"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Beneath the disingenuous legal blather of the 5th Circuit’s tone-deaf judges, this is the sentence that they are pronouncing on the world’s most vulnerable, without any due process or concern for human dignity. 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)
Here’s the decision denying the Administration’s request for stay in Texas v. Biden:
Although this was only a stay application, the tone of the decision left little doubt about the court’s Trumpist ideology and intention to block rational humanitarian human rights initiatives by the Administration. Not surprisingly, the 3-judge panel was all GOP appointees — two Trump, one Bush II
I wouldn’t expect any help from the Supremes. So, we’ll see whether right wing Federal Judges and GOP AGs can conduct a war on human rights and communities of color by taking over the immigration enforcement apparatus and re-instating Trump’s racist policies.
The Administration is not entirely blameless here. The extreme problems with MPP, including how it caused needless deaths, torture, kidnapping, extortion, rape, and other grotesque mistreatment for those returned, were well-documented going into the 2020 election. Indeed, Biden and Harris campaigned on a promise to reverse them!
Yet, not having a viable plan for restoring the legal asylum system and dealing humanely with new border arrivals “ready for prime time” by inauguration, and still not really having one, is problematic. Although some have “touted” the just-released asylum NPR as the “solution,” that system is not, by any stretch of the imagination, “ready for prime time” either, given the disastrous operational, personnel, “cultural, and “quality control” issues at both the Asylum Offices and EOIR, which could and should have been addressed before now and which could actually become worse if the NPR goes into effect without major internal and leadership changes at these dysfunctional agencies.
Moreover, it appears that DOJ Attorneys did a substandard job of documenting the many problems, adverse effects, and operational issues with MPP and the injustices and abuses it inflicted upon legal asylum seekers.
As opposed to the rather contrived interests of the states in furthering oppression, endorsed by the Fifth Circuit, the human interests of those seeking asylum under what was supposed to be a fair and functional legal system have fallen off the radar screen. The law still says that any individual arriving at the border, regardless of status, has a right to apply for asylum. That right, as well as the humanity of refugees and the legal and moral obligations of our nation, has been entirely abrogated by the Fifth Circuit.
In a well-functioning democracy, Congress could reform the law, bring the righty judges back under control, and restore Constitutional protections and human and civil rights, But, that would probably take a party different from today’s Dems. And, of course, with the support of the Supremes, the GOP is working furiously to suppress minority votes and insure GOP minority rule stretches long into the future.
A federal judge delivered another setback to the Biden administration’s immigration agenda on Thursday, blocking a set of rules that limited who deportation agents should detain and deport from the country.
U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton prohibited federal officials from enforcing two directives that instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to focus on arresting recent border-crossers, as well as immigrants deemed to threaten public safety or national security.
Under the new so-called “enforcement priorities,” ICE agents were required to obtain supervisory approval before arresting immigrants living in the U.S. without legal permission who did not fall within the three specified categories.
The memos issued in January and February are part of a broader Biden administration initiative to reshape ICE operations in the interior.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link. The case, quite aptly, is called Texas v. US!
One would like to think that this would be a “no-brainer” stay and reverse from the 5th or the Supremes. But, given the stocking of the Federal Courts by Trump & McConnell with right-wing extremist judges who have little concern with most individual Constitutional rights and who pride themselves on indifference to racism and unequal justice, I wouldn’t count on it.
However, if this outrageously wrong order stands, I would be interested to see how Tipton and his White Nationalist cabal that includes GOP reactionary AGs in Texas and Louisiana plan to micromanage DHS. Also, I figure that as the grotesque DHS abuses predictably mount, the NDPA will win some major cases from better Federal Judges in other jurisdictions that will force a showdown with Tipton and his motley crew of righty extremists.
Too bad we no longer have a functioning Congress willing to revise the immigration laws in a way that actually incorporates reality and advances our national interests.
Better Federal Judges for a better, fairer America!
Honorable Joan Churchill Retired U.S. Immigration Judge Member Round Table of Retired JudgesHonorable Mimi Tsankov U.S. Immigration Judge President, National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)
In an interview with ABC News, Mr. Biden himself for the first time hinted at flexibility on the deadline, “if there are American citizens left.” That won’t be enough: This country’s moral responsibilities begin, but do not end, with U.S. citizens. On Tuesday, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) received and forwarded to Secretary of State Antony Blinken an appeal from the National Association of Women Judges on behalf of 250 Afghan women judges, trained by Americans and other Western countries, some of whom sentenced Taliban fighters to prison for murder or other crimes. These criminals have just been released by the Taliban. The judges have thus joined the ranks of the fearful. This country must make time for all of them.
NAWJ is the U.S. Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges, an organization which NAWJ founded, developed and helped grow. NAWJ joins the IAWJ in expressing our grave fears for the basic human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan as the Taliban advance and take control of large parts of the country. In particular, the women judges have disclosed that because they have followed their country’s laws, conducted trials, and administered sentences to the guilty, many of whom are members of the Taliban, they will soon be targeted for assassination. The AWJA judges have served in criminal, anti-corruption and narcotics courts, developed in conjunction with the United States over many years. Through their efforts, they have implemented rule of law and anti-corruption principles which are central to the mission statements of NAWJ and IAWJ.
At a virtual meeting of the AWJA last month, at which a number of NAWJ members were present, the Afghan judges spoke about the dangerous and difficult conditions in which they live and work. Some judges have lost their lives in terrorist attacks and several of the judges present had received death threats. Some have already been forced to flee their posts in the provinces with their families because it was too dangerous to remain. Their fears are not theoretical. In January, two women judges traveling to their jobs at the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, were murdered in the street. Now, the prisons housing convicted terrorists have been opened, and sentenced prisoners are contacting their judges threatening reprisals and revenge.
As a chapter of the IAWJ, an organization comprised of over 6500 women judges from more than 100 countries and territories worldwide, NAWJ wants to draw particular attention to the situation of Afghan women judges, given the special role they have played in upholding the rule of law and human rights for all, and the particular dangers they face as a result. We honor their commitment and their courage. Today, some 250 women serve as judges there.
Today, it is reported that the Afghan government has collapsed. The President of Afghanistan has fled the country. The United States Department of State is currently prioritizing visas for employees of the United States, including interpreters, as the United States reaches its date for final withdrawal from Afghanistan. NAWJ urges the Department of State to include the Afghan women judges and their families, who are in such a desperate and precarious position, in facilitating travel and processing visas in the same manner that special measures are being extended to interpreters, journalists and other personnel who provided essential service to the foreign military forces in Afghanistan. NAWJ urges our government to consider the fate of the women judges. By serving as judges and helping develop the Afghan judicial branch, women judges have helped establish the rule of law in their country, an essential pillar of a democratic state. Allowing them to be at the mercy of the Taliban and insurgent groups, given what they have sacrificed and contributed working side by side with the United States would be tragic indeed.
Hon. Karen Donohue
President, NAWJ
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Thanks to my friends and long-time colleagues Judge Churchill and Judge Tsankov for standing up and speaking out. I understand from them that Senior DC Court of Appeals Judge Vanessa Ruiz (also a past President of the NAWJ) was also instrumental in this effort.
Honorable Vanessa Ruiz Senior Judge, DC Court of Appeals PHOTO: Wikipedia
Also, many thanks to Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) for sending this to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory or shown much moral or intellectual courage in standing up for the rights and lives of refugees and energizing the bureaucracy to save lives.
Compare this with the conspicuous lack of moral, intellectual, and legal leadership and effective action from the Biden USDOJ on refugee and asylum issues.
Sadly, as many of us tried, in vain, to tell the incoming Biden Administration, failure to make immediate, bold, progressive, humanitarian, due process reforms at EOIR and to take a strong, courageous stand against the continuing misuse of bogus legal rationales to suspend refugee and asylum processing (and ignore our legal and moral obligations to refugees and other migrants) at the border will likely cripple the US response to arising human rights catastrophes and cost more innocent human lives.
Human rights and immigrant justice are not “back burner” issues! Nor are they “rocket science!” Delay costs lives and undermines democracy and our international leadership.
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Lack of expertise and moral courage has consequences!
Michelle Rindels & Riley Snyder report for The Nevada Independent:
A federal judge in Nevada has ruled that a nearly 70-year-old section of law that makes it a felony to reenter the U.S. after being deported is unconstitutional, saying it was enacted with discriminatory intent against Latinos and therefore violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Judge Miranda Du issued an order on Wednesday dismissing a case against Gustavo [Carrillo]-Lopez, who was indicted last summer for being in the U.S. in spite of being deported in 1999 and 2012. It appears to be the first time a court has made such a decision, even though the statute known as Section 1326 has been under consideration by several district courts.
“Because Carrillo-Lopez has established that Section 1326 was enacted with a discriminatory purpose and that the law has a disparate impact on Latinx persons, and the government fails to show that Section 1326 would have been enacted absent racial animus … the Court will grant the Motion,” Du wrote.
The case is a blow for the Department of Justice (DOJ), which initially filed the charge during the Trump administration — an era of hardline immigration policies — but has since switched hands to the Biden administration. Left-leaning groups have asserted that the Trump administration had “weaponized” Section 1326 and other decades-old immigration laws as part of their “zero tolerance” immigration strategy.
Julian Castro, a former Democratic presidential candidate and secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Administration, tweeted that “this law has an incredibly racist history. I doubt the Biden DOJ will want to defend it in the appellate court.”
. . . .
The order notes that the law has a disparate impact on Latinos, noting that 87 percent of people apprehended at the border in 2010 were of Mexican descent. While the federal government argued those statistics are a function of geography and Mexico’s proximity to the U.S. rather than discrimination, Du said the argument was unpersuasive.
“The federal government’s plenary power over immigration does not give it license to enact racially discriminatory statutes in violation of equal protection,” Du wrote.
. . . .
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Read the complete article at the link,
Great decision! Notable for you “liberal artists” that historical analysis of racism and eugenics in America presented by Kelly Lytle Hernández, a history professor at UCLA, helped make the record and carry the day!
Just the kind of interdisciplinary interaction that permeates judging, particularly in immigration and human rights, and argues for more liberal arts grads with backgrounds in history, the humanities, linguistics, demographics, and social sciences on the Immigration Bench and the Article IIIs.
I’ve long criticized the “ahistorical” sometimes “anti-historical” approach taken by the BIA and other Federal Courts! For example, promoting the fiction that treaties, laws, ombudpersons, and even elections magically change centuries’ old animuses and make everything “hunky dory” for long-persecuted social, political, ethnic, religious, or racial groups.
Now, if we can only get the Article IIIs to do their job and hold the entire EOIR system, as currently operating, which has fatal racial bias, fairness, impartiality, expertise, and operational problems that make it a “walking violation of due process,” unconstititional, we could be on the way to the change America needs to bring an end to the present national disgrace in our Immigration Courts which is diminishing justice for everyone in America.
Additionally, despite life tenure, most Federal Courts have been reluctant to enforce the Constitution against the many Executive and Legislative abuses in the area of immigration and human rights. So, I would be disappointed, but not surprised, if this ruling is reversed on appeal.
Nevertheless, it’s an important step in exposing racism, connecting it with immigration, establishing truth, and fighting the Executive’s unconscionably bad and often illegal performance on immigration and race! While Garland might incorrectly think that immigration and human rights are “back burner” issues, by the time the NDPA is done with him they might well be issues that consume most of his time and irreparably damage his reputation. That’s why a wise Attorney General would be “leading the bandwagon for Article I” while immediately bringing in the progressive experts necessary to re-establish due process and efficiency at EOIR.
At any rate, this is exactly the kind of “creative disruption” that needs to happen until the system wakes up and makes the necessary progressive, due process, equal justice reforms long overdue at EOIR and other parts of the immigration bureaucracy.
“The IJ’s failure to put Flores-Rodriguez on notice of this central issue in his case denied him “a full and fair hearing” by preventing him from submitting significant testimony and other evidence. Colmenar, 210 F.3d at 971. Because the IJ’s conduct potentially affected the outcome of the proceedings, Flores-Rodriguez has also suffered prejudice. Id. For these reasons, a due process violation warranting reversal has occurred. We express no opinion whether, if Flores-Rodriguez had received notice and defended against the claim that he had made false claims of citizenship, he would have likely prevailed or to the contrary been held inadmissible. But what is of signal importance in our system of justice is that when a person is charged with a crime or charged with allegations warranting removal from the country, that person is fairly entitled to notice of the claims against him and an opportunity to be heard in opposition. Because that opportunity was not given here, we grant the petition and remand to the BIA with instructions that it hold whatever future proceedings are necessary to ensure due process is given to Flores-Rodriguez before decision is made. PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED.”
****************** Many, many congrats Karen! You are quickly establishing yourself as a “fearless warrior queen” of the NDPA. 🛡⚔️ Looking forward to a time when you and others like you will take your places on the Immigration Court and other Federal Benches. That will bring some much needed, and obviously now missing, expertise, courage, humanity, practicality, and diversity to our Federal Judicial system that is stale, out of step, non-representative of our diverse nation, and floundering from top to bottom, even as the future of our democracy remains in peril.
Here’s an inspiring video about Karen and how and why she became an immigration attorney:
Thanks for being such a great role model, Karen, for the “new generation” of the NDPA! And believe me, those of us in the “Over the Hill Brigade” of the NDPA are out there recruiting all the time!
Wow! Providing due process before making a final decision! What a radical concept! Clearly at odds with the Sessions/Barr emphasis on prejudging cases in favor of ICE enforcement and against individuals and their “dirty lawyers” out to “game” the system. That’s what the “rote form denial orders” that Sessions and Barr encouraged to generate more removals are all about! No need to know much about the law or the facts of the case. Just fill in the blanks and check “denied” and “removed!”
It’s telling, however, that even with a massive increase in judges, these “corner cutting restrictionist gimmicks” astronomically increased an already out of control backlog of cases, even while denying fair hearings to thousands! Seven months into the Biden Administration (which has the remarkable benefit of numerous “expert action plans” for reducing backlog without denying due process), that backlog continues to grow with no apparent plan for controlling it.
🔌 How many “Team Garland” Senior Officials does it take to pull this at EOIR?
Will Garland ever “pull the plug” on this parody of a “court” that keeps “blowing the basics” with human lives and futures at stake? Not very surprising when expertise is “optional” and due process takes a back seat to “cranking out removal orders” and meeting clearly unethical, due-process-denying “quotas.” Also, it’s one where a bureaucratic judicial selection process designed by the last Administration to “dumb down” and “bias out” the Immigration Courts in favor of DHS Enforcement is still in use!
One can imagine a court system where repeated significant due process violations, questionable ethics, continuing substandard legal performance, disturbing lack of subject matter expertise, grotesque inconsistencies, and statistically inexplicable patterns of anti-individual decision-making would raise some “red flags” among peers and those charged with maintaining professional standards. These days, however, it appears that only failure to meet “production quotas” or actually taking extra time to get decisions right can get an EOIR judge in hot water.
Gotta wonder what Judge Garland would have thought if one of his Article III colleagues produced “garbage work” like this on, say, a routine Federal Tort Claims case? He probably would have been pretty upset and acted accordingly.
But, where it’s only people’s lives and futures at stake — “the loss of everything that makes life worth living” as famously stated by the Supremes of yore — anything seems “good enough for government work” in Garland’s malfunctioning, yet deadly and inefficient, “clown courts.” 🤡 (NOTE: With a sense of false optimism, I had hoped to put the poor “EOIR Clown Emoji” — forced to work extreme overtime during the Trump Kakistocracy — out to rest. But, alas, Garland’s failure to take the lives and rights of migrants, not to mention the health, welfare, and sanity of my litigating colleagues, seriously, and his inability to connect the dots between officially-sanctioned injustice @ EOIR and injustice throughout our society, has forced him back into duty!)
I must admit that I don’t “get it” as to why Garland thinks this is acceptable performance by a public agency and fails to take the obvious steps to end to this ongoing disgrace that ruins human lives, frustrates hard-working private lawyers trying to do their jobs (actually the only folks, in addition to some in the NAIJ, keeping this sinking boat afloat right now), and undermines our entire justice system! It also diminishes his own reputation, stature, and legacy.
Many of us understand that the Biden Administration can never attain racial justice in America as long as racially charged injustice, lack of due process, and bad judging prevails in our Immigration Courts. Tragic that those in charge haven’t achieved that same level of enlightenment, understanding, and urgency! Delay in making long overdue progressive reforms and personnel changes costs lives, squanders resources, and further undermines our democracy!
Anna Marie Gallagher, Esquire Executive Director CLINIC PHOTO: CLINIC website
Here’s a statement from CLINIC condemning this Judge’s decision to reinstate the misnamed “Migrant Protection Protocols,” better known as “Remain in Mexico,” or more accurately as “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico:”
A Statement From the ED: CLINIC Condemns Federal Ruling to Resume Migrant Protection Protocols
SILVER SPRING, Maryland — The following is a statement from CLINIC Executive Director Anna Gallagher:
“CLINIC staff and volunteers have accompanied and provided legal counsel to thousands of men, women and children who sought safety at our doors, only to be stranded in Mexico in inhumane conditions through MPP. They desperately waited for protection and admission to one of the richest countries in the world, in increasing danger, by design of the U.S. government.
MPP is a national shame.
Jesus said, ‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision is contrary to man’s law and God’s law and must be overturned. We now call on President Biden to act on his faith and once again, end this policy that is so contrary to our values and who we aspire to be.”
CLINIC advocates for humane and just immigration policy. Its network of nonprofit immigration programs — 400 organizations in 48 states and the District of Columbia — is the largest in the nation.
In case you miss the irony, think of this: At the very moment we are pleading with the international community to help extricate us from the humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, we are illegally and arbitrarily turning away legal asylum applicants at our border, many of them women and children with claims just as compelling as those from Afghani women and girls, and returning them to dangerous areas with NO PROCESS AT ALL!
And, Judge K would like to support his GOP White Nationalist buddies in Texas and Missouri by unlawfully reimplementing “Remain in Mexico” — a much-studied, vigorously and rightfully criticized program deemed a practical, human rights, legal, and humanitarian disaster by every credible human rights organization.
CLINIC is right: “Shame!”
The above statement is, of course, not the only cogent criticism I have received at Courtside about this decision. It just happens to be the one that appeared first in my Courtside inbox, courtesy of my good friend and NDPA stalwart Anna Marie Gallagher, Executive Director of CLINIC!
As the human rights situations in Afghanistan, Haiti, and the Northern Triangle continue to unravel, the lack of a coherent, operational, legally sound, properly generous refugee and asylum program will continue to haunt the Administration;
In particular, the disgraceful failure to establish a strong, consistent, humane, and protection-oriented interpretation of gender-based asylum to protect women, who are disproportionately targeted for persecution, torture, and other violence, will cost lives of the most vulnerable and be a lasting stain on our nation. (I just listened to Peter Baker, NBC WH Correspondent, on Meet the Press, characterize Afghanistan under the Taliban as a “nation of spouse beaters!”)
The need to fix our our refugee and asylum systems immediately was obvious on January 20, 2021. Why, after 7 months it still is nowhere close to being accomplished is less obvious!
The turmoil in Afghanistan and Haiti and the ongoing human rights disasters in Latin America, all reasonably predictable, are going to increase the human and political problems flowing from a failure to take human rights seriously and to bring the practical human rights experts necessary to solve these issues constructively into the Government power structure! In the end, human rights are everyone’s rights! We ignore that at our peril!
Ironically, while protecting women from persecution and improving their lives was used as a justification by Administrations of both parties for our continuing military presence in Afghanistan, now, as the “end game” plays out in real time, it appears to have been largely reduced to a “talking point” (or a “news feature”) without any discernible plan for protecting or saving Afghan female refugees. Sadly politicos and officials from both parties seem more interested in using women’s lives as “cover” for two decades of ultimately futile presence there than with actually saving any lives now. Indeed, if we treat Afghan women refugees with the inhumane indifference we have continued to heap on female refugees seeking legal asylum at our Southern Border, their outlook is beyond grim.
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Some Life-tenured Federal Judges abuse their privileged positions to insure that this is what “due process” will look like for asylum seekers of color! 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)
Here’s the decision from U.S. District JudgeMATTHEW J. KACSMARYK in Texas v. Biden:
Judge Kacsmaryk was appointed to the bench by Trump & McConnell in 2019. He is a former Federal prosecutor, deputy general counsel of a right wing religious group, and member of the Federalist Society. His nomination was (obviously unsuccessfully) opposed by more than 200 prominent civil rights, religious tolerance, and human rights groups.
Here’s an excerpt from their letter in opposition addressed to the Senate:
On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national organizations committed to promoting and protecting the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States, I write in strong opposition to the confirmation of Matthew Kacsmaryk to be a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas.
Nominees to the federal courts must be committed to respecting the law, Constitution, and core American values of justice, fairness, and inclusivity. Mr. Kacsmaryk does not meet this standard. He is an anti-LGBT activist and culture warrior who does not respect the equal dignity of all people. His record reveals a hostility to LGBT equality and to women’s health, and he would not be able to rule fairly and impartially in cases involving those issues.
Interestingly, the letter was signed by none other than Vanita S. Gupta, then President & CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and currently the Associate Attorney General of the U.S.
Gupta and her colleagues had Judge K “pegged” as an unqualified righty bigot then! But, with the lineup currently in place at the 5th and the Supremes, it remains to be seen whether there is any effective short-term remedy for his grotesque abuses of power and human rights.
Judicial appointments are important! Maybe it’s time for Gupta and others at DOJ to treat Immigration Judge and BIA appointments as such!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Better Federal Judges for a better America!
“In sum, we conclude that the BIA abused its discretion in two respects: it departed from established policy when it failed either to apply the Sanchez Sosa factors or to remand to allow the IJ do so, and it failed to provide a rational explanation for its decision, including its treatment of this court’s binding precedent in Caballero-Martinez. … We grant the petition for review, vacate the BIA’s May 2020 order, and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
[Hats off to David L. Wilson and amici Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, ASISTA Immigration Assistance Project and National Network To End Domestic Violence!]
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Folks, all of this nonsense, delay, needless litigation, and remarkable legal/judicial incompetence was for the “purpose” of denying a well-deserved continuance to a U visa applicant — what should have been about a 5-minute positive adjudication, at max. No wonder the Federal Courts are clogged, the EOIR backlog grows, and the system has lost all respect and credibility!
I wish that Lucas Guttentag, Lisa Monaco, Vanita Gupta, and Merrick Garland would explain to all of us what is the purpose of an “expert tribunal” that lacks expertise, fundamental legal skills, judicial independence, moral courage, and common sense, as well as the backbone to have stood up to folks like Sessions and Barr (see, e.g., the Census Bureau career civil servants for stark contrast).
EOIR needs, among other things, changes at the top, real courageous progressive leadership, and a new, well-qualified, progressive, practical, expert BIA that puts due process and fair adjudication above all else. The practical experts are out there! Lucas knows exactly who should be leaders, role models, and appellate judges at the BIA! He knows that EOIR is the one critically important Federal Judiciary that can be transformed in the short run into a progressive, due-process-focused, “model judiciary!” Every day wasted in making the necessary changes in personnel and procedures is a life-changing, life-preserving opportunity wasted!
So, what’s the delay? Why is this nonsense, injustice, and waste of resources continuing nearly seven months into the Biden Administration? What’s with the continuing, due-process-denying, corner-cutting, sophomoric “denial quotas” for EOIR “judges” that produce wasteful, unjust “garbage adjudications” like this litigation exemplifies?
Lucas Guttentag Senior Counselor to the Deputy Attorney General
It shouldn’t be this hard to get long, long overdue, well-documented, common sense, readily achievable changes at EOIR! It shouldn’t be this hard for asylum seekers and other migrants, as well as their long-suffering representatives, to get the due process and fair and impartial adjudication that is their absolute right under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution!
Additionally, the status quo does not guarantee that no one will be present in the United States without permission. In fact, with the plenary power doctrine in place, there are approximately 10 million individuals living in the United States without permission. (And most of them crossed the border legally, entering the territory with legal authorization for some period that expired.) Despite this, the United States continues to exist. Noncitizens, however, are denied more independent adjudicators under the false idea that by denying them we somehow protect the nation’s sovereignty. These are complex lives interwoven with our communities, businesses, schools, and the lives of US citizens. The failure to provide fair process affects more than just the noncitizen; in fact, it degrades our democracy and affects us all.
Perhaps the sovereignty fear is shorthand for something else? Is it an objection to multiculturalism? The reflection of a desire to give the president power to thwart statutory immigration law? Or perhaps courts and policymakers have been invoking the phrase “plenary power” for so long that it has become an out of date, knee-jerk reaction.
Sovereignty and foreign policy will remain intact even with more independent immigration adjudication. The sovereignty fear is a distraction from what really needs our attention; we should not let it stop us from providing fair process.
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The threat to our democracy hardly comes from those seeking legal refuge to save their lives or to find meaningful work to support their families and contribute to society.A more robust and fair legal immigration system would assist in identifying the relatively small percentage of migrants who seek to do us harm.
No, the bigger threat comes from GOP neo-fascist insurrectionists and their spineless political enablers who actively seek to undermine our democracy with lies and White Nationalist racism.
In a more functional system, Professor Family and those like her who understand and are committed to the “big picture” of American democracy and equal justice for all would be the Appellate Immigration Judges and Article III Judges — jurists ready and willing to stand up to Executive abuses of authority! The Immigration Courts should be the “starting place” for restoring and reinforcing American democracy. Does the Biden Administration have the vision and guts to make it happen?
Immigration Law Professor Named Senior Counselor on Immigration Policy in Biden’s Justice Department
Monday, August 2, 2021
By Immigration Prof
Good immigration news from Washington D.C.!Immigration law professor Lucas Guttentag has been named senior counselor on immigration policy and report to the Department of Justice’s Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Guttantag served in the Obama administration as a senior adviser on immigration policy, including as senior counselor to the secretary of Homeland Security.Anita Kumar for Politico states that “Guttentag will not only help dismantle Trump-era policies but will coordinate Biden policy among various agencies and departments.”
Kumar writes that “[p]rior to entering the administration, Guttentag served as law professor at Stanford Law School and lecturer at Yale Law School. He launched the Immigration Policy Tracking Project in 2017 to develop and maintain a complete record of Trump administration immigration actions.
In total, Trump made more than 400 alterations to immigration policy during his time in office, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank with staffers across the political spectrum that provides data and analysis on immigration policy. The Immigration Policy Tracking Project put that number closer to 1,000.”
If you are an immigrant requesting asylum or fighting deportation before the federal immigration court in San Francisco, it’s likely to take nearly three years for your case to be resolved — the average processing time, as of June, was 1,057 days.
That’s because the San Francisco court’s 26 judges are working their way through close to 76,000 cases — the third highest number of pending cases in the country, after New York and Miami. Nationwide, the backlog has grown to an unprecedented 1.3 million cases, more than twice what it was when President Donald Trump took office.
What’s at stake, says Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington DC, is the credibility of the entire immigration system — both for the individuals whose futures are on the line, and for broader public confidence.
. . . .
The epic case backlog results from a convergence of factors.
Immigration enforcement, which had increased under President Barack Obama, ballooned during the presidency of Donald Trump. Trump ended Obama-era prosecution priorities that focused on immigrants with serious criminal histories, and instead pursued deportation of any undocumented immigrant. As of last December, more than 98% of the cases in immigration court were for people whose only charge was an immigration violation, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
Also in the past several years, a much larger share of the migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border are people requesting asylum, rather than trying to evade border authorities to come work or join family in the U.S. And if migrants can establish a “credible fear” of persecution in a screening interview with an asylum officer, they can’t be quickly removed from the country. Instead, their cases go straight into the immigration court system.
But that court system is chronically underfunded, with not enough judges or support staff, according to a 2019 report by the American Bar Association. While the Trump administration hired more judges and imposed a case completion quota on judges meant to speed up their work, neither made a dent in the backlog. Meanwhile the ABA report found that hiring practices became politicized and the administration’s policies threatened due process.
On top of all of that came the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to months of closed courts, suspended hearings and delayed processing.
While many state and federal courts moved quickly to conduct hearings over video conference calls, the Executive Office of Immigration Review, as the immigration court system is known, was behind the curve, according to longtime San Francisco immigration judge, Dana Leigh Marks, who is the executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.
“What the pandemic and quarantine restrictions revealed is just how abysmally prepared EOIR has been from the technology aspect,” said Marks, speaking in her role with the NAIJ, the judge’s union. “And we do not have universal electronic filing… so there’s roughly a million cases or more that are still paper-based. And that really makes hearings from a judge’s home much more problematic.”
. . . .
Advocates for asylum seekers are also looking forward to seeing new regulations from the Biden administration in another area: establishing clear eligibility standards for asylum so as to prevent future instances where an attorney general can override decades of case law, as Sessions did in the case of a Salvadoran woman fleeing domestic violence, known as the Matter of A-B-.
Karen Musalo, director of the Center on Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings in San Francisco, said she was relieved when Garland reversed that ruling in June, but she called that just a first step in restoring fairness to the asylum system.
“What is much more important is asylum regulations that specifically look at aligning U.S. law with international norms,” she said. “We need to get the law back on track.”
‘What is much more important is asylum regulations that specifically look at aligning U.S. law with international norms. We need to get the law back on track.’Karen Musalo, Center on Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings
That regulation is being drafted jointly by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security and is expected by late October, she said.
Musalo also called on the Biden administration to improve training and oversight for immigration judges, who are appointed to the bench by the U.S. attorney general. The fact that asylum grant rates vary wildly between judges suggests that rulings can be influenced by political leanings more than an impartial application of the law, she said.
“You could have very good rules and laws, but if you don’t have fair, unbiased, competent, professional individuals applying the rules in the law, you don’t solve the problems,” she said. “How can you have a fair game when the referee is unfair?”
. . . .
Legal organizations including the American Bar Association, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and NAIJ, the judges’ union, have long called on Congress to overhaul the immigration courts by taking them out of the Department of Justice altogether. And this summer there’s a move to do just that.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, the chair of the House immigration subcommittee, will soon introduce a bill to make the immigration court system a so-called Article I court, akin to federal tax court or bankruptcy court. Staff involved in drafting the bill say the new system would better protect due process of law and would be shielded from political pressure from presidents, be they Democratic or Republican.
Some observers, including Meissner and Musalo, say such a change is needed but they aren’t convinced the bill could win enough support to pass.
But Marks, the immigration judge, says the current dysfunction shows how badly the immigration courts are compromised and how urgently they need independence from the Department of Justice.
“It’s an uncomfortable and inappropriate placement for a neutral court system. And that’s the inherent structural flaw that we need Congress to fix,” she said. “I really feel like it is an idea whose time has come… now.”
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You can read Tyche’s complete article at the link.
With deep experience in advocacy, Government, academics, senior management, and scholarship, Lucas is definitely the person for this job! A proven problem solver, to be sure! Many congrats, Lucas! Your appointment is like a breath of fresh air at what has been a mostly “stale show” at Justice so far!
Professor Karen Musalo Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law
Nevertheless, as ProfessorKaren Musalo cogently points out, without better judges and leaders at EOIR — high caliber, proven progressive experts “in theGuttentag-Musalo mold,” — any favorable regulatory or even legislative changes willlikely founder. As currently staffed and led, EOIR simply lacks the expertise, independence, moral/intellectual leadership, courage, and “judicial firepower” to achieve a progressive, practical, due-process-compliant immigration and human rights system. Due process, fundamental fairness, and a correct application of U.S. asylum law — one that honors Cardoza-Fonseca and Mogharrabi — can only be realized by replacing “Club Denial @ EOIR” — actively encouraged and promoted by Sessions and Barr, with competent, expert, progressive judges committed to fair and humane treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants under law.
Simply adding more judges to an incredibly broken system, without correcting the legal, personnel, and judicial administration issues that led to this massive (largely self-created) dysfunction will not solve the problem! Lucas knows this as well as anyone! So does Judge Dana Marks, who actually litigated and won the landmark “well-founded fear” case INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca before the Supremes!
Hon. Dana Leigh Marks U.S. Immigration Judge San Francisco Immigration Court Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges
But even with experts like Lucas at DOJ, Ur Jaddou, John Trasvina, and Judge Ashley Tabaddor in place at DHS, it’s going to take a huge additional infusion of progressive expertise at EOIR, DHS, HHS, and throughout Government to get immigration and refugee policy under control.
GOP Administrations have proved willing to make the bold, often-criticized personnel and policy moves necessary to carry out a nativist, restrictionist, anti-immigrant agenda. Their “response” to criticism has basically been: “We’re in power, you’re not! So, go pound sand!”
Will the Biden Administration “break the Dem mold” and be bold and visionary enough to make the available, necessary, yet potentially controversial, moves to restore and improve due process and efficiency to the Government immigration bureaucracy? Will Lucas finally be able to get Team Garland to see and realize the cosmic importance of developing a progressive Immigration Judiciary: One that will eventually provide the “Article III ready” judicial candidates who will bring balance and quality to the Article III system perverted by four years of Trump-McConnell extremest right-wing, ideological, far out of the mainstream, judicial picks? Contrary to the timid, ineffective, ultimately destructive Obama Administration approach, EOIR is “a boat that needs to be rocked” — big time!
It’s an ambitious task to be sure. But, those with the vision and courage to accomplish it might well go down in history as the saviors ofAmerican democracy. It’s that important!
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice will examine its sexual harassment policies for potential reform, a move that comes after The Chronicle’s reporting on inappropriate behavior in the immigration courts, according to an announcement obtained by the newspaper.
The announcement went out to all department staff Thursday in an email seen by The Chronicle. In it, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco wrote it was “critical to our duty as principled defenders of the law to combat sexual harassment and misconduct in our own workplace and hold offenders accountable for their actions.”
Monaco said she is forming a committee to review all sexual harassment policies of the many sub-agencies of the Justice Department and assess where they may need to be changed, as well as evaluate current training and education. Two senior officials from her office will chair the effort and include members from across the department, and she said she wanted results of the review in six months.
. . . .
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Thanks, and congrats, Tal! Those with access can read the rest of Tal’s report at the link.
Not surprisingly, according to the research, the fairest Immigration Judges for asylum applicants and other migrants “profile” as female, with immigration experience, in the 9th Circuit, in a Dem Administration. Not exactly the Sessions, Barr, Garland (to date) judicial profile. That could have something to do with these festering problems at EOIR that haven’t been dealt with despite numerous warning signs and “alerts.”
Also, the Garland DOJ would do well to investigate and correct the effects of the virulent misogyny directed at female refugees of color by Sessions, Barr, and their toadies and furthered by EOIR policies, procedures, and precedents over the past four years. Endemic problems don’t happen by chance!
According to the Ryo-Peacock study I posted, the “difference” that better Immigration Judges could make is over 200,000 lives potentially saved or altered for the better. That’s not exactly “chump change,” particularly when the interests of family members, employers, communities, our larger justice system, and our overall society are considered.
It also calls into question the apparent lack of seriousness with which “Team Garland” has taken Immigration Judge appointments to date. Throwing dozens of “not the best qualified available” IJs — without any concerted recruitment or diversification efforts —into an already broken, biased, and reeling system that deals with human lives in a cavalier manner is NOT GOOD POLICY! Particularly when the chronic problems of bad judging at EOIR had been clearly and articulately identified and many viable action plans and reform programs had been set forth by private sector experts even before the 2020 election.
EOIR needs new progressive leadership, a new progressive expert BIA that will truly be the “Supreme Court” of immigration and human rights, and better qualified and more diverse Immigration Judges who finally will implement the noble and correct vision of “through teamwork and innovation, being the world’s best tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all!” That would include treating all individuals coming before the courts, staff, and colleagues with dignity, respect, and fairness.
Sadly, the Biden Administration’s immigration policies, whatever they are on any particular day and place, seem to be mired in confusion, questionable competence, and a barrage of largely meaningless and confusing bureaucratic doublespeak. Meanwhile, in reality, it appears that Central Americans, Haitians, and others are being returned to danger zones without any process in place to insure fair treatment. Certainly, “Title 42” is the equivalent of no process whatsoever. While “expedited removal” might have the potential to be used fairly, there is little reason to believe that it is now being fairly and professionally administered by anyone committed to fundamental fairness over expedient enforcement.
Yes, Garland has sued racist moron Gov. Greg Abbott on his illegal Trumpist grandstanding (like Texas doesn’t have real problems to solve?). Stunts like Abbott’s were entirely predictable. However, if the Biden Administration had “hit the ground running” on asylum, the issue might well have been put to bed by now, and Abbott might have to focus instead on his normal job of mis-governing Texas, rather than focusing attention elsewhere.
The Administration could and should have had a robust refugee system up and running in the Northern Triangle that would reduce border pressure, a functioning asylum system that would encourage asylum applicants to apply at ports of entry rather than seeking irregular entry, a professional screening program in place at DHS, and a relatively “backlog free” Immigration Court, led by a progressive BIA, providing positive guidance on cases that could be granted. They would also have resettlement agreements and programs in place with NGOs and legal service groups to appropriately represent and resettle those granted asylum and those in the process to the locations where they could best reside.
Fair, expert, courageous leadership, leadership with a humane, positive, practical vision of immigration and an unswerving commitment to fairly granting asylum, is critical to success on immigration, human rights, and racial justice issues. So far, nobody in the Biden Administration appears to fit the bill! That’s probably why the Administration’s confused and ever-vacillating policies are being blasted by both progressives and reactionaries — the worst of all political worlds, as I have observed before!
There are experts out here in the private sector with the vision and leadership ability to solve these problems while putting White Nationalist restrictionists like Abbott in their place. Even though it’s late, the Biden Administration still needs to get a better team in place and let them solve the problems with knowledge, competence, and compassion, not more “knee-jerk reactions” and continuations of the cruel, inhumane, counterproductive, and often illegal policies and practices of the Trump regime.
Substantial research and policymaking have focused on the importance of lawyers in ensuring access to civil justice. But do lawyers matter more in cases decided by certain types of judges than others? Do lawyers matter more in certain political, legal, and organizational contexts than others? We explore these questions by investigating removal proceedings in the United States—a court process in which immigration judges decide whether to admit noncitizens into the United States or deport them. Drawing on over 1.9 million removal proceedings decided between 1998 and 2020, we examine whether the representation effect (the increased probability of a favorable outcome associated with legal representation) depends on judge characteristics and contextual factors. We find that the representation effect is larger among female (than male) judges and among more experienced judges. In addition, the representation effect is larger during Democratic presidential administrations, in immigration courts located in the Ninth Circuit, and in times of increasing caseload. These findings suggest that the representation effect depends on who the judge is and their decisional environment, and that increasing noncitzens’ access to counsel—even of high quality—might be insufficient under current circumstances to ensure fair and consistent outcomes in immigration courts.
Keywords: access to justice, immigration courts, removal proceedings, judicial decisionmaking
Suggested Citation:
Ryo, Emily and Peacock, Ian, Represented But Unequal: The Contingent Effect of Legal Representation in Removal Proceedings (July 13, 2021). Law & Society Review, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3885995
Sessions and Barr appointed over half of the current approximately 550 U.S. Immigration Judges;
Many of those appointed had little or no immigration experience — almost none had actual experience representing asylum seekers or any other migrants in Immigration Court;
With 27 IJ appointments since taking office, AG Garland now has appointed approximately 5% of the Immigration Judiciary;
Only one of Garland’s first 27 appointments has impressive progressive immigration credentials and experience;
The balance of Garland’s appointees to date profile much like Sessions’s and Barr’s — not surprising, because Garland used the same flawed recruiting and selection criteria that Barr had been using;
An Immigration Judge is required to complete 700 cases annually, just too retain his or her job;
Unlike most civil cases in U.S. District Courts, lives and futures are at stake in almost all Immigration Court cases, with the family, communal, economic, and societal effect of each decision often extending far beyond the individual migrant whose life and/or future is at stake.
Members of the NDPA, let AG Garland, VP Harris, and President Biden know that we need a better and more aggressively progressive system for recruiting (virtually “null” right now — “Sir Jeffrey” Chase and I, along with other members of our Round Table, do more “recruiting” among “practical scholars and progressive experts” in the private sector than the Administration!), selecting, training, and retaining Immigration Judges for these life or death determining positions that, in a better functioning and wiser Administration, would be the door to, and training ground for, a better, more diverse, more representative, more progressive Article III Judiciary!
Lack of creative and aggressive recruiting for a better and more diverse expert Immigration Judiciary is a particular sore point! We now have our first immigrant family, African-American, AAPI, female Vice President, Kamala Harris, a talented lawyer! She has an important immigration and human rights portfolio!
So why isn’t she out there aggressively encouraging diverse, well-qualified, progressive “practical scholars and immigration advocates,” many of whom might not have seen themselves as potential Immigration Judges and BIA Members to apply for these critical jobs? Why aren’t the recruiting and selection criteria for IJs and Board Members both more transparent and involving of some outside expert input!
As VP Harris knows, the key to changing the composition of the power structure is for progressives, particularly female progressives of color, to see others like them in these positions to act as role models. It’s going to take aggressive positive actions by individuals like VP Harris, AAG Gupta, and Assistant AG Clarke to “change the face” of the Immigration Judiciary and the power structure for the better!
With the recent hiring of NDPA superstar Professor Cori Alonso Yoder, VP Harris’s alma mater, Howard University Law, now has it’s most high-profile “immigration and human rights presence” ever! Why isn’t VP Harris over there aggressively encouraging Howard Law grads to seek careers in immigration and human rights, eventually aspiring to the the Federal Judiciary, including the Immigration Judiciary? That’s how real change in the power structure happens!
This is becoming a totally inexcusable “blown opportunity” for progressives! Who knows if or when it will come again?
Asylum Seekers Wikimedia Commons — “Will US asylum seekers finally be treated fairly, humanely, and in accordance with full due process? Or is the Biden Administration’s recent “plan” just another “designed to fail enforcement gimmick” masquerading as legitimate asylum policy? Only time — and the details — will tell!
I found the White House “Fact Sheet” to be largely a mix of bureaucratic doublespeak, shame, blame, and few details about how it’s actually going to work. Also, not much about who is going to be responsible (and accountable) for making it work!
Will those whose cases are denied by an Asylum Officer still have a right to IJ/BIA/Judicial Review?
How will they set up dedicated dockets without pushing back cases already on the docket?
What steps will be taken to insure that Judges assigned to these dockets aren’t members of the “90% Denial Club?”
How will they screen asylum cases with Title 42 still in effect?
What will be the role of detention? If detention is used, how will reasonable access to counsel be be guaranteed in detention centers?
Who will be training the CBP Agents, Asylum Offices, and Immigration Judges to recognize asylum claims, even those that might not be well-articulated by migrants or that might involve novel applications of protection laws?
What advance coordination will take place with legal services groups to maximize representation.
How will positive asylum guidance be issued (given that the BIA has issued almost none in the past four years, and a number of negative precedents have been vacated by the AG or rejected by various Circuits)?
How will the success of this program be measured, particularly with respect to insuring full due process and fundamental fairness to all asylum applicants?
What type of resettlement opportunities or assistance will be made available for successful asylum, seekers and who will provide and fund it?
Will there be any role for the UNHCR? If so, what?
How will DHS and EOIR solve the “effective notice problems” that have plagued the Immigration Court system for years and resulted in far too many “bogus in absentia removal orders.”
Who will insure the accuracy of statistics and that “gamed” or manipulated statistics are not used (as the Trump regime did) to create false narratives about “success” by the Administration or to promote unfair and inaccurate “myths” about asylum seekers.
U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General
(1) Matter of A-C-A-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 84 (A.G. 2020) (“A-C-A-A- I”), is vacated in its entirety. Immigration judges and the Board should no longer follow A-C-A-A- I in pending or future cases and should conduct proceedings consistent with this opinion and the opinions in Matter of L-E-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 304 (A.G. 2021) (“L-E-A- III”), and Matter of A-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 307 (A.G. 2021) (“A-B- III”).
(2) The Board’s longstanding review practices that A-C-A-A- I apparently prohibited, including its case-by-case discretion to rely on immigration court stipulations, are restored.
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Way to go Judge Garland!
Yes, I feel good about this! This was one of the “Sessions-Barr follow-ons” to A-B-, L-E-A-, and Castro-Tum that had undermined due process and fundamental fairness while inhibiting sound case management. It was part of a virulent, racist, anti-asylum agenda promoted by Trump and Miller and unethically carried out by Sessions and Barr. It was a backlog-building, due-process-denying national disgrace to be sure! One that unethically targeted people of color and sought to improperly eradicate our legal (and moral) obligations to protect refugees — without any legislative authority!
Prohibiting an appellate body from accepting party stipulations below or honoring concessions on appeal is simply insane! Why would any party stipulate to an issue if it will simply be ignored on appeal?
Stipulations are a really important part of encouraging efficiency in litigation and reducing backlog. I used them all the time at both the BIA and the Arlington Immigration Court!
Why on earth would the BIA revisit an issue that was so well-established and logical that the parties had already agreed upon it below? Why would an already overwhelmed tribunal be required to decide issues that were uncontested by the litigants?
No wonder the Immigration Court system was completely out of control and counterproductive during the Trump Administration!
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — The Biden Administration still can’t get beyond this “vision” of appropriate treatment of legal asylum seekers. This is the “human face (down)” of “deterrence-only policies.” Six months in, and the Administration still has nobody in leadership who understands human rights, refugees, asylees, and the relationship of scenes like this one to the overall failure of equal justice and dimishment of the rule of law in America. 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)
However, lest we start thinking that the Biden Administration finally “gets it” on asylum policy, DHS immediately countered with a totally tone-deaf announcement on “punishing” asylum seekers for the Administration’s failure to live up to it’s campaign promises ands re-establish a viable legal asylum system at the border:
DHS Statement on the Resumption of Expedited Removal for Certain Family Units
Release Date:
July 26, 2021
Beginning today, certain family units who are not able to be expelled under Title 42 will be placed in expedited removal proceedings. Expedited removal provides a lawful, more accelerated procedure to remove those family units who do not have a basis under U.S. law to be in the United States.
Attempting to cross into the United States between ports of entry, or circumventing inspection at ports of entry, is the wrong way to come to the United States. These acts are dangerous and can carry long-term immigration consequences for individuals who attempt to do so. The Biden-Harris Administration is working to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system, and the Department of Homeland Security continues to take several steps to improve lawful processing at ports of entry and reforms to strengthen the asylum system.
Perhaps somebody needs to tell these DHS/Biden Administration scofflaws that: 1) we have no functioning legal asylum system at ports of entry right now; and 2) refugees and asylees can’t wait for the Administration to get its act together. As one asylum seeker from the Northern Triangle stated in a recent Courtside post: “Nobody wants to die.”
Deterrence always has been and always will be a failure, both in terms of legal policy and morality. We need some progressive experts with some guts and ability “on the inside” to fix this system before more lives are lost.
Enough with the inane “wait to die” deterrence statements that actually insult the intelligence of asylum seekers and demean their dire situations! Fixing this system is not rocket science! But, it requires some progressive human rights leadership and expertise now sadly lacking in the Biden Administration’s approach!
