaration-on-migration-and-protection-u-s-government-and-foreign-partner-deliverables/

Here’s “critical commentary” from one observer:

Tyler Mattiace, an Americas division researcher with Human Rights Watch who closely followed the declaration’s drafting process, said that this type of multilateral approach is long overdue to assist “the millions of people all across the continent who have fled their homes either because of violence or persecution or human rights abuses.”

“They often face serious abuses that are many times the result of the fact that government either tries to prevent them from seeking protection or make[s] it difficult for them to obtain legal status or implement enforcement strategies to lead to them taking dangerous migration routes where they suffer abuses,” he said.

He said the declaration is a departure from what’s happening on the ground at the U.S.-Mexico border, where immigration enforcement officials keep expelling asylum seekers under Title 42, a COVID-19-related health measure implemented under former President Trump and maintained by Biden. The measure is tied up in the courts.

“The declaration is a major step forward, but it could be meaningless unless Biden immediately does everything possible to restore access to asylum at the U.S. border and ends other abuses, other anti-immigration policies,” Mattiace continued. “The U.S. also has to stop focusing immigration policy on efforts to outsource immigration enforcement to other governments in the region.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=dae611a5-6dfe-4e35-a4df-3329cdc3866b

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I like to be optimistic. Nevertheless, color me skeptical on this. 

The ultimate success of this type of initiative will depend on courageous, enlightened, bold, dynamic leadership from the U.S. That’s not currently in the cards. 

Right now, the U.S. is in violation of various international migration agreements, domestic law, and the Due Process Clause of our Constitution. Our legal asylum, refugee, Immigration Court, and adjudication of legal status systems are a dysfunctional mess. Proposals for necessary, practical reforms have been ignored by the Administration, blocked by Trump Federal Judges, or not gotten off the ground. That’s NOT a “leadership posture” that is going to inspire and persuade other nations.

For example, the much ballyhooed “Asylum Regulation Reforms” are moving forward in a flawed “Beta test mode,” with no leadership, no practical precedents, incompetent judicial review, and a few dumb “in your face” features (like proposing to relocate asylum applicants to cities in Texas, where the EOIR asylum denial rates approach 100%, a move apparently specifically intended to spur xenophobic reactions from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott). 

Here’s one of the “key commitments” from the U.S. taken from the above White House “Fact Sheet”:

  • The United States will commit to resettle 20,000 refugees from the Americas during Fiscal Years 2023 to 2024. This represents a three-fold increase from this year and reflects the Biden Administration’s strong commitment to welcoming refugees. The protection needs are significant in the Western Hemisphere. More than 5 million Venezuelans have been displaced in the Americas, and hundreds of thousands more people from other countries across Latin America and the Caribbean are also displaced [across borders]. As the United States scales up its resettlement operations in the Americas, we call on other governments to do the same.

20,000 over two years? (Or is it 20,000 per year over two years — doesn’t really matter?) Are you kidding me? That wouldn’t begin to address the current situation on the Southern Border. Indeed, it wouldn’t even cover all the individuals already determined to have a “credible fear” of persecution who have been waiting, some for years, for processing under the cruel, illegal, and ineptly administered “Remain in Mexico” program. 

As Tyler Mattaice from HRW observes, the problem involves millions of individuals. Yet, we’re talking about accepting a few thousand more as a solution? Not going to cut it!

I’d also be mildly surprised if the U.S. even fulfills this exceptionally modest commitment. Over the past few years, the U.S. hasn’t even filled it’s “historically meager quotas.” And, the once proud U.S. Refugee Program, which relied heavily on NGOs for success, has been shredded — intentionally left in tatters by the Trump regime. If the Biden Administration has been able to rebuild it to the necessary size and operational strength, they have kept it a secret from most of us!

A realistic “low ball” starting number for Western Hemisphere refugees would be more like 100,000 in each of the next two years! Even this well might not be enough. 

Moreover, a competent Administration could actually have processed and admitted thousands of qualified refugees waiting in Mexico over the past 18 months, thereby at least beginning to reduce pressure on the border and the asylum adjudication system. 

Whether folks want to admit it or not, we are going to experience substantially more immigration from the Americas. It could be mostly legal or mostly extralegal — that’s our choice. 

But, no totally bogus Title 42 extension, wall, prison, family separation, cruelty, punitive law, prosecution, militarization of the border, racist rhetoric, “don’t come” message in three languages, or Federalist Society Federal Judge is going to halt the natural flow of human migration. Nor can migration be largely “outsourced” to smaller countries in the Hemisphere.

International cooperation is great! That’s what the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention and subsequent 1967 Protocol are all about. But, logically, we can expect other countries to “proportionalize” their responses to what they see the U.S. doing. 

Moreover, we have to consider that, for example, Colombia, a much smaller and poorer country than the U.S., with its own set of problems, has already taken in 1.7 million Venezuelan refugees. That dwarfs our so-called “crisis” at the Mexican border. https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2021/10/31/supporting-colombian-host-communities-and-venezuelan-migrants-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

Realistically, is Colombia going to want to help us resettle Venezuelan refugees waiting at our Southern Border? Don’t count on it!

If you “add up” all of the numbers and commitments from all the countries contained in the “Fact Sheet,” it wouldn’t even come close to solving the current flow at our Southern Border, let alone make a dent in the Hemisphere-wide movement of individuals.

Dealing with the “root causes” of migration is also a great idea, if hardly a new one. Problem is, many of the “sending countries,” Northern Triangle, Haiti, Venezuela, are functionally failed states. Unless someone has a “silver bullet solution” addressing this sad fact — and nobody has one to date — this isn’t going to happen in the short run. It’s a decades if not generations long project. Worthy, to be sure. But not a way of effectively addressing today’s realities and migration pressures.

So, I see the same “aura of unreality” and unwillingness to face the facts hanging over the LA Declaration that has crippled our immigration and human rights policies over the past several decades. And, as refugee situations have continued to get worse, so has the “dream world” inhabited by those countries fortunate to be prosperous and stable enough to be “refugee destinations” become more pronounced and increasingly untethered to reality and humanity. 

Sorry, but that’s not a “formula for success!” 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-12-22

Related posts:

  1. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  2. 🤯PROGRAMMED TO FAIL:  LACK OF LEADERSHIP, EXPERTISE, COURAGE, COMMITMENT TO RULE OF LAW, RACIAL AWARENESS, & AN ATTORNEY GENERAL “ON VACATION” PLAGUES BIDEN’S BUNGLED BORDER POLICY! — Is Appeasing GOP White Nationalists With Racist Policies While Scorning The Rule of Law & Dissing Progressive Supporters REALLY A Great “Strategy” For Biden & Harris?  🤮 — NY Times Reports
  3. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”
  4. ⚖️🗽TIRED OF BUREAUCRATIC DOUBLESPEAK & BS ON ASYLUM FROM EOIR & DHS? — Get The “Real Skinny” On How U.S. Asylum Should Operate From This Free ABA Seminar Featuring Round Table 🛡⚔️ Experts Judge Joan Churchill, Judge Paul Grussendorf, & Judge Jeffrey Chase On Wednesday, Nov. 10! (Registration Required)

🏴‍☠️TRUMPY U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE DREW TIPTON BLOCKS MAYORKAS MEMO ON DHS ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIES — Immigration Enforcement Careens Out-Of-Control As Garland’s “Rational Policy Defense Team” Falters Once Again In The Face Of All-Out Assault By Nativist GOP AGs!

Grim Reaper
American Justice takes a grim turn as righty Trump judges take over immigration enforcement! Reaper Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
CBS Journalist

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-voids-biden-administration-restrictions-on-immigration-arrests-and-deportations/

From CBS News:

U.S.

Judge voids Biden administration restrictions on immigration arrests and deportations

BY CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ

UPDATED ON: JUNE 11, 2022 / 10:35 AM / CBS NEWS

A federal judge in Texas on Friday granted a request by Republican-led states to throw out Biden administration rules that placed limits on whom federal immigration agents should seek to arrest and deport from the U.S., declaring the directive unlawful.

U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did not have the authority to issue a September 2021 memo that directed immigration officials to focus on arresting immigrants deemed to threaten public safety or national security and migrants who recently crossed a U.S. border illegally.

Tipton, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, agreed to void Mayorkas’ memo, which was challenged by Republican officials in Texas and Louisiana. But he paused his ruling for seven days to give the Biden administration time to appeal.

Friday’s ruling is the latest setback in federal court for the Biden administration’s immigration agenda, which has faced more than a dozen lawsuits by Texas and other Republican-controlled states.

Federal judges appointed by Mr. Trump have blocked the Biden administration from ending a policy that requires asylum-seekers to wait for their court hearings in Mexico and a pandemic-era measure that allows border officials to quickly expel migrants. Tipton himself halted an 100-day moratorium on deportations during Mr. Biden’s first month in office, as well as an earlier directive that limited immigration arrests.

. . . .

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

Read the entire report at the link. Many thanks to Nolan Rappaport, Contributor to The Hill, for sending this my way!

 So, righty U.S. District Judges and GOP State AG’s have figured out a way to take over basic immigration enforcement from the Feds. I assume that they will “waive” any claims to immunity from suits against themselves as the inevitable human rights and legal abuses caused by unbridled, uncontrolled, and often irrational and wasteful, DHS Enforcement pile up. These judges and AGs have now become part of the problem. We’ll see how they solve it.

I also find it interesting that righty U.S. District Judges, part of a court system that only just barely manages to keep its head above water because the vast, vast majority of Federal crimes and violations are never fully investigated or prosecuted, have such unbridled enthusiasm for unaccountable, unlimited immigration enforcement. 

Part of this right-wing “judicial scam” is to grotesquely exaggerate the “harm” to states and to minimize or ignore the well-documented legal, human rights, and practical problems with “out of control” immigration enforcement that was intentionally used by the Trump regime to “terrorize” ethnic communities. These communities contain “mixed populations” of citizens, legal residents, those living here with legal permission to work, and the undocumented.

I also find it notable that the so-called “plenary power” over immigration appears to have passed from the AWOL Congress and the fumbling Executive, where it historically resided, to the Federal Judiciary, often those serving at the lowest levels —  U.S. District Judges, the BIA, and Immigration Judges (although to be fair, the latter two groups are Executive Branch employees operating in a dysfunctional system that often appears to have no rhyme, reason, or defined mission.)

This is an unusual development in the right-wing conservative world of (bogus) “judicial restraint” to be sure. I guess the doctrine of “judicial restraint” is limited to stopping liberal judges from correcting egregious legal mistakes that ruin individual human lives. That’s sure how it looks to me!

The “Tipton Gang” might have a harder time taking over the dysfunctional, out of control, and backlogged Immigration Courts where the results of poor enforcement decisions often go to die in the 1.8 million plus backlog.

The Immigration Courts could prove more of a challenge because Republicans have stuffed the law with various jurisdiction-limiting and jurisdiction-stripping provisions intended to make it difficult or impossible to challenge individual immigration enforcement decisions outside the context of a petition to review a final order of removal in the Courts of Appeals.

Arguing “no jurisdiction/no review” in immigration cases is one thing that DOJ attorneys are very good at and, more often than not, successful.

Otherwise, Garland’s DOJ legal team has been less than stellar at defending changes meant to undo portions of the Trump regime’s misguided, often White Nationalist inspired, anti-immigrant agenda. Perhaps it’s time for the Biden Administration to “reshuffle the deck.” Maybe they should bring in some of the progressive litigation experts who succeeded in blocking some of the worst parts of the Trump-Miller assault on the rule of law and humanity to aggressively defend the job of restoring at least some modicum of due process, fundamental fairness, and rationality to the broken and reeling immigration enforcement system.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-11-22

Related posts:

  1. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  2. WE KNOW THAT SESSIONS, WHITAKER, & BARR HAVE TURNED THE DOJ INTO A LEGAL, MORAL, PROFESSIONAL, & ETHICAL CESSPOOL — Some Federal Judges Are Beginning To Take Notice: “To say the least, it is disappointing that [DOJ] counsel, after consulting with other counsel including ‘prosecutors and appellate attorneys’ in this District’s United States Attorney’s office, submitted a legal memorandum to the Court that failed to acknowledge contrary case law that did not support its position.”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. THE TRUTH IS OUT, THANKS TO MICHELLE MENDEZ @ CLINIC: Practice Pointers on Matter of Castillo-Perez & “Takeaways” From FOIA Trove On In Absentias!

JULIA EDWARDS AINSLEY @ NBC NEWS REPORTS ON ADMINISTRATION’S “SECRET” PLAN TO RELOCATE ASYLUM SEEKERS!

Julia Edwards Ainsley
Julia Edwards Ainsley
NBC News Correspondent

Here’s Julia’s video report from NBC Nightly News:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/biden-administration-plans-to-bus-migrants-to-shelters-deeper-in-the-u-s-141815877904

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

OBSERVATION: The Biden Administration has been in office for 17 months. During that time the could have established a realistic, robust refugee program, working with UNHCR and NGOs, to screen and process those waiting in Mexico.

Those who qualified would be admitted in legal status, with permanent work authorization, on their way to green cards and eventual citizenship. No CBP, no Asylum Office Backlogs, no backlogged Immigration Courts, no arbitrary, capricious, wildly inconsistent decisions from EOIR and the 5th Circuit, no expensive and inhumane detention, no ankle bracelets. Those legally admitted would also be eligible immediately for refugee resettlement assistance! America is something like 11 million workers “short” — the answer is staring us in the face! See, e.g., https://www.newsweek.com/us-hits-cap-temporary-work-visas-employers-seek-11-million-workers-1713948

Instead, we get secrecy, fumbling, bumbling, and more “
”gimmicks” guaranteed to stir up litigation and controversy without solving problems, facing reality, and harnessing the great power of human migration.

Also, why on earth would the Administration relocate migrants to Texas — a move guaranteed to generate more racist posturing and pushback from Abbott? Why not work with states, localities, NGOs, religious, and legal aid groups in many localities prepared to welcome immigrants and where their skills could be used in the job market?

It’s also worth noting that the so-called “record numbers” at the border often count the same person over and over — a phenomenon aggravated by arbitrary use of Title 42 to return many individuals without proper legal screening. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-09-22

Related posts:

  1. ICRC: “Migration is not going to stop. If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. 🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”
  4. CATHERINE @ WASHPOST “GETS IT!” — Why Are The Biden Administration & Some Dem Pols “Running Scared” From What Should Be A Big Win? — Many Of The Legal,Workers We Need Are Patiently Waiting @ The Border For Processing & Legal Admission — Dems Need To Stop “Shaking In Their Boots” & Start “Shaking Their Tails” To “Pre-Process” Refugees For An Orderly Restoration Of The Rule Of Law On May 23!

🏴‍☠️👎🏽 IDEOLOGICALLY SPLIT SUPREMES USE “NATIONAL SECURITY FICTION” TO FREE BORDER PATROL AGENTS FROM RESPONSIBILITY FOR VIOLATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS! — EGBERT v. BOULE 

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-147_g31h.pdf

Syllabus by Court staff:

EGBERT v. BOULE

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 21–147. Argued March 2, 2022—Decided June 8, 2022

Respondent Robert Boule owns a bed-and-breakfast—the Smuggler’s Inn—in Blaine, Washington. The inn abuts the international border between Canada and the United States. Boule at times helped federal agents identify and apprehend persons engaged in unlawful cross-bor- der activity on or near his property. But Boule also would provide transportation and lodging to illegal border crossers. Often, Boule would agree to help illegal border crossers enter or exit the United States, only to later call federal agents to report the unlawful activity.

In 2014, Boule informed petitioner Erik Egbert, a U. S. Border Pa- trol agent, that a Turkish national, arriving in Seattle by way of New York, had scheduled transportation to Smuggler’s Inn. When Agent Egbert observed one of Boule’s vehicles returning to the inn, he sus- pected that the Turkish national was a passenger and followed the ve- hicle to the inn. On Boule’s account, Boule asked Egbert to leave, but Egbert refused, became violent, and threw Boule first against the ve- hicle and then to the ground. Egbert then checked the immigration paperwork for Boule’s guest and left after finding everything in order. The Turkish guest unlawfully entered Canada later that evening.

Boule filed a grievance with Agent Egbert’s supervisors and an ad- ministrative claim with Border Patrol pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Egbert allegedly retaliated against Boule by re- porting Boule’s “SMUGLER” license plate to the Washington Depart- ment of Licensing for referencing illegal activity, and by contacting the Internal Revenue Service and prompting an audit of Boule’s tax re- turns. Boule’s FTCA claim was ultimately denied, and Border Patrol took no action against Egbert for his use of force or alleged acts of re- taliation. Boule then sued Egbert in Federal District Court, alleging a Fourth Amendment violation for excessive use of force and a First Amendment violation for unlawful retaliation. Invoking Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, Boule asked the Dis- trict Court to recognize a damages action for each alleged constitu- tional violation. The District Court declined to extend Bivens as re- quested, but the Court of Appeals reversed.

Held: Bivens does not extend to create causes of action for Boule’s Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim and First Amendment retaliation claim. Pp. 5–17.

(a) In Bivens, the Court held that it had authority to create a dam- ages action against federal agents for violating the plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights. Over the next decade, the Court also fashioned new causes of action under the Fifth Amendment, see Davis v. Pass- man, 442 U. S. 228, and the Eighth Amendment, see Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S. 14. Since then, however, the Court has come “to appreciate more fully the tension between” judicially created causes of action and “the Constitution’s separation of legislative and judicial power,” Her- nández v. Mesa, 589 U. S. ___, ___, and has declined 11 times to imply a similar cause of action for other alleged constitutional violations, see, e.g., Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U. S. 296; Bush v. Lucas, 462 U. S. 367. Rather than dispense with Bivens, the Court now emphasizes that rec- ognizing a Bivens cause of action is “a disfavored judicial activity.” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U. S. ___, ___.

The analysis of a proposed Bivens claim proceeds in two steps: A court asks first whether the case presents “a new Bivens context”—i.e., is it “meaningfully different from the three cases in which the Court has implied a damages action,” Ziglar, 582 U. S., at ___, and, second, even if so, do “special factors” indicate that the Judiciary is at least arguably less equipped than Congress to “weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action to proceed.” Id., at ___. This two-step inquiry often resolves to a single question: whether there is any reason to think that Congress might be better equipped to create a damages remedy. Further, under the Court’s precedents, a court may not fash- ion a Bivens remedy if Congress already has provided, or has author- ized the Executive to provide, “an alternative remedial structure.” Ziglar, 582 U. S., at ___. Pp. 5–8.

(b) The Court of Appeals conceded that Boule’s Fourth Amendment claim presented a new Bivens context, but its conclusion that there was no reason to hesitate before recognizing a cause of action against Agent Egbert was incorrect for two independent reasons. Pp. 9–13.

(1) First, the “risk of undermining border security provides reason to hesitate before extending Bivens into this field.” Hernández, 589 U. S., at ___. In Hernández, the Court declined to create a damages remedy for an excessive-force claim against a Border Patrol agent be- cause “regulating the conduct of agents at the border unquestionably has national security implications.” Id., at ___. That reasoning applies with full force here. The Court of Appeals disagreed because it viewed Boule’s Fourth Amendment claim as akin to a “conventional” exces- sive-force claim, as in Bivens, and less like the cross-border shooting in Hernández. But that does not bear on the relevant point: Permitting suit against a Border Patrol agent presents national security concerns that foreclose Bivens relief. Further, the Court of Appeals’ analysis betrays the pitfalls of applying the special-factors analysis at too gran- ular a level. A court should not inquire whether Bivens relief is appro- priate in light of the balance of circumstances in the “particular case.” United States v. Stanley, 483 U. S. 669, 683. Rather, it should ask “[m]ore broadly” whether there is any reason to think that “judicial intrusion” into a given field might be “harmful” or “inappropriate,” id., at 681. The proper inquiry here is whether a court is competent to authorize a damages action not just against Agent Egbert, but against Border Patrol agents generally. The answer is no. Pp. 9–12.

(2) Second, Congress has provided alternative remedies for ag- grieved parties in Boule’s position that independently foreclose a Bivens action here. By regulation, Border Patrol must investigate “[a]lleged violations” and accept grievances from “[a]ny persons.” 8 CFR §§287.10(a)–(b). Boule claims that this regulatory grievance pro- cedure was inadequate, but this Court has never held that a Bivens alternative must afford rights such as judicial review of an adverse determination. Bivens “is concerned solely with deterring the uncon- stitutional acts of individual officers.” Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U. S. 61, 71. And, regardless, the question whether a given remedy is adequate is a legislative determination. As in Her- nández, this Court has no warrant to doubt that the consideration of Boule’s grievance secured adequate deterrence and afforded Boule an alternative remedy. See 589 U. S., at ___. Pp. 12–13.

(c) There is no Bivens cause of action for Boule’s First Amendment retaliation claim. That claim presents a new Bivens context, and there are many reasons to think that Congress is better suited to authorize a damages remedy. Extending Bivens to alleged First Amendment vi- olations would pose an acute “risk that fear of personal monetary lia- bility and harassing litigation will unduly inhibit officials in the dis- charge of their duties.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U. S. 635, 638. In light of these costs, “Congress is in a better position to decide whether or not the public interest would be served” by imposing a damages ac- tion. Bush, 462 U. S., at 389. The Court of Appeals’ reasons for ex- tending Bivens in this context—that retaliation claims are “well-estab- lished” and that Boule alleges that Agent Egbert “was not carrying out official duties” when the retaliation occurred—lack merit. Also lacking merit is Boule’s claim that this Court identified a Bivens cause of ac- tion under allegedly similar circumstances in Passman. Even assum- ing factual parallels, Passman carries little weight because it predates the Court’s current approach to implied causes of action. A plaintiff cannot justify a Bivens extension based on “parallel circumstances” with Bivens, Passman, or Carlson—the three cases in which the Court has implied a damages action—unless the plaintiff also satisfies the prevailing “analytic framework” prescribed by the last four decades of intervening case law. Ziglar, 582 U. S., at ___–___. Pp. 13–16.

998 F. 3d 370, reversed.

THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. GORSUCH, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed an opinion con- curring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined.

KEY QUOTE FROM JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR’S CONCURRENCE DISSENT (joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan):

This Court’s precedents recognize that suits for damages play a critical role in deterring unconstitutional conduct by federal law enforcement officers and in ensuring that those whose constitutional rights have been violated receive meaningful redress. The Court’s decision today ignores our repeated recognition of the importance of Bivens actions, particularly in the Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure context, and closes the door to Bivens suits by many who will suffer serious constitutional violations at the hands of federal agents. I respectfully dissent from the Court’s treat- ment of Boule’s Fourth Amendment claim.

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

Thus, the Border Patrol is free to egregiously violate Constitutional rights of citizens and other “persons” in the U.S. without meaningful accountability. But, I suppose it’s what one might expect from a right-majority Court that generally views rights of corporations and guns as fundamental while treating most individual rights of persons in the U.S. as expendable.

As for Justice Thomas’s ludicrous suggestion that filing a complaint with the CBP hierarchy is a “remedy” for wrongdoing? That’s in the “sick joke” category as anyone who has actually tried to file such a complaint would know.  See, e.g., https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/aclu-asks-dhs-take-action-complaints-abuse-misconduct-u-s-n1259657. Clearly, Thomas and his colleagues live in a privileged “parallel universe” where they have never had to rely on the DHS’s internal bureaucracy for redress of Constitutional violations!

As cogently pointed out by Justice Sotomayor, the majority’s intentional misuse and mischaracterization of the “national security fiction” to immunize government conduct from meaningful review in a case that actually has little or nothing to do with national security or foreign relations should also be of grave concern to all of us. Right-wing judges’ propensity to use “fictions” and “pretexts” to mask their real intent and to arrive at preconceived results is a major exercise in intellectual dishonesty!

It also reinforces my observation that it is wrong to keep appointing Justices who lack personal experience with representing individuals within our broken, dysfunctional, and often lawless immigration bureaucracy, which currently includes the U.S. Immigration “Courts” at EOIR. In many professions and occupations, the “future movers and shakers” are required to “start at the retail level” — like the rest of us — so that they understand their “customers'” needs, wants, expectations, problems, and concerns. Why do we exempt our most powerful judges from this “basic training” in delivering justice to human beings at the “retail level” of our justice system?

While many folks are too blind to see it, the lack of informed judicial oversight of the Constitutional performance of DHS, DOJ, DHS, DOS, DOL and the rest of the often underperforming USG immigration bureaucracy undermines the Constitutional rights of everyone in America, including citizens! 

Life-tenured Federal Judges might act as if they are “immunized” and “above the fray” (also, to a disturbing extent, above the law and our Constitution, particularly where migrants are concerned). Meanwhile, it’s “the people’s rights” that are on the chopping block with an unprincipled “out of touch” far-right judiciary too often wielding the ax!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-09-22

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SCOFFLAWS’ LATEST PLOT AGINST ASYLUM SEEKERS SURE TO CAUSE INTERNATIONAL CHAOS & DRAW NEW LEGAL CHALLENGES – No Wonder These Immoral Cowards Have Such Fear Of Truly Independent Judges (Not To Be Confused With EOIR’s “Captive Judges”)
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. REGIME’S NEWEST SCHEME TO SCREW ASYLUM SEEKERS: BOGUS REGS THAT WOULD ILLEGALLY & UNNECESSARILY EXTEND THE GROUNDS OF “MANDATORY DENIAL,” DECREASE ADJUDICATOR DISCRETION, & SHAFT REFUGEE FAMILIES — Regime’s Outlandish “Efficiency Rationale” Fails to Mask Their Cruelty, Racism, Fraud, Waste, & Abuse – Julia Edwards Ainsley (NBC News) & Dean Kevin R. Johnson (ImmigrationProf Blog) Report

⚖️🗽📡BELOW THE RADAR SCREEN: Judge Javier Balasquide (MIA) Grants Honduran Family-Based PSG Asylum Case Represented By Attorney Ysabel Hernandez!

 

“Sir Jeffrey” Chase’s reaction:

Nice to see that with L-E-A- II vacated, family can be stated so matter-of-factly as a PSG even in the 11th Cir.

Here’s the decision:

Ysabel Hdz IJ redacted

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

Congrats to Ysabel Hernandez!

There are plenty of similar cases out there in the EOIR backlog and waiting at the border for the Administration to start following asylum law!(Others have been unlawfully and immorally returned to persecution without meaningful opportunities to present their claims.)

These types of cases could be identified, represented, and timely granted by a “better EOIR” led by a “better BIA.” These are the decisions that should be binding precedents. Practical, positive legal guidance shows how to “build on” gender-based and family-based asylum to grant more protection, encourage good preparation and presentation on both sides, rein in “never asylum judges,” and to clear dockets of cases of individuals who deserve to be on their way to green cards, citizenship, and full participation in our society.

A fair, consistent, timely application of asylum and refugee laws would establish that many of those wrongly characterized as “law violators” are, in fact, legal immigrants. And, that’s something our country needs!

What if the “powers that be” would “institutionalize” this type of judicial performance rather than the “denial factory/good enough for government work” culture that continues to operate widely at EOIR under Garland? Wouldn’t that be the type of “good government” that Biden and Harris promised, but have yet to deliver, particularly on immigration?

Personal note: Judge Balasquide was the widely respected ICE Chief Counsel in Arlington when I arrived at the Arlington Immigration Court in 2003. He was initially  appointed as a Immigration Judge in New York in July 2006 by then AG Alberto Gonzalez. I always enjoyed working with Judge Balasquide during my time in Arlington. (He actually appeared before me in court on a few occasions.)

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-0-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️JUDICIAL REVIEW — C.A. 2 — Brace Of Bad BIA Bobbles On Basics Brings “Culture Of Denial” Into Focus — Justice Will Continue To Be Illusive @ EOIR 👎🏽 Until Garland Steps Up & Replaces His Fatally Flawed BIA With Real Judges Who Are Progressive Practical Scholars In Immigration, Due Process, Human Rights, With A Firm Commitment To Bringing Racial & Gender Equity To Now-Disgraced Immigration Courts!🤮
  2. NDPA STALWART JASON “THE ASYLUMIST” DZUBOW 🌟 QUOTED IN AP ARTICLE ABOUT REPEAL OF A-B- & L-E-A-!
  3. 😎👍⚖️🗽👩🏻‍⚖️👨‍⚖️🇺🇸YES! — WOW! IN A HUGE VICTORY FOR DUE PROCESS & FUNDAMENTAL FAIRNESS, PANEL LED BY JUDGE STEPHANIE THACKER WITH 2 TRUMP APPOINTEES UNANIMOUSLY BLOWS AWAY BIA ON NEXUS TO A NUCLEAR FAMILY PSG FROM EL SALVADOR! — Arlington Superstar 🌟 Litigator Aaron Caruso With Big Win For Cause Of Justice! — Hernandez-Cartagena v, Barr! — “Kardashian Rule” & Other BIA/Billy The Bigot Nonsense Smashed!
  4. ☠️YET ANOTHER DEADLY,  ⚰️ RIDICULOUS 🤡 EOIR MELTDOWN 🤮 OUTED! — Conservative 5th Circuit Excoriates BIA & Immigration Judge For Litany Of Errors In 38-Page Smackdown — Another Wrongful Denial Of Asylum To Honduran Exhausts Patience Of Even Normally Pro-Gov. Circuit Court!

⚖️ THE GIBSON REPORT — 06-06-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, Managing Attorney, NIJC — Racist GOP Policies, Biased Judges Can’t Stem Refugee Flow; Surprise (Not): Foreign Corruption Hinders Biden/Harris Plan For Improving Conditions in “Sending” Countries; ICE PD Program Can’t Solve Garland’s Failure To Make Necessary, Progressive, Common-Sense Reforms @ His Hopelessly Backlogged & Disturbingly Dysfunctional EOIR, Among “Headliners!”

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

 

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Weekly Briefing

 

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

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • NEWS
  • LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • RESOURCES
  • EVENTS

 

NEWS

 

CBP Completes Expansion of Facial Recognition at All US Airports

CBP: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced today it has completed the expansion of biometric facial comparison technology at all international airports across the United States to further secure and streamline international travel. This innovation effort is a critical milestone for the biometric Entry/Exit program and complements biometric boarding, which is currently at select departure locations.

 

ICE Urged To Probe ‘Inadequate’ Detainee Mental Health Care

Law360: An advocacy group and a trio of formerly detained migrants asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights office on Thursday to investigate “system-wide abuses and deficiencies” in mental health care provided to those in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

 

Up to 15,000 may join largest ever migrant caravan to walk through Mexico to US

Guardian: The largest number of migrants in the caravan come from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – three countries whose authoritarian rulers Joe Biden has conspicuously refused to invite to the summit. But there are also Haitians, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and even citizens of India, Bangladesh, and several African countries.

 

Immigrants are suing the U.S. government over delays in citizenship process

NPR: We wanted to know more about what’s going on here, so we called Kate Melloy Goettel. She is the legal director of litigation at the American Immigration Council.

 

U.S. in talks with Spain, Canada about taking more refugees -sources

Reuters: The Biden administration is in talks with Spain and Canada about taking more Western Hemisphere refugees for resettlement, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, signaling possible commitments that could be announced at next week’s Summit of the Americas.

 

Analysis: Corruption in Central America frustrates U.S. plan to tackle migration ‘root causes’

Reuters: More than a year into U.S. President Joe Biden’s sweeping effort to tackle the “root causes” of migration with aid to Central America, projects likely worth millions of dollars have been canceled or put on hold due to corruption and governance concerns, U.S. officials and others tracking the issue said. See also Harris’ tough task addressing migration to the southern border not getting any easier one year later.

 

GOP lawsuit halts most migration from Mexico. Yet, desperate people continue to cross

NPR: People seeking asylum are still crossing and at least one shelter for them in Arizona is seeing record numbers. Seventy miles to the north of Nogales, the Casa Alitas Welcome Center in Tucson is taking in 375 people in a day, just a few days after the judge kept the closures in place at official southern ports of entry. See also How Asylum Seekers Cross the Border.

 

They Fled Danger for New York. When Will Their New Lives Start?

NYT: While countries like Germany and Canada have streamlined programs for asylum seekers and refugees — offering housing, food, work authorization and a monthly stipend to asylum seekers — the United States has strengthened enforcement at the border, while processing times for asylum applications have increased from weeks to months to years.

 

ICE Prosecution Revamp Unlikely To Clear Court Backlogs

Law360: Recent guidance instructing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to drop nonpriority cases has brought welcome relief to some migrants, but the new policy seems unlikely to put a significant dent in immigration court backlogs.

 

Consulates Don’t Trust DOL, DHS Visa Vetting, Cato Says

Law360: U.S. consulates deny a majority of employer-sponsored visas for individuals hoping to obtain green cards, pointing to a lack of trust by the U.S. Department of State in its counterparts at Homeland Security and Labor, according to libertarian think tank The Cato Institute.

 

Passage of Court Notification Bill

IDP: New York’s legislation follows the example of 15 other states that provide a remedy when notification is not given, which will help prevent unlawful deportation based on unfair and unknowing pleas.

 

These cell phones can’t make calls or access the internet. ICE is using them to track migrants

CNN: It’s not clear how many migrants have been loaned phones as part of the program. ICE hasn’t released that data in its regular public updates about the program, and the agency didn’t respond to CNN’s questions about it. But lawyers and advocates who work with migrants told CNN the government-issued phones — which can only be used with the SmartLINK app and can’t make calls or access the internet — are becoming increasingly common.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

CA5 on Unable/Unwilling to Protect

Justia: The Fifth Circuit denied Petitioner’s petition, citing the efforts of the Haitian government following the attacks against Petitioner. Based on the government’s response, Petitioner could not show that the Haitian government was unable or unwilling to protect him.

 

Unpub. CA5 Credibility Remand: Yahm v. Garland

LexisNexis: Because Yahm offered nontestimonial evidence of country conditions in Cameroon, the BIA erred by not considering it in the context of his CAT claim and instead treating Yahm’s lack of credibility as dispositive.

 

9th Circ. Upholds Class Cert. In ICE Forced Labor Suit

Law360: A Ninth Circuit panel on Friday upheld three class certifications in an action brought by immigrant detainees who said they were forced to work against their will and without adequate pay while in private U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-contracted detention facilities.

 

SPLC’s Right-To-Counsel Claim For Immigrants Is Tossed

Law360: A D.C. federal judge tossed the Southern Poverty Law Center’s claim that confinement conditions at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities impeded its clients’ access to attorneys, saying the issue arose from immigration removal proceedings the district court could not hear.

 

Demanding Civil Rights Investigation Into Inadequate Mental Health Care And Abusive Solitary Confinement Practices In ICE Detention

NIJC: The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) and three people previously detained at different U.S. immigrant detention centers filed a federal civil rights complaint today demanding a system-wide investigation into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failures to provide adequate mental health care for people in its custody and its abusive use of solitary confinement. Included with the complaint are declarations from three physicians with extensive experience working with individuals in ICE custody and documenting their conditions.

 

ACLU Says States Have Power Over Immigrant Detainee Pay

Law360: The federal government’s immigration powers don’t supersede a state’s power to enforce wage laws, the American Civil Liberties Union said when asking the Ninth Circuit to affirm that a private prison owes immigrant detainees $23.2 million in back pay.

 

J.O.P. v. DHS: and Call for Information

NIPNLG: J.O.P. class counsel encourages practitioners to reach out promptly if you represent a J.O.P. class member who: (1) is facing an upcoming asylum merits hearing in immigration court; (2) has a pending BIA appeal of an asylum merits denial in immigration court; or (3) has a pending petition for review of an EOIR asylum merits denial in a U.S. court of appeals. Please contact Wendy Wylegala (wwylegala@supportkind.org) and Michelle Mendez (michelle@nipnlg.org) if you have a client in one of these situations.

 

CBP Issues Guidance on Processing of Noncitizens Manifesting Fear of Expulsion Under Title 42

AILA: CBP issued a memo that clarifies previous guidance implementing the CDC Order to ensure that it is consistent with Huisha Huisha v. Mayorkas decision, which found that the government may expel family units but only to places where they are “not likely to be persecuted or tortured.” See also CBP Clarifies Guidance Regarding Expulsion of Family Units Under Title 42.

 

USCIS Updates Public Charge Resources Webpage

AILA: USCIS updated its public charge resources webpage. The updates clarify that relatively few noncitizens are both subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility and eligible for public benefits under the 1999 Interim Field Guidance. An updated question-and-answer section is also available.

 

USCIS Issues Guidance on Parole Requests in Response to the Shooting in Uvalde, Texas

AILA: Per USCIS, those seeking parole into the United States to attend a funeral or provide emergency assistance to a family member affected by the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, can request urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit parole by filing Form I-131.

 

DHS Announces Registration Process for Temporary Protected Status for Cameroon

USCIS: The Department of Homeland Security posted for public inspection a Federal Register notice on Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Cameroon.

 

RESOURCES

 

NIJC RESOURCES

 

GENERAL RESOURCES

 

EVENTS

NIJC EVENTS

 

GENERAL EVENTS

 

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

 

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

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

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

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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A key quote from the NPR report (Liz’s “Item 6” under “news”):

Shelter staff says what’s being left out of the bitter partisan immigration battles in Congress is the fact that so many people are fleeing dangerous situations right now, as violence and global instability has risen, especially in Latin America during the pandemic.

So, as more and more legitimate claims for protection arise abroad (completely contrary to nativist myths and also some of the Biden Administration’s blather), the U.S. continues to defy its own laws and international agreements, while using poor interpretations of law and “holdover” adjudicators to artificially “force down” asylum grants to dishonestly low levels. Meanwhile, refugee programs, which, if properly robust and competently administered, could alleviate both the need for journeys to the U.S. border and the danger that can involve, continue to languish — as if nobody in the Biden Administration has ever read the Refugee Act of 1980!  

At the same time, there are jobs in our economy that asylum seekers could fill that would help everyone. Talk about dumb policies driven by fear, hate, and resentment!

“Gimmicks,” mindless “deterrents,” and false “silver bullet solutions” don’t cut it! They just waste money, deprive our nation of credibility, destroy lives, and increase human suffering.

No surprise:  The Round Table, NAIJ, AILA, CGRS, HRF, HRW, ACLU, and many other experts have been “spot on” in their assessment of what it will take to restore order to the border, due process and fundamental fairness to the Immigration Courts (and also the failing Article III Federal Courts), and rational self-interest to immigration, human rights, and civil rights policies.

The GOP nativists and the Biden Administration — not so much. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-07-22 

Related posts:

  1. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  2. 🧑🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸WHO’S JUDGE IS IT ANYWAY? — The Crisis Of Independence In Our Immigration Courts! — Coming April 7, 2021! — Sponsored By The HNBA! — Don’t Miss It!
  3. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”
  4. 👍🏼⚖️🗽MAJORITY OF ASYLUM SEEKERS WIN THEIR CASES, EVEN IN A BROKEN & BIASED  SYSTEM INTENTIONALLY STACKED AGAINST THEM — But, Only, If They Can Get To A “Merits Adjudication!” — Nativist Lies, Myths, Driving USG Policies Exposed! — Why USCIS & EOIR Self-Created Backlogs Primarily Shaft Those Deserving Legal Protection Of Some Type!

⚖️🗽 HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST FILES PUBLIC COMMENTS POINTING OUT DUE PROCESS ERODING FLAWS IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S NEW ASYLUM REGULATIONS!

Mr. Magoo
Most experts view the Biden Administration’s approach to refugees, asylum, human rights, and racial justice in America as disturbingly short-sighted!
Mr. Magoo
PHOTO: Gord Webster
Creative Commons License

From Human Rights First, June 1, 2022:

 

Human Rights First yesterday submitted a public comment on the Biden administration’s Interim Final Rule that creates a new process for adjudication of some asylum claims.

 

Under the rule, asylum seekers who are placed in the expedited removal process and who establish a credible fear of persecution may be assessed in an initial full asylum interview with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Cases not granted by the Asylum Office will be referred to immigration court removal proceedings, as will other asylum cases that are not granted by the Asylum Office.
Courtesy Getty
Asylum seekers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the US-

Mexico border near Yuma, Arizona.
While Human Rights First welcomes some aspects of the rule, we expressed our concern about unreasonably fast deadlines that would sacrifice fairness, thwart efficiency, and exacerbate backlogs.  We also oppose provisions that threaten asylum seekers’ right to a full and fair hearing on their asylum claims.

 

The rule guts a crucial safeguard in the credible fear process:  it provides that the new asylum process will be conducted after subjecting asylum seekers to the fundamentally flawed expedited removal process, which has been shown to return refugees to persecution and death.

 

In our public comment on the rule and a factsheet on its concerning provisions, we have recommended changes to help asylum seekers receive timely, fair, and accurate adjudications.

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

The full HRF comment is available at the above link!

As with most Government immigration/civil/human rights programs, a large part of the problem is WHO is making these decisions, WHO is setting precedents, and WHO is overseeing the process and enforcing accountability.

  • The Biden Administration is still operating EOIR and large portions of the immigration bureaucracy at DHS with Trump-era “holdovers” who were improperly “programmed to deny” asylum.
  • There is a dearth of positive precedents from the BIA on gender-based asylum and other types of common asylum applications at the border that are routinely and wrongfully mishandled and denied.
  • There are cosmic problems resulting from failure to provide qualified representation of asylum seekers at the border.
  • Detention continues to be misused as a “deterrent” to legal claims and “punishment” for asserting  them. 
  • Despite “touting” a much larger refugee admissions program beyond the border, the Administration has failed to deliver a robust, realistic, refugee admissions program for Latin America and the Caribbean which would take pressure off the border. 
  • Racism and White Nationalism continue to drive the Administration’s dramatically inconsistent approach to White refugees from Ukraine compared with refugees of color at the Southern Border.

In plain terms, because of what the Biden Administration hasn’t done over the past 17 months, the new asylum regulations are “programmed for failure.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-06-22

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻IN NYT OP-ED, FORMER TRUMP DOJ ATTORNEY ERICA NEWLAND ADMITS COMPLICITY! — Having Undermined Democratic Institutions, Sold False Narratives To (Too Often Willing) Federal Judges, & Participated In Racist-Inspired “Dred Scottification” (“Dehumanization”) Of the Other Is Actually a BIG Deal! — So Is The Destruction Of Due Process & Fundamental Fairness In The Immigration Courts (Now, “Clown Courts”🤡, or “America’s Star Chambers”☠️) 
  4. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!

🗽🧑🏻‍⚖️ BIA APPELLATE JUDGES LIEBOWITZ, BROWN, MANUEL WITH STRONG REVERSAL OF HIGH-DENYING IJ IN FIFTH — Nexis, PSG — Roberto Blum Reports!  — “This makes the need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament even more urgent,” Says Says Brooklyn Law Associate Dean Stacey Caplow!

 

Roberto writes:

Hello Judge,

Here’s another remand you might like to read. This time it was Nexus and PSG with IJ Monique Harris (previously in Houston). According to TRAC she has a 96.5 asylum denial rate. The prior remand I shared was IJ Khan who is at 97% denial rate. Clearly these IJs are getting a lot of “matter of life and death” decisions wrong. As you say, haste makes waste. This case (like the previous one) should have been easy grants with all of the supporting documents that were included. I appeared at the individual hearing and my colleague Bryan Russell Terhune (from the same office) worked on the BIA Brief.

P.S. you can see this news article:  https://sv.usembassy.gov/court-inaugurated-memory-pnc-agent/ ,  from our own U.S. Embassy in El Salvador where they inaugurated an athletic court in the Usulutan Police Delegation, named after the PNC officer Nelson Panameño, who was killed. Panameño was one of the instructors from the Gang Resistance Education and Training Program (GREAT) which my client closely worked with for many years helping him and the PNC gain trust with the community and local youth. This was part of the record, plus a lot more evidence showing this specific connection and the specific and imminent warnings that Panameno gave to my client before his own murder. This was just one of the many great things this client did in El Salvador to try and make his country a better place. We are lucky to have him and his family in this country now.

Best,

DPF!

RB 

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Here’s the panel decision:

BIA APPEAL REMAND (Redacted)

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

Thanks, Roberto.

As Roberto says:

This was just one of the many great things this client did in El Salvador to try and make his country a better place. We are lucky to have him and his family in this country now.

That this respondent is here to contribute to our country is due to Roberto and his colleagues in the Law Office of Juan Reyes, Houston, and to this particular panel of BIA Appellate Judges. But it is “no thanks” to the IJ who got this case egregiously wrong below!

Nor, is it thanks to an Attorney General who has allowed injustice, bad judgment, and poor quality decision-making to flourish at the “retail level” of his wholly-owned “court” system. What about the many folks who don’t have Roberto or someone like him for a lawyer or who get members of the “BIA asylum deniers club” appointed under Trump to “pack the BIA for an anti-asylum agenda” instead of this panel of conscientious appellate judges?

I note that Judge Elise Manuel and Judge Denise Brown are currently denominated “Temporary” Appellate Judges. At least in this case, along with Judge Ellen Liebowitz, they “got it” at a level at odds with the work of too many of their so-called “permanent” colleagues. Why has Garland allowed this obviously problematic situation to continue to fester with human lives at stake?

Judge Ellen Liebowitz’s compact, cogent, powerful opinion is a terrific “mini-primer” on how PSG and “one central reason” nexus cases properly should be decided! As Judge Liebowitz demonstrates, you don’t have to write a lot to say a lot. You just have to know what you’re doing!

The gross, fundamental errors in the application of basic statutory terms by the IJ below in this case are, unfortunately, repeated on a regular basis by many of her colleagues across America who are improperly “programmed to deny” clearly grantable asylum cases.

It belies the bogus claim that EOIR is an “expert subject matter tribunal!” That expertise is, at least in part, what the questionable doctrines of “Chevron deference” and “Brand X abdication” by the Supremes rest upon. Shouldn’t it make a difference that in EOIR’s case, it’s a lie?

Why is Garland allowing this to happen when it could be remedied? Make this case a precedent and start removing, retraining, or reassigning so-called “judges” who don’t follow it and who continue to disregard the law and the rights of asylum seekers! 

Why isn’t this case a precedent? Why is an IJ who is so clearly unqualified to decide asylum cases still on the Immigration Bench under Garland? Why aren’t cases like this being used to end the “asylum free zone” improperly established by some Houston IJs?

These are the “tough questions” that Garland should have addressed. Why hasn’t he? Why is “refugee roulette” still plaguing EOIR and American justice — 15 years after the problem was first “outed” by my Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Schrag, Schoenholtz, and Ramji-Nogales? How is this “good government,” or even “minimally competent government?”

When compelling, well-documented cases like this are turned down at the trial level, something clearly is rotten in the system! Make no mistake about it, lack of expertise, bad judicial attitudes, widespread anti-asylum bias, counterproductive “haste makes waste gimmicks,” and way, way too many denials are significant “drivers” of the backlog that continues to mushroom under Garland.

The arbitrary and often grotesquely unfair, unprofessional, and results-driven state of “justice” in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts was recently highlighted by Brooklyn Law Associate Dean Stacey Caplow in her lament about the Supremes’ abdication of responsibility in Patel v Garland.

Stacy Caplow
Stacy Caplow
Associate Dean of Experiential Education & Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law
PHOTO: Brooklyn Law website

As Dean Caplow cogently points out:

Patel shuts the door firmly and unequivocally, preventing independent review of fact-finding by Immigration Judges, however irrational and indefensible once the Board of Immigration Appeals has affirmed. This makes the need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament even more urgent. Perhaps this case will provide new impetus for reform such as Real Courts, Rule of Law Act of 2022 voted by the House Judiciary Committee in May just days before the Supreme Court’s decision.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/the-pathos-of-patel-v-garland

While an independent, subject matter expert Article I Immigration Court is the obvious answer, unfortunately, it’s not immediately on the horizon. Meanwhile, the innocent and vulnerable continue to suffer daily injustices, sometimes gratuitous humiliation or dehumanization, in Garland’s broken system. It DOESN’T have to be this way!

As Dean Caplow says, we “need to populate the Immigration Court bench with independent, highly qualified, experienced, non-political unbiased individuals with appropriate temperament.” It’s not “rocket science” 🚀— just intellectual excellence, courage, and a fair-minded approach to justice!

There are literally hundreds of extraordinarily well-qualified individuals out there in the private sector who could outperform the IJ in this case in every critical aspect of the job! Why hasn’t Garland actively recruited them for his courts? Why isn’t his system functioning correctly “on the retail level?”

Garland has the authority to take the bold action necessary to redirect, refocus, and re-populate his current parody of a court system to laser-focus on due process, fundamental fairness, judicial expertise in immigration and human rights, and efficiency (without sacrificing due process or decisional excellence). All of us who care about the future of American justice should be asking why he isn’t doing his job!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-31-22

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️
  4. 🏴‍☠️BIA CONTINUES TO SPEW FORTH ERRORS IN LIFE OR DEATH ☠️ ASYLUM CASES, SAYS 4TH CIR. — “Three-In-One” — Improperly Disregarding Corroborating Evidence; Incorrect Legal Standard On Past Persecution; Wrong Nexus Finding! — Arita-Deras v. Wilkinson

🗽”My heart is full! My heart is full.” ❤️ — GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC SAVES ANOTHER LIFE!😎

GW Law Immigration Clinic Director Professor Alberto Benítez & Co-Director Paulina Vera

Please join me and Professor Vera in congratulating Immigration Clinic client, R-A-, from Nigeria, and his student-attorneys, Olivia Russo, LinLin Teng, Kennady Peek, Lea Aoun, and Megan Elman. The client’s asylum application was filed on December 3, 2018, his interview at the Asylum Office was on September 3, 2021, and he was granted asylum on May 18, 2022. We received the approval notice yesterday. The above-captioned is what R-A- said upon learning about his asylum grant.

R-A- is a gay man and LGTBQ+ activist. Throughout his entire life, R-A- experienced bullying and threats and had to keep his dating life a secret. However, things got even worse for him once he started an LGTBQ+ online magazine that received international attention. His family disowned him. A former classmate also set him up and he was physically beaten, sexually assaulted, called derogatory names, blackmailed, and outed. Since coming to the U.S., R-A- has continued to work on his online publication and volunteer for other LGBTQ+ initiatives. He hopes to one day attend law school in the U.S.

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

(202) 994-7463

(202) 994-4946 fax

abenitez@law.gwu.edu

THE WORLD IS YOURS…

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Thanks for the update and for all you and your student attorneys do for American justice! Once again this shows the effect of expert representation of asylum seekers and the critical importance of winning cases at the first possible level, in this case the USCIS Asylum Office. Who knows what might have happened if this had been sent over to the “EOIR roulette wheel,” where life or death justice for immigrants has become a “high-stakes game of chance?” 🎰

Incredibly, three years ago, during the depths of the Trump regime, EOIR Executives actually misdirected agency resources into assembling bogus claims and misinformation intended to minimize and downplay the importance of representation in Immigration Court as well as to cover up the gross violations of due process that had become routine at EOIR. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/13/multiple-organizations-call-bs-on-eoirs-lie-sheet-no-legitimate-court-would-make-such-a-vicious-unprovoked-disingenuous-attac/

Perhaps even more remarkably, most of the folks who participated in that “intentional misdirection” remain on the agency payroll under Garland, a number in their same positions.

The lack of an Attorney General who “gets it” (apparently a staple of Dem Administrations) and who is willing to clean house and make the necessary aggressive progressive reforms to restore due process at EOIR and throughout the Immigration bureaucracy is yet another reason why the work of clinics and other battalions of the NDPA remains so critical!  With a Government whose contempt for Due Process is amply illustrated by foot-dragging on Title 42 revocation, bogus, justice-denying “Dedicated Dockets,” and an appellate body that cuts corners while eschewing positive asylum guidance that would save lives, advocates for respondents are the only folks seriously interested in carrying out our Constitution and insuring that the rule of law is honored.

If that sounds like an indictment of Garland’s “leadership” on human rights, racial justice, and immigrant justice, that’s because it is!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-30-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. 🏴‍☠️THE PROBLEM @ THE BORDER ISN’T THAT BIDEN HAS  SOFTENED TRUMP’S RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW RHETORIC! — IT’S THAT BIDEN, GARLAND, & MAYORKAS HAVE FAILED TO RESTORE A ROBUST ASYLUM SYSTEM AT LEGAL PORTS OF ENTRY, STAFFED WITH EXPERT ASYLUM OFFICERS & QUALIFIED IMMIGRATION JUDGES WHO WILL GRANT ASYLUM TO THOSE QUALIFIED, END IDIOTIC TRUMP-ERA MISINTERPRETATIONS & MIS-APPLICATIONS OF ASYLUM LAW, AND ARE DEDICATED TO DUE PROCESS FOR ALL! — Administration’s  Misguided “Trump Lite” Approach Continues To Create Human Misery,☠️⚰️ Trash The Law, 🤮 Without Addressing The Real Problems Generated By Years Of “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡🆘 In U.S. Asylum & Refugee Policies!  — Jack Herrera Reports From The Border For Politico!

☠️👎🏽DEM’S CATASTROPHIC DUE PROCESS FAILURE:  AS PREDICTED, GARLAND’S “DEDICATED DOCKETS” ARE “ASYLUM FREE ZONES” TARGETING CHILDREN!🤮

“Floaters”
Garland’s vision of “justice” for refugee children appears to be little different from that of Stephen Miller and his White Nationalist predecessors at DOJ!
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Cindy Carcamo
Cindy Carcamo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times

Cindy Carcamo reports for the LA Times: 

BY CINDY CARCAMO STAFF WRITER

MAY 25, 2022 11:56 AM PT

After drug traffickers killed his little brother, William and his 6-year-old son, Santiago, fled Colombia last September to seek asylum in the United States.

Unbeknownst to William, who ended up in Los Angeles with a friend, he and his son immediately became part of a cohort of thousands of families in a “dedicated docket” program that the Biden administration established in 11 cities, including Los Angeles, in May 2021.

In response to a sudden rise of apprehensions last spring of families and children at the Southwest border, Biden promised the accelerated docket would resolve cases “more expeditiously and fairly.” These sorts of programs have existed in various forms under previous administrations; Biden’s program pushes immigration judges to resolve cases in 300 days, significantly shorter than the 4.5-year average of asylum cases in immigration court.

But according to a new Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law report, the docket’s fast-track timeline has imposed new hardships on many asylum seekers and created additional obstacles that ultimately lead to higher rates of deportation orders, sometimes based on legal technicalities.

For William — who didn’t want his last name published, fearing reprisal against his family still living in Colombia — the docket’s expeditious nature meant he had only six weeks to secure legal representation before his first court hearing, leaving him to navigate a complex and often confusing system without an attorney. Immigration officials provided him with documents heavy with legal jargon in English. He could read only in Spanish.

In addition, those on the docket are released with “alternatives to detention,” which means they are monitored, either with an ankle bracelet or via a phone application. Immigration officials shackled William with a GPS monitor on his ankle before releasing him and his son.

Ultimately, an immigration judge ordered William and his 6-year-old to be deported in “absentia” when they didn’t show up for their court hearing at U.S. Immigration Court in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, at the time the judge gave the order, William was in the building, but was three floors below the courtroom in a waiting area at the direction of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. By the time William was told he was in the wrong place, the judge had already ordered the father and son’s removal from the U.S.

In Los Angeles, an estimated 99% of the 449 cases completed on the dedicated docket as of February of this year resulted in removal orders and about 72% of those cases were issued to people who missed their court hearing — “in absentia” — according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy and Immigrants’ Rights Policy Clinic at UCLA School of Law

Perhaps most striking, the report shows that almost half of those in absentia removal orders are for children, many 6 and younger.

In addition, court data analyzed in the report show that an estimated 70% of people on this particular docket don’t have legal counsel. In contrast, an estimated 33% of those on the Los Angeles court’s non-accelerated docket lack legal counsel.

The nature of the accelerated dockets made it nearly impossible for asylum-seekers to get a fair hearing, the report’s authors concluded. The high absentia rate, the report concluded, is a red flag that the dedicated docket isn’t working as it should.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Cindy’s totally disturbing article at the link!

Sadly, this news will come as no surprise to readers of “Courtside.” Having watched these types of  efforts to co-opt the Immigration Courts as a vehicle of unfair, racially motivated “deterrence” and “enforcement,” I could see that this program was going to be an unmitigated disaster at EOIR, given Garland’s failure to install progressive judicial leadership and human rights and due process expertise into the broken and biased system he inherited from Sessions and Barr.

The NDPA is going to have to “dig in” and fight Garland and Mayorkas every step of the way, at every level of the system, to save as many lives as possible from their disgraceful continuation of a “Miller Lite” White Nationalist, anti-immigrant program of abusing and dehumanizing asylum seekers — most individuals of color and many of them children or other “vulnerable individuals.” 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever! Garland’s dysfunctional, biased, leaderless, soul-less, ethically challenged EOIR, never!

PWS

05-26-22

Related posts:

  1. 🤮👎🏽WASHPOST SLAMS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR ABANDONING NEGOTIATIONS WITH FAMILIES WHO SUFFERED CHILD ABUSE BY SESSIONS & MILLER! — “Having condemned a policy that traumatized children and their parents, Mr. Biden now leads an administration fighting in court to deny recompense to those same families.”
  2. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. 🤮👎🏽ULTIMATE HIPOCRACY: EVEN AS AMERICA FINALLY CELEBRATES JUNETEENTH HOLIDAY, DRED SCOTT & INSTITUTIONALIZED RACIST DEHUMANIZATION REMAIN REALITIES FOR BLACKS & OTHER MIGRANTS OF COLOR AT EOIR & DHS — Imprisonment Without Trial, Bogus Bonds, Mistreatment In The New American Gulag, Jim Crow “Courts,” No Rule Of Law,  Still Realities For Those Of Color Exercising Legal Rights In Broken System!

🤮WHITE REPLACEMENT THEORY (“WRT”) IS SIMPLY FASCISM “REBRANDED!” — “In terms of propaganda, it is a rebranding of the same thing, namely longstanding fascist paranoias and lies about invasion and racial and political replacement.” 

 

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=34dc9d2d-a5e6-4795-a504-e742e1148d06

Jason Stanley and Fredrico Finchelstein write in the LA Times:

. . . .

Democracy is essentially a system based around two values — freedom and equality. Fascists promoted the idea of replacement as a way of arguing that democracy and its ideals were incompatible with the nation. The very first chapter of Grant’s book is “Race and Democracy,” in which he contends that democracy is a threat to Nordic supremacy, because democracy leads inevitably to greater immigration and equality between races.

In fascist ideology, true national consciousness is pitted against domestic “enemies,” who are against national forms that are racially, ethnically or religiously homogeneous. These domestic “enemies” are invariably institutions and individuals who champion democracy and its ideals.

The Indian nationalist ideologue M.S. Golwalkar, the ideological founding father of BJP, the right-wing Hindu party of Narendra Modi, argued against the idea that a nation was composed of all of its inhabitants and rejected the idea that every citizen of India had equal rights to freedom. Like Grant, Golwalkar regarded democratic ideals as a clear threat to his vision of the nation.

If enemies are people who either look, think or behave differently, and if their mere existence poses a threat to the imagined homogeneity of the nation, it is not surprising that the most radicalized believer would carry out mass murders, as has happened in the U.S., Europe and New Zealand, and pogroms as in India.

And, of course, we see it in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ideas of replacement are central to Russian extremist, nationalist, antisemitic and fascist traditions. They motivate the nature of its attack in Ukraine, such as wiping out Ukrainian identity culturally and physically. Vladimir Putin also considers liberal democracy as an existential threat to Russian cultural greatness, and by extension, to the Russian nation.

The link between WRT and fascism is not accidental. WRT is a relatively recent label for old fascism. In terms of propaganda, it is a rebranding of the same thing, namely longstanding fascist paranoias and lies about invasion and racial and political replacement. WRT’s logic justifies mass violence. When it is normalized, it poses an existential threat to democracy and its ideals. It targets the very idea of common humanity that underlies them.

Jason Stanley is a professor of philosophy at Yale University. His most recent book is “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.”Federico Finchelstein is a professor of history at the New School. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Fascist Mythologies.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

“Targeting the idea of common humanity” is central to today’s far-right political activism — from legislatures to the courts.

As I have frequently pointed out, anti-immigrant myths and fear mongering are the “heart and soul” of modern White Nationalist fascism.

Trump’s degrading of migrants from Haiti and Africa and his wish for more Norwegian immigrants is a classic example of the “myth of Nordic supremacy” that is a staple of some fascist movements. See, e.g., https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946.

That’s why Dems failure to take strong pro-immigrants’-rights actions and to aggressively undue the nativist anti-immigrant agenda of the Trump regime is so problematic and short-sighted!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-26-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. 🏴‍☠️🤮👎🏻⚰️☠️BIDEN, HARRIS, GARLAND, MAYORKAS CONTINUE THE ILLEGAL, RACIST TRUMP/MILLER ANTI-ASLUM POLICIES @ THE BORDER — It Must Stop, Say Advocates! —  “The policy has disproportionately affected Black migrants, who are often Haitian.”
  4. CRIME BLOTTER: CHILD ABUSE🤮☠️⚰️🦹🏿‍♀️: DOJ IG REPORT CONFIRMS WHAT COURTSIDE & OTHERS KNEW FROM THE START: Trump, Sessions, Miller, Rosenstein, Hamilton Are Cowards🐓, Lying 🤥 Criminals, Child Abusers🦹🏿‍♀️, Who Belong Behind Bars For Intentionally Abusing Asylum Seeking Families & Kids & Then Having Their Sleazy DOJ Lawyers Lie To Federal Judges! — What Happened To “Due Diligence” As An Ethical Requirement For Government Lawyers?

🗽⚖️🇺🇸UYGHUR ACTIVIST SAVED BY GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC!  

GW Law Immigration Clinic Director Professor Alberto Benítez & Co-Director Paulina Vera

Please join me and Professor Vera in congratulating Immigration Clinic client, T-Y-, from China, and his student-attorneys, Gisela Camba, Esder Chong, Jordan Nelson, Tessa Pulaski, and Julia Yang. The client’s asylum application was filed on April 6, 2018, his interview at the Asylum Office was on November 8, 2021, and he was granted asylum on May 17, 2022. We received the decision today. The above-captioned is what T-Y- said upon learning about his asylum grant.

T-Y- is a Muslim Uyghur, an ethnic and religious minority in China. Due to his decades-long work as an Uyghur activist, he was persecuted by the Chinese government. T-Y- was falsely imprisoned, sentenced to a ‘re-education camp’, physically and psychologically tortured, and had his movements restricted and monitored. Despite everything he has endured, T-Y- continues his Uyghur advocacy work from within the United States and has even consulted with U.S. politicians and government agencies about the treatment of Uyghurs in China.

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Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

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Congratulations! Another job REALLY well done by Professors Benitez and Vera and their band of NDPA recruits at GW Law.

As Jason “The Asylumist” Dzubow says, lots of winnable cases out there if folks can get well-qualified representation and actually reach a merits determination before the Asylum Office or EOIR — no mean feat in such a backlogged system!

That raises the point of why wouldn’t a clearly well-prepared and grantable Uyghur case like this one be moved to the “front of the line” for expedited processing instead of sitting around for more than four years?

For years, both USCIS and EOIR have been “expediting” the wrong cases (known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”) in an ill-advised and failed attempt to use the legal asylum system as a “deterrent” by maximizing and prioritizing “anticipated denials.” Instead, they should be putting protection and excellence in preparation and advocacy first. It would actually free up more representation resources if advocates weren’t forced to “babysit” “ready for prime time” cases for years! 

During that time, records must be constantly updated, memories fade, and witnesses can become unavailable. Attorneys on both sides move on. Judges retire. There are all sorts of “below the radar screen” costs to creating and maintaining a huge backlog. Unfortunately, it promotes the “refugee roulette” image of what is supposed to be a fair, expert, timely system (but isn’t).

In addition, many of the “haste makes waste” attempts to cut corners by prejudging and denying certain cases, or creating “defective in absentias” end up being reopened or remanded because of sloppy, substandard work.  

What is the Government’s “vision” of how this system can be made to work in a fair and timely manner for all concerned?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-25-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🗽COURT REFORM: GW IMMIGRATION CLINIC STUDENTS WEIGH IN ON ARTICLE I — Emphasize Critical Due Process Need To Entirely Remove AG From Decision-Making Process!
  2. 🏴‍☠️👎🏽🤮 AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING (“ADR”) ON STEROIDS! — EOIR Dysfunction Shows What Happens When “Captive Court System” Kowtows To Political Handlers Rather Than Serving The Public! — Jason Dzubow, The Asylumist, Reports!
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. ⚖️👩🏽‍⚖️ MORE NDPA CLE: Ellsberg, Harris, Schmidt, Among Headliners @ Inaugural Fourth Circuit Asylum Law Conference @ William & Mary Law on March 11!