"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.
Phan Quang Tue is a retired San Francisco Immigration Court judge.
As I sit down to start writing this piece, the chaotic scenes of group panic at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan continue to unfold. They bring back memories of similar painful images at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Saigon 46 years ago.
Our family of four, including my pregnant wife and our two small children, then 4 and 8 years old, were sitting on the floor of a C-130 about to take off. The aircraft was crowded but strangely quiet. Everyone stared down and avoided eye contact. It was a moment of collective humiliation, to have to leave one’s country under these circumstances. The irony was that we knew we were being saved by the very same foreign government that did not stand behind its commitment to its allies in South Vietnam. We did not know where exactly we were heading, or what to expect in the days and months ahead of us. It was a moment of total uncertainty.
Although 46 years apart, the parallels between the events in Saigon and Kabul are striking. Once again, we see scenes of a capital in agony, with everyone taking to the streets with no clear direction. We remember images of people climbing over the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon; now in Kabul, it’s people climbing over barriers at Hamid Karzai International Airport or chasing military airplanes on the tarmac. But the similarities do not stop there.
The Americans are withdrawing their troops after 20 years in Afghanistan. That is almost the same as the 21 years between the beginning of U.S. political involvement in Vietnam starting with the 1954 Geneva agreements and the Communist takeover of Saigon on April 30, 1975. And there is more. As in Vietnam, the Americans in Afghanistan treated their opponents with more respect than their allies. Though their opponents have easily identified names — the Vietcong and then the Taliban — they minimized their own allies as temporary “regimes” based in Saigon or Afghanistan.
The Vietnamese refugees who arrived in the United States starting in April 1975 were not always made welcome, as the winners of a popular war might have been. Even the veterans — American and Vietnamese alike — were not warmly received everywhere, despite the service they had given to their countries. This country does not like to lose and does not know how to lose. Afghan refugees should not expect to be welcomed with parades like the gold medalists returning from the Tokyo Olympics.
. . . .
The United States did not win the war against the Taliban. But now is when the American people can step in and provide the Afghan refugees a haven whereby they can join “we the people” to “form a more perfect Union” for themselves, their children and their grandchildren.
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Read the rest of the op-ed at the above link.
Thanks, my friend and colleague, for sharing, for all you have done for America, and for your continuing important contributions. It’s an honor to know you and to be working with you on our Round Table!🛡⚔️
Trumpy nativists, posing as fiscal conservatives, want you to question whether the United States can afford to take in Afghan allies and refugees.
The better question is whether we can afford not to.
The Republican Party has cleaved in recent weeks over the issue of Afghan refugees, specifically those who served as military interpreters or otherwise aided U.S. efforts. On the one hand, Republican governors and lawmakers around the country have volunteered to resettle Afghan evacuees in their states. Likewise, a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that bringing these allies to the United States is phenomenally popular, garnering support from 76 percent of Republican respondents. Influential conservative constituencies are invested in this issue, too, including veterans’ groups and faith leaders.
On the other hand, the Trump strain within the GOP has been fighting such magnanimous impulses with misinformation.
Xenophobic politicians and media personalities have been conspiracy-theorizing about the dangers of resettling Afghan allies here — even though we had previously entrusted these same Afghans with the lives of U.S. troops and granted them security clearances. And even though they go through additional extensive screening before being brought to our shores.
No matter; if you listen to Tucker Carlson and his ilk, you’ll hear that these Afghans are apparently part of a secret plot to replace White Americans, and that untamed Afghan hordes are going to rape your wife and daughter.
Often these demagogues try to disguise their racist objections to refugee resettlement (and immigration more broadly) as economic concerns. Their claim: that however heartbreaking the footage from the Kabul airport, compassion for Afghan refugees is a luxury Americans simply cannot afford.
Refugees are somehow responsible for existing housing shortages, proclaims Carlson. (This is demonstrably false; the reason we have too little affordable housing is primarily because people like Carlson oppose building more and denser housing.) More refugees would sponge up precious taxpayer dollars, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). And in general, refugees — like all immigrants — are a massive drain on the U.S. economy, alleges Stephen Miller.
This is nonsense.
. . . .
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Read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the link!
Thanks, Catherine, for once again standing up to and speaking truth against disgraceful, neo-Nazi, nativist racists like Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene!
By contrast, one might well ask what “value added” folks like Stephen Miller and his buddies, (Miller has largely sponged off of taxpayer funds while looking for ways to inflict misery on others and destroy America) bring to the table. None, that I can see!
Moreover, even beyond the undoubted value of robust refugee admissions, there is good reason to believe that large-scale migration presents our best opportunity for salvation and prosperity, rather than the “bogus threat” posited by Miller & Co.
As Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman recently, and quite cogently, wrote in American Prospect:
. . . .
A “Statue of Liberty Plan” for the 21st century could make the United States the world’s most welcoming country for immigrants. Right now, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population lags behind that of Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. In order to surpass them, the United States would have to admit millions more people each year for a decade or longer. We currently admit immigrants to promote family integration, meet economic needs, respond to humanitarian crises, and increase the diversity of our population from historically underrepresented countries. Under this plan, we could dramatically expand admissions in all four categories and add a fifth category to recognize the claims of climate migrants. As a civic project of national renewal, with millions of people playing a role in welcoming new immigrants, such a policy could reweave frayed social bonds and create a healthier, outward-looking, multiracial national identity.
The politics of immigration, however, lag far behind the moral and economic logic of the case for a pro-immigration policy. The immigrant threat narrative has become so pervasive that many liberals have embraced it, if only because they hope to fend off threats from right-wing nationalists. President Obama not only deprioritized immigration reform in his first term but deported record numbers of immigrants, hoping that such a display of “toughness” might win support for legalization of the undocumented immigrants already here. Hillary Clinton advocated liberal immigration policies in her 2016 presidential campaign but later tacked toward restrictionism. Liberals and leftists across the global North, from Austria to France to the U.K., have offered similar concessions to nativism. But mimicking right-wing appeals is a losing gamble that only serves to legitimize the anti-immigrant agenda and its standard-bearers.
There are promising signs of potential for shifting the debate, however, if progressives lean in. Polling shows that Americans increasingly reject the immigrant threat narrative, largely due to Trump’s shameless cruelty. Last year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1965, more Americans supported increased levels of immigration than supported reduced levels. A telling barometer of how the sands are shifting is that President Biden’s proposed immigration bill is far to the left of what Obama proposed.
The work of shifting gears toward a more welcoming policy can begin right now by fully welcoming immigrants who already reside in our country. A crucial starting point would be to include a path to citizenship for essential workers, Dreamers, farmworkers, and Temporary Protected Status holders in the American Jobs Plan Congress is considering. This is not only a humane approach, but it also will stimulate economic growth and thus help finance other parts of the plan. A separate campaign by the Biden administration (not requiring congressional action) to simplify the naturalization process for nine million eligible green-card holders would help make the nation’s electorate more reflective of its population.
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
If slavery and genocide were the country’s original sins, its occasional and often accidental genius has been to renew itself through periodic waves of immigration. Once we expose the immigration threat narrative as the Big Lie that it is, it becomes plain that immigration is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity and necessity to be embraced.
This, of course, also casts doubt on the wisdom of our current, wasteful and ultimately ineffective, policy of illegally rejecting legal asylum applicants at our Southern Border, rather than attempting in good faith to fit as many as qualify under our current system, as properly and honestly administered (something that hasn’t happened in the past). Additionally wise leaders would be looking for ways to expand our legal immigration system to admit, temporarily or permanently, those whose presence would be mutually beneficial, even if they aren’t “refugees” within existing legal definitions. In this respect, the proposal to modernize our laws to admit climate migrants is compelling.
Remember, as stated above:
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
NDPA members, keep listening to Catherine and the other voices of progressive wisdom, humanity, practicality, and tolerance. The key to the future is insuring that the “Stephen Millers of the world” never again get a chance to implement their vile, racist propaganda in the guise of “government policy.”
Happily, many Northern Virginians have listened to our “better angels.” Humanitarian aid and resettlement opportunities for Afghan refugees are pouring in, as shown by this report from our good friend Julie Carey @ NBC 4 news:
Julie Carey NOVA Bureau Chief, NBC4 Washington PHOTO: Twitter
The local couple interviewed by Julie emphasized the impressive “human dignity” of the Afghan refugees! (I also observed this during many years of hearing asylum cases in person at the Arlington Immigration Court.) Compare that with the lack thereof (not to mention absence of empathy and kindness) shown by the nativist naysayers!
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Biden administration must comply with a lower court’s ruling to reinstate President Donald Trump’s policy that required many asylum seekers to wait outside the United States for their cases to be decided.
The administration had asked the court to put on hold a federal judge’s order that the “Remain in Mexico” policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) had to be immediately reimplemented. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled earlier this month that the Biden administration did not provide an adequate reason for getting rid of the policy and that its procedures regarding asylum seekers who enter the country were unlawful.
Over the objections of the three liberal justices, the court’s conservative majority agreed that the administration had not done enough to justify changing the policy.
The administration “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” the court said in a short, unsigned order. In such emergency matters, the court often does not elaborate on its reasoning.
It said Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would have granted the administration’s request. The three also gave no reason.
The action could be an ominous sign for the new administration. The court is considering a request that it dissolve the pandemic-related evictions moratorium implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about which the court’s most conservative justices have already expressed skepticism.
The court often showed deference to the Trump administration in such emergency matters, including when the MPP was first implemented.
. . . .
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Read Robert’s full article at the link.
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Supremes’ GOP majority makes it clear that it considers asylum seekers of color as something less than human, whose rights and lives simply don’t matter! They are expendable, according to elite ivory tower righty jurists who don’t even give asylees lives a thought and condemn them without rationale. Not their kids, not anyone they can relate to. 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)
Not too surprising, given the Roberts Court’s fairly consistent disregard for human rights, the rule of law, the Due Process Clause of the Constitution, and ill-concealed contempt for racial justice and people of color! They had already gone “belly up” on MPP after it was properly blocked by lower Federal Courts during the Trump regime.
It’s going to be a long four years for American democracy, human rights, and individuals of color if the Dems can’t get it together, eliminate the filibuster, and enact some legislation while they are still in control of all three branches. But, it’s the Dems, so don’t count on much besides some hand-wringing and feckless rhetoric.
And to be fair, the Biden Administration’s continuedlawless use of Title 42 to suspend the rule of law for many at the border compliments both the Trump regime’s xenophobic policies and the Supremes’ dissing of people of color. Dred Scott is still alive and kicking in 21st Century America, even as our nation grows more diverse.
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
08-24-21
ADDENDUM:
As recently posted by Dean Kevin Johnson on ImmigrationProf Blog:
“Thousands of people have suffered the horrible consequences of the Migrant Protection Protocols. The Supreme Court has now upheld the Texas court’s decision and, instead of keeping MPP a stain in the history books, it will continue to be a present-day disaster.
“Forcing vulnerable families and children to wait in provisional camps in Mexico puts their lives at risk, while also making it nearly impossible for them to access the asylum process. The Biden administration can and must work to terminate the policy again immediately. Rather than turning away people fleeing harm, we should ensure people have a fair day in court.”
The White House denies that political cowardice caused its foot-dragging. But if true, this wouldn’t be the first time fear of right-wing blowhards distorted Biden’s immigration policies.
In February, Biden announced he was lifting Donald Trump’s draconian restrictions on worldwide refugee admissions. Then, inexplicably, Biden didn’t sign the paperwork to put his change into effect. Refugees who’d already been fully vetted, approved and booked onto flights by the State Department were left stranded.
For months, the White House refused to explain the delay; spokespeople repeated the same content-free bromides about how Biden believes refugees are “the heart and soul of this country.”
Eventually it came out that Biden was dragging his feet because of worries about political optics.
Then as now, his attempt to duck GOP attacks backfired. His delays inspired several negative news cycles about his broken promises.By the time he finally signed the paperwork, the refugee system had been effectively shut down for months, leaving Biden on track to close out the fiscal year with the lowest refugee admissions on record.
You might wonder how the nativists have responded to Biden’s attempts to cave to their preferences. Unsurprisingly: They’re still not happy!
Amid Biden’s delays over the refugee ceiling, and his decisions to maintain other (possibly unlawful) Trump-era immigration policies, Trumpers continued to attack him. Fast-forward to today, as former Trump officials ludicrously fearmonger that Afghans who assisted U.S. troops are dangerous and claim that efforts to rescue them are an extension of Biden’s “self-destructive open border policies.” Tucker Carlson and fellow Fox News colleagues accuse Biden of encouraging Afghan refugees to “change” or even “invade” America, offering rhetoric reminiscent of the white-supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
Here’s the thing Biden never learned: No matter what he does, these bad-faith demagogues will accuse him of “open borders.” So he might as well pursue the policies he thinks are right and not let decisions be dictated by fear of how Fox News might frame them.
This is especially true of today’s Afghan refugee crisis, since there are many conservatives who do support efforts to keep our promises to wartime allies and welcome them here for resettlement. They include veterans who fought alongside these allies, as well as Republicangovernors, senators and congressmen.Republican lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to fund more visas for Afghan allies, as Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) pointed out in an interview.
“If there is one immigration issue that could have rallied conservatives, it is the protection of Afghans who have helped our military,” said Ali Noorani, president and chief executive of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy organization working with faith, law enforcement and business leaders. “This was a profound misreading of the politics by the [administration]. And, even worse, believing Tucker Carlson represents America.”
Biden calls himself pro-immigrant. His appointees to senior immigration posts have generally been excellent. And unlike his openly xenophobic predecessor, Biden speaks warmly of newcomers and their contributions to this country. But such words are meaningless if he still caves to the bigots when it matters.
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I urge everyone to read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the above link.
As I always say, actions speak louder than words! The essence of Catherine’s article is so true, and bears repeating and remembering by all members of the NDPA:
Here’s the thing Biden never learned: No matter what he does, these bad-faith demagogues will accuse him of “open borders.” So he might as well pursue the policies he thinks are right and not let decisions be dictated by fear of how Fox News might frame them.
None have said it better and more clearly! And, it’s true not just of Biden, but of Dems almost across the spectrum. When “push comes to shove” they are too often unwilling to stand up for their own values and implement them in the face of well-orchestrated right wing lies and myths.
Having a competent implementation plan, staffed and led by progressive experts, is another frequent Dem failure. The GOP has no problem bringing in unqualified ideologues and hacks to carry out their toxic agendas at the “retail level” of Government.
But, the Dems leave the “progressive all-star team” in the dugout! I’ve pointed out many times that no matter how noble your rhetoric, or meritorious your ideas, you’re doomed to failure if you don’t have the courage, expertise, and determination at the “retail levels” of Government (including the legal system, particularly EOIR) to put better Government into effect.
Catherine is right that many of Biden’s upper level immigration appointees are promising. But, the critical levels below them are still infested with Trump holdovers and folks who simply lack the progressive knowledge, courage, and skill set to constructively solve problems and implement long overdue reforms.
I’ve actually lived through it in a number of Administrations where once in office, the Dems basically carried out the GOP immigration agenda, pissed off some of their most loyal supporters, but were still characterized as “open borders” and “weak” by the GOP while actually killing, maiming, and destroying the lives of those they once had pledged to protect! Could there be a worse result?
As usual, Catherine’s analysis is much clearer, more succinct, and more articulate than the gibberish and double-talk that often comes out of politicians on both sides, but particularly the White Nationalist nativist crowd. I’ve suggested before that the Biden Administration or Dems in Congress would do well to hire Catherine as their spokesperson and “press flackie” on immigration. They also would do well to pay attention to her substantive analysis on issues including immigration and the economy.
But, even if they weren’t, we would have a moral obligation to help Afghan refugees after 20 years in their nation, during which many have been placed in life-threatening situations because of their assistance to us or their adherence to our stated ideals and promises.
Many of us have been warning for some time about the catastrophic human and moral consequences of the Biden Administration’s “slow walk” to repair the intentional, legally questionable, and unconscionable dismantling of the once-proud U.S. Refugee Program done by the Trump White Nationalist kakistocracy and its cowardly cronies, enablers, and bureaucratic toadies. (The same is true of our legal asylum system, which deals with refugees in a different context.)Now, our worst fears are playing out with the world watching and lives in the balance.
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!
If Republicans are truly worried about the supposed scourge of undocumented immigrants, they should start building that “big, beautiful door” on our borders that Donald Trump always talked about.
The solution to concerns about “illegal immigration” is creating more legal pathways to immigrate here.
Immigration reform has stalled for decades, despite widespread agreement that the existing system is broken, and occasional bipartisan attempts to fix it. The latest sweeping reform bill, backed by President Biden, has gone nowhere, unlikely to secure enough Republican votes to avoid a filibuster.
So now Senate Democrats are attempting a workaround. They’ve signaled that they’ll include a narrow subset of immigration issues in their forthcoming reconciliation bill, which could be passed with only Democratic votes.
Exact details are still being hashed out, but the bill is expected to contain a pathway to citizenship for certain categories of undocumented immigrants, including “dreamers” (unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States as children), those with temporary protected status (people from countries facing emergencies such as armed conflict or natural disaster), essential workers and farm laborers.
A majority of both Democratic and Republican voters support earned legalization of these groups, according to recent polls.
This legislative strategy is by no means a slam-dunk. Moderate Democratic lawmakers need to get on board, since passing the bill through the reconciliation process would require all 50 Senate Democrats’ votes. The biggest wild card, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), has already indicated his support, which seems promising.
The bigger hurdle involves legislative rules: The Senate parliamentarian must determine that these immigration measures are sufficiently budget-related to include in the reconciliation process. Legalizing millions of undocumented migrants would have some effect on federal budgets — for example, through more immigration application fees and taxes on legalized immigrants’ earnings. Activists also point to a 2005 reconciliation bill that included different immigration-related provisions. Even so, the parliamentarian may nix these particular measures.
None of this has stopped Republicans from preemptive scaremongering about the “illegal alien” hordes supposedly rushing our “open borders” to seize their “amnesty.”
“Democrats are trying to sneak mass amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants through Congress under the cover of their budget scheme,” warned Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
“The Democrats want to include a massive amnesty in that legislation,” echoed his colleague Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). “That will simply act as a bigger magnet for more illegal immigration into this country.”
This is nonsense. First and foremost, the population eligible for legalization would likely be restricted to people who’ve already been here for some minimum period of time, rather than those contemplating coming, say, tomorrow. This is how that broader, Biden-backed bill works, and how previous legalization proposals have been structured.
More importantly, though, if these restrictionists are really so concerned about all the immigrants slipping in through the back door, the best solution is a more accessible, clearly monitored front door.
. . . .
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Well and clearly said, Catherine! You can read her complete op-Ed at the above link.
The solution to border “surges” has little or nothing to do with walls, jails, and more agents. The prerequisites are reopening the ports of entry, restoring the legal asylum system, staffing it with experts, and expanding other legal immigration opportunities as Catherine cogently suggests!
Some of the parents separated under the Yuma program still remain apart from their children four years later. Others are missing — lawyers and advocates have been unable to locate them since they were deported alone. The children separated in Yuma in 2017 were as young as 10 months old, according to government data.
The new information shows the difficulty of accounting for aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, an ever-changing series of measures aimed at stopping migrants from crossing the border. Even the impact of family separation — perhaps the most scrutinized U.S. immigration policy of the last half-century — is not fully understood.
[They were one of the first families separated at the border. Two and a half years later, they’re still apart.]
Though the formal period in which the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy was implemented spanned only April to June 2018, it’s now clear that separations began roughly a year before that along some stretches of the border. More than 5,600 families were separated between mid-2017 and mid-2018, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Biden administration is investigating whether more previously unregistered separations might have occurred earlier in Trump’s term.
. . . .
The ACLU, which was given access to government data through a court order, has catalogued cases that hint at the policy’s global impact.
In August of 2017, for example, a father from Tajikistan was separated from his 4-year-old daughter. In October of 2017, a mother from Romania was separated from her 6-year-old son. In April of 2018, three siblings from Nigeria — 12, 14 and 16 years old — were separated from their dad. In December 2017, a two year old boy from Brazil was separated from his father.
“We know from the documents provided in the litigation that families separated by the Trump administration came not just from Central America but all over the world,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney on the ACLU’s family separation litigation. “Which will make the process of putting this all back together that much more difficult.”
Maria Sachetti and Nick Miroff contributed to this report.
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Disturbingly, the harm is irreparable in many cases, the Biden Administration has continued the illegal suspension of asylum laws at the border while also failing to effectively address the continuing unconstitutional mess in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration “Courts” that aren’t courts at all!
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”. — “The reality of racial justice and the rule of law for people of color at our Southern Border is rather sobering, as the Biden Administration fails to usher in needed progressive reforms. How many more people will die because this Administration won’t follow the Constitution, The Refugee Act, and our international obligations? We’ll never achieve racial justice so long as dehumanization of people of color is our official policy, carried out by a broken and dysfunctional 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)Vice President Kamala D. Harris Vice President of the United States — “Will she be able to get beyond the mistakes of the past and put rationality, humanity, and the rule of law in place at the Southern Border. So far, the results of her leadership are NOT encouraging for those who believe in progressive, humanitarian, legal policies.” (Official Senate Photo)
James Fredrick is a multimedia journalist based in Mexico City and covers migration, crime, politics and sports.
. . . .
Obama tried deterring migrants with his characteristic lawyerly tact. Trump did it with his cruel, petty impulsiveness. Biden is doing it with his folksy toughness. The styles are different, but the results of immigration deterrence will always be the same.
We’re trapped in this cycle because the U.S. government refuses to listen to migrants. Having met hundreds of migrants during my years reporting in Mexico and Central America, it’s obvious why deterrence doesn’t work: What’s at home is worse than anything the United States could threaten. Most migrants don’t want to leave home. But they do because violent death or crippling destitution is all that’s left.
Failing to actually come up with a solution, we of the “greatest country on Earth” become tremendously feeble and defensive at the arrival of a few thousand immigrant children. But there is another way.
We must treat immigration as a civil and humanitarian issue, not a criminal one. Criminalizing people fleeing violence, persecution, climate change or economic hardship exacerbates these problems. So decriminalize border crossings and rebuild border facilities as welcome centers, not jails. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection agents at the border should be social workers, not cops.
If Trump’s family separation atrocity showed us anything, it’s that millions of Americans want to help immigrants in need. The United States should cooperate more with these groups. There are already large networks around the country that can provide housing, food, legal services, education and medical services to immigrants. Why rely on expensive armed border agents instead of willing, motivated humanitarian groups?
Immigration laws should also address the challenges of the 21st century. In addition to decriminalizing border crossings, our immigration laws rely on outdated quotas and corrupt, abusive worker programs. Asylum law is a relic of the Cold War and doesn’t reflect the world today.
Finally, Washington should stop making the problems worse with bad foreign policy. Despite numerous abuses, scandals and criminal allegations involving Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, the Biden administration refuses to denounce him, though many think he is responsible for the conditions Hondurans are fleeing. In fact, Biden administration officials are working with Hernández to try to prevent Hondurans from fleeing. He’s just one example in a long history of U.S. meddling to prop up corrupt, abusive, U.S.-friendly regimes. No amount of U.S. dollars in aid can make up for bad foreign policy.
President Biden can’t stop the crisis today. After all, he helped create it. But he can make sure this is the last “border crisis” we face.
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Read the complete op-ed at the link.
Ah, “mindlessly” — one of my favorite terms, usually applied these days to Garland and his inept team at DOJ! Actually, Frederick isn’t the only one to figure this out!
The problem remains, as I have stated over and over, the toxic failure of the Biden Administration to bring progressive experts in immigration, human rights, civil rights, and “applied due process” into Government and empower them to solve the problems! It’s bizarrely compounded by the disgraceful unwillingnessof those few in the Biden Administration, like Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, who actually know better, to speak up for racial justice, social justice, human rights, and human dignity at the DOJ!
Unless VP Harris wakes up, convinces her boss, and brings in the progressive experts, she’s headed for the abyss, taking thousands of vulnerable refugees and, perhaps, American democracy down with her!
Refusal to listen: to migrants, their representatives, experts, our “better angels,” and common sense! The same problems, over and over, Administration after Administration, decade after decade! The same “built to fail” policies repeated!
The truth is in front of the Biden Administration! But, like Garland, Mayorkas, and others leading the way over the cliff, Biden and Harris can’t see it! They appear to have “tuned out” those desperately trying to keep them from plunging over the precipice! So tragic, so unnecessary, so threatening to American democracy and the future of humanity!
Opinion: The unjust nature of civil court without counsel
Erica Starkey, from Columbus, Ohio, did not have the assistance of a lawyer in a legal battle for custody of two of her children. (Maddie McGarvey/For The Washington Post)
Erica Starkey’s story exposes the unjust nature of civil court proceedings for people who cannot afford counsel. People facing deportation also face a similar “affront to justice” as immigration cases are also civil proceedings. The majority of people in detention (70 percent) have no legal representation because people facing deportation do not have the right to a public defender, leaving them to navigate an unjust legal system alone. As a result, many immigrants languish in detention facilities for months or even years, often in inhumane and deadly conditions.
We have seen leaders in communities as diverse as Philadelphia, Denver and Harris County, Tex., collaborate with advocates and lawyers to create and expand deportation defense programs that secure due process rights for all. Together with existing representation programs, these efforts that center fairness and dignity have paved the way for a federal defender system for all immigrants. This critical work must continue across all levels of government to undo the radiating impacts of continued criminalization, mass detention, and separation and deportation of immigrants, and advance a new vision of justice for our communities.
Kica Matos, New York
The writer is vice president of initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice.
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“Are you ready to proceed without a lawyer, sir?”
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced with great fanfare plans to investigate the Minneapolis Police Department.
Seems quite hypocriticalgiven the glaring lack of constitutional due process, institutionalized xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and incompetence infecting his own Immigration Courts.
How is a Department that has failed to address systematic injustice in its own dysfunctional and unfair “courts” going to credibly address problems in the rest of our American Justice system?
Due Process Forever! Tell Judge Garland To Fix His Unjust “Courts” @ Justice!
Biden campaigned, and won, on a very different message.
He promised to “restore the soul of America,” which he argued included welcoming the stranger. It was a message he had promoted for decades. Upon taking office, he declared plans to roll back the Miller/Trump immigration agenda. Among them: raising the refugee admissions ceiling from 15,000 to 62,500.
Biden’s rationale for this policy was partly moral, partly practical. Unlike their predecessors, Biden and his immigration advisers recognized that creating more pathways for people to come to the United States legally would actually promote “law and order” and alleviate stress on the immigration system. In a February report to Congress, the State Department said one reason to “increase the overall refugee admissions number” was to “facilitate safe and orderly migration and access to international protection and avert a humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border.”
Then, inexplicably, Biden got cold feet.
He delayed signing the paperwork necessary to put his policy into effect, leaving hundreds of vetted refugees in limbo. White House spokespeople could not explain the holdup. Reports leaked that Biden worried about the “optics” of letting in more refugees amid a surge of migration at the southern border, even though he knew the two issues were unrelated.
In other words: Biden seemed to concede that Miller’s propaganda had worked and that the public might view all immigrants as a dangerous, undifferentiated horde of intruders the new administration was failing to contain.
Rather than fighting the confusion and fear Miller had sown, Biden caved. Friday’s White House announcement even invoked the same weaselly excuse Trump officials had used to justify their record-low cap — that it was necessitated by the (irrelevant) border surge.
On Twitter, Miller took a victory lap. He urged Biden to reduce refugee admissions to zero, which he declared would be the “most popular” thing to do.
But Biden and Miller both misread the politics. Biden’s announcement drew immediate, widespread backlash. Perhaps unsurprisingly: Despite Team Trump’s relentless smears of refugees and other immigrants, polls show the public has grown more pro-immigrant in recent years — with support reaching record highs.
Within hours of its initial announcement Friday, the White House backtracked, saying a higher refugee ceiling would be forthcoming. Officials refused to specify the new level and will not commit to the 62,500 Biden previously promised. Biden is leaving his options open — perhaps in case Miller’s political assessment turns out to be right.
It’s not clear why Biden has been so timid. As Biden himself has persuasively argued, admitting more refugees is in the country’s moral and national security interests. What’s more, he was elected on a popular mandate to do it. The White House must exorcise the ghost of Stephen Miller and deliver the agenda that our new, soul-restoring president promised.
***********************
Catherine Rampell Opinion Columnist Washington Post
Thanks, Catherine, for continuing to speak out about the Biden Administration’s ill-informed approach to immigration, racial justice, and human rights — particularly refugee issues! You can read the rest of Catherine’s op-ed at the link.
No such “Victory Laps” for those who worked to get Biden, Harris, Garland, and Mayorkas their jobs!
As I’ve pointed out, Miller’s execs and “judges” remain in key positions at Garland’s EOIR as our Immigration Courts continue to fail to provide due process while institutionalizing racial injustice in America, just as Stephen Miller planned it.
Indeed, the racist, misogynist, xenophobic, “worst practices” precedents issued by Trump’s AGs remain in effect under Garland. And, the borders remain closed to most legal asylum seekers in violation of our Constitution, the statute, common sense, and simple human decency.
Equally discouraging is Judge Garland’s apparent indifference to the unparalleled opportunity given him to create a progressive Immigration Judiciary that would actually reflect the humane, due process ideals upon which Biden and Harris campaigned and won the election. Additionally, he could also bring diversity, expertise, and independent progressive thinking to a currently non-diverse judiciary that is often disconnected from both the laws they administer and the stakeholder communities most affected by their decisions, conduct, and attitudes.
I have said many times that Immigration Judges “teach from the bench” every day. The messages being sent and lessons being taught to many of those seeking justice and to their lawyers, basically the “heart and soul” of the next generation of our profession, do not reflect well on the Biden Administration or Judge Garland, nor will they be treated kindly by legal and social historians.
That’s a real shame, because once squandered, the ability to send positive messages about equal justice for all, due process, and respect for human dignity is not easily, if ever, regained!Every case is an opportunity to send a better message; every day the current mess remains in place in our Immigration Courts is a missed opportunity for Judge Garland.
So far, human rights and immigrants’ advocates groups are in a familiar position in a Dem Administration — locked out of the power structure, largely ignored, and treated with indifference bordering on contempt. Strange way to treat those who helped you gain power in the first place!
The good news: the brainpower and talent to force positive change out of incompetent, valueless, and intransigent bureaucracies is still out here in the NDPA. We’ll just have to continue to take the fight to the “powers that be” — in the legal, political, educational, and public opinion arenas until job gets done!
With thousands of well-qualified experts from the NDPA out there, is THIS really the best way for the Biden Administration to recruit immigration/human rights advisers and Immigration Judges? It might, however, reach a more diverse audience than gobbledygook laden, short turnaround, “posts” on “ USA Jobs” that have created today’s non-diverse, regressive, non-expert Immigration Judiciary and the bloated, incompetent bureaucracy in Falls Church! PHOTO: Thomas Hawk Creative Commons Amateur Night
It’s difficult to believe that the president and his top officials did not realize their immigration policies, refugee admissions among them, would galvanize Republican opportunism and demagoguery. Perhaps they failed to anticipate the scale of unaccompanied Central American minors and families who would cross the border seeking asylum this spring. Maybe they are worried that GOP attacks, conflating that wave of asylum-seekers with refugees, would further imperil the Democratic congressional majorities in next year’s midterm elections, despite Mr. Biden’s own healthy standing in the polls.
. . . .
The president would do well to re-read his own campaign’s clear-eyed pronouncements on the subject. They correctly slammed Mr. Trump for decimating America’s decades-long leadership on refugees, whose admissions to this country were slashed by more than 75 percent in four years, to fewer than 12,000 in fiscal 2020. “We cannot mobilize other countries to meet their humanitarian obligations if we are not ourselves upholding our cherished democratic values and firmly rejecting Trump’s nativist rhetoric and actions,” said the Biden campaign statement on refugees.
While the administration bumbles its way toward a policy, real lives are at stake. Some 33,000 refugees in Africa, the Mideast and elsewhere, all of them having passed rigorous screening by the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies over the course of months or years, are stuck in camps where they await flights to the United States. They see this country as a beacon, just as Mr. Biden insisted it is.
It’s difficult to believe that the president and his top officials did not realize their immigration policies, refugee admissions among them, would galvanize Republican opportunism and demagoguery. Perhaps they failed to anticipate the scale of unaccompanied Central American minors and families who would cross the border seeking asylum this spring. Maybe they are worried that GOP attacks, conflating that wave of asylum-seekers with refugees, would further imperil the Democratic congressional majorities in next year’s midterm elections, despite Mr. Biden’s own healthy standing in the polls.
In any event, the president’s retreat on refugees is a danger sign. It looks like weakness; it smacks of spinelessness. Time will tell whether it is a short-term tactical maneuver or a more basic lack of resolve in the face of political headwinds. Here’s hoping it is the former.
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Read the complete editorial at the link.
Perhaps, Biden’s West Wing immigration advisers need a different “vision” of U.S. refugee policy. Perhaps, it’s time to end “Amateur Night at the Bijou” and bring in some human rights pros with the knowledge and guts to implement humane, effective, robust, legal refugee and asylum policies that serve humanity and advance our true national interests! PHOTO: independent.co.uk
Read the full op-ed, which actually recycles much that you’ve already heard on Courtside, at the link.
It “might be difficult to believe,” but you need look no further than the continuing worsening mess in Garland’s dysfunctional Immigration Courts, the failure to implement the rule of law at the border, the inability to get a robust refugee program up and running near the Northern Triangle, and the glaring lack of immigration/human rights expertise in the West Wing to see how unprepared “Team Biden” was to deal with inevitable, totally predictable, issues on which progressive Dem experts had been raising the alarm since before the election.
Incredibly, with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of progressive immigration/human rights/due process experts out here in the Dem camp, Biden has managed to surround himself with the wrong folks — those who can’t get the job done and prove it every day!
“Courage of their convictions” — that’s the problem here: Either his advisors don’t believe in the immigration, human rights, and justice agendas that Biden and Harris ran upon or they don’t have the guts to carry them out! Either way it’s a problem.
This is the same old, same old arrogant, uninformed “it’s only immigration not something important” attitude that has turned strength into weakness for Dems over the past decades! As Stephen Miller could testify, having the brainpower, expertise, courage, advocacy skills, energy, and persistence of the immigration/human rights community lined up in opposition isn’t conducive to implementing your agenda, whatever it might be.
Also, a pile of dead bodies beyond the border and continuing “Dred Scottification” of the other in dysfunctional, disgraceful “captive courts” might squeak by in the “present tense,” but will be an unflattering historical legacy that in the long run will outweigh all the achievements.
Turning supporters into critics, abandoning your values and promises, ginning up court suits opposing your out of control, due process destroying “courts,” and scofflaw asylum policies — some of them right out of the Stephen’s Miller playbook — seems like a bad way to proceed for any politician, let alone ones as experienced and skilled as Joe Biden & Kamala Harris.
Recognizing when the “honeymoon is over” and you need folks on your team who can actually turn campaign promises into real-world action is critical.
So far, the “Amateur Night @ the Bijou” approach to immigration, human rights, due process, and racial justice, predictably, isn’t getting the job done. The Biden Team needs to either turn to the experts, or face the real prospect of four years of continuing failure — along with the dead bodies, ruined human lives, and sense of continuing betrayal by gutless politicos that go with it.
Due Process Forever! Not “rocket science,” 🚀 but “mission impossible” without bringing in the pros!
Asked repeatedly (by me and others) what accounts for Biden’s delay, White House officials have struggled to answer. Sometimes they try to blame Trump, complaining that his administration left a system in “disrepair” that requires “rebuilding.” No doubt, Trump wrought a lot of damage upon the immigration system, and more resources would be necessary to reach the much higher refugee admissions that Biden claims he wants for the next fiscal year (125,000); currently, there aren’t enough people sufficiently far along in the refugee-screening pipeline to meet that goal.
But none of this explains why the few thousand already fully vetted and deemed “travel-ready” by the State Department as of early March have not been allowed in. The only thing preventing their entry is Biden — who refuses to do the right thing and sign a simple document.
The only explanation I can fathom for what’s going on is that the White House fears ordinary Americans will confuse the refugee resettlement system with the surge of migrants at the southern border. “Refugees” and “asylum seekers” might sound synonymous, but the groups are subject to different sets of laws, screening procedures and executive authorities. One key difference is that refugees apply from abroad and are screened for eligibility before they arrive; asylum seekers apply from within our borders or at a port of entry.
In other words, refugees are doing precisely what both Biden and Republicans urge those fleeing persecution and violence to do: staying abroad, and not crossing into the United States unlawfully; proving to U.S. and international officials that their lives are indeed in danger, and that they meet the legal requirements for resettlement; enduring extensive screening to prove they don’t threaten national security or public health; and then patiently waiting their turn for admission, a process that usually takes years.
And how is Biden rewarding them? The same way Trump did: by slamming the door.
*********************
Read Catherine’s complete article at the link.
[The Biden Administration] fears ordinary Americans will confuse the refugee resettlement system with the surge of migrants at the southern border.
Wow. In 50 years of “hanging around” the migration/human rights/political scene in D.C., I’ve heard plenty of insanely lame, cowardly excuses for not doing the right thing. But, this is “Top Five” material!
I have ideas on how to solve this problem, quickly:
Invest the “big bucks” to hire Catherine as the Biden Administration’s “Head Immigration Flackie.” She can explain the situation in terms that the American people will understand. That’s what Catherine does! Brings clarity, humanity, and common sense to complicated situations that flummox politicos and press offices.
Alternatively, get a “Loaner Law Student” from the Georgetown Law CALS Asylum Clinic. In two decades of working with CALS students in court, the classroom, and elsewhere, I’ve never run into one who doesn’t have a deeper understanding of, and better ability to explain, refugee and asylum policy than any of the “inept talking heads” the Biden Administration has thrown into the fray so far.
Georgetown Law
Another alternative: Hire Don Kerwin, currently the Executive Director of the Center for Migration Studies (“CMS”) to fix and explain the Administration’s (so far) mind-boggling failure to re-establish our refugee and asylum programs — actually both legal and moral obligations (although you wouldn’t know that by listening to the mindless negative natter from politicos of both parties). Don probably knows more than any living person about the amazing, quantifiable, benefits that refugees and asylees bring to our nation and is an expert at puncturing all of the White Nationalist myths and fear-mongering that have driven these essential programs into complete failure over the past few years.
Donald M. Kerwin Executive Director Center for Migration Studies
It’s also worthy of note that because of the Trump Administration’s “malicious incompetence” combined with the Biden Administration’s “willful incompetence,” against the background of an Attorney General unwilling to speak out and stand up for the legal rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and people of color in general, (just what is the purpose of an Attorney General who won’t stand up for the people — some of us thought, erroneously I guess, that we had voted that “model” out of office last November) we have no refugee program in Latin America and we have illegally closed ports of entry to legal asylum seekers.
So there is no regular system for asylum seekers to apply in an orderly fashion in accordance with our international, statutory, and Constitutional (not to mention moral) obligations. In violation of the mandatory provisions of Article 33 of the U.N. Convention, incorporated by the Refugee Act of 1980, every day we return legitimate refugees to danger, torture, or death without any inquiry at all. The “law violators” here aren’t the desperate folks vainly, yet gamely, trying to apply for asylum under our lawless system. It’s us!
Maybe, that’s why the Biden Administration doesn’t want anyone to understand what they really are doing and how wrong-headed it is!🤮👎🏴☠️
Is this Judge Merrick Garland’s Vision Of Justice For Refugee Women @ EOIR? If not, what’s he doing about it? Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsJamie Gorelick American Lawyer & Public Servant PHOTO: Creative CommonsLayli Miller-Muro Founder & Executive Director, Tahirih Justice Center PHOTO: Creative Commons
Jamie Gorelick is a partner at Wilmer Hale. Layli Miller-Muro is founder and CEO of the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit that serves immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. Both were involved in Fauziya Kassindja’s asylum case in 1996: Gorelick was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration and Miller-Muro was Kassindja’s student legal counsel, representing her in immigration court and at the Board of Immigration Appeals.
With the issue of migration in the news again, a glaring omission in U.S. asylum law should get more attention: The statute does not name gender as a possible ground for protection.
To be granted asylum in the United States, an applicant must be facing persecution by their government or someone that government cannot or will not control. The applicant must show that the persecution is on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in “a particular social group.” Persecution on account of gender is not included.
This makes sense when considering that the global treaty that obliges state parties to protect refugees was adopted 70 years ago, in 1951, when the legal rights of women were barely recognized. The treaty — called the Refugee Convention — says that countries have an obligation to protect those who have no choice but to flee or risk death in the face of injustice.
It is unsurprising that the needs of women facing persecution were not considered in 1951. It is also not surprising — though it is disappointing — that Congress wrote this outdated framework into the Refugee Act of 1980.
In the mid-1990s, some light was shined on this problem. Fauziya Kassindja, a 17-year-old from Togo, sought protection both from forced polygamous marriage to a much older man and from female genital mutilation. She was granted asylum after proving that she was a member of a “particular social group” — and thus covered by the Refugee Act. We were both involved in this case, which helped to crack open the door for women to argue that gender-based asylum claims should be granted under the “particular social group” category in the statute.
But progress for women has been slow and painful under a statute that does not explicitly recognize gender-based persecution. It took 14 years for the United States to grant asylum to a Guatemalan woman, Rodi Alvarado, who endured unspeakable brutalization by her husband, a former soldier. Regulations proffered by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in 2000 to protect women under the social-group category were never finalized, leaving women in the lurch. So much variance exists in the likelihood of success from court to court that filing a claim can feel like playing Russian roulette.
. . . .
This situation has been made much worse in recent years. Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, decades of progress were nearly wiped out by the stroke of a pen. Because the highest immigration court is part of the Justice Department, he was able to single-handedly reverse key legal precedents favorable to women’s claims and issue guidance to judges limiting gender-based asylum. As a result of these changes, the safety of many immigrant women hangs by a thread. The Refugee Act urgently needs to be changed to clearly protect women who would otherwise meet the stringent requirements for asylum.
. . . .
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Read the full op-ed at the link.
The Rest of the Story
I wrote the decision granting asylum in Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996). Jamie Gorelick was the Deputy Attorney General during part of my tenure (1995-2001) as Chair of the BIA. Layli Miller-Muro worked for me as a BIA Attorney-Advisor for a time.
Following Kasinga, some of my colleagues and I put our careers on the line to vindicate the statutory, constitutional, and human rights of refugee women who suffered egregious persecution in the form of domestic violence. One of those cases was Rodi Alvarado (a/k/a “Ms. R-A-“), where we dissented from our majority colleagues’ misguided denial of protection to her following grotesque, clearly gender-based persecution. Matter of R-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 906, 928 (BIA 1999) (Guendelsberger,Board Member, dissenting with Schmidt, Chair, Villageliu, Rosenberg, and Moscato, Board Members). Alvarado had properly been granted asylum by an Immigration Judge, building on Kasinga, before being unjustly stripped of protection by the majority of our colleagues.
The incorrect decision in R-A- was vacated by Attorney General Reno. Finally, after a 14-year struggle, Ms. Alvarado was granted asylum in an unpublished, unappealed decision based largely on the rationale of the dissenters. In the meantime, the “gang of four” dissenters (minus Moscato) had been exiled from the BIA by Attorney General John Ashcroft, assisted by his sidekick, Kris Kobach (the infamous “Ashcroft Purge” @ the BIA).
In 2014, in Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014), the BIA finally recognized domestic violence based on gender as a form of persecution. They did so without acknowledging the pioneering work of the R-A- dissenters 15 years earlier. By this time, domestic violence as a basis for asylum had become so well established that it wasn’t even contested by the DHS (although, curiously, the case was remanded by the BIA for additional findings on issues that were beyond reasonable dispute)!
In the meantime, at the Arlington Immigration Court, my colleagues and I had consistently granted domestic violence asylum cases based on a DHS policy position known as the “Martin Memo,” after former INS General Counsel and later DHS Deputy General Counsel Professor David Martin (who, incidentally, argued the Kasinga case before the BIA in 1996 — famous gender-based asylum expert Professor Karen Musalo argued for Kasinga). Most of those grants were unappealed by DHS. Indeed, many were so compelling and well documented that DHS joined Respondents’ counsel in moving for asylum grants following brief testimony. These cases actually became staples on my “short docket,” promoting efficiency, fairness, and becoming one of the few “working parts” of the Immigration Courts.
Tahirih Justice Center, founded by, Layli Miller-Muro, was counsel in some of these cases and served as an essential resource and inspiration for attorneys preparing domestic violence cases. It also functioned as a training center for some of the “new all-stars” of the New Due Process Army. For a time, the progress in recognizing, documenting, and vindicating the rights and humanity of female asylum seekers, at least in the Arlington Immigration Court, was one of the few shining examples of the courts, DHS, and the private/NGO bar working cooperatively to improve the quality and efficiency of justice in Immigration Court. It should have been a model for all other courts!
Sadly, in 2018, Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, unilaterally intervened and undid two decades of progress for women refugees of color with his grossly incorrect and disingenuous decision in Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (BIA 2018), overruling Matter of A-R-C-G- on completely specious grounds while intentionally misconstruing the facts of record. Significantly, Sessions’s intervention was over the objection of DHS, which had expressed continuing agreement with the A-R-C-G- framework for deciding domestic violence cases.
“Hanging by a thread,” as stated by the op-ed, unfortunately vastly understates the war on the legal rights and humanity of asylum-seeking women, particularly targeting women at color, being carried out at EOIR today. This effort is led by a BIA that has long since lost its way, basically “weaponizing” the legal distortions and vicious, openly misogynist dicta set forth by Sessions in Matter of A-B- to dehumanize, degrade, and deport vulnerable refugee women.
In numerous cases, the BIA actually intervenes at ICE’s request to reverse proper grants by courageous and scholarly Immigration Judges below. It’s all about churning out final orders of removal as a deterrent –a vile, disgusting, perverted “philosophy” advanced by Sessions, Barr, and Whitaker, and not yet effectively rejected by Judge Garland.
Judge Merrick B. Garland Official White House Photo Public Realm
Judge Garland is in the job because he is not only an experienced DOJ senior executive, but a long-serving Federal Judge who was admired for his sense of justice. It shouldn’t take an army of “spear-carriers” and subordinates for a true leader of Judge Garland’s experience to seize control of the situation and start getting the “ship of justice” sailing in the right direction. Judge Garland’s political and bureaucratic travails are of no moment to, and pale in comparison with, the additional, unconscionable abuse and “Dred Scottification” being heaped on refugee women and their courageous representatives by his dysfunctional and unconstitutional “star chamber courts.”
“Refugee women get ‘special treatment’ in accordance with the ‘traditional values’ applied to their cases in Judge Garland’s Immigration Courts!”
Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160
Please, Pick Up The Phone & Your Pen, Judge Garland!
Not rocket science, Judge Garland! All it takes is six calls and a signature to start ending misogyny at EOIR and achieving racial justice in the America.
First three calls: Call Judge Dana Marks (SF), Judge Noel Brennan (NYC), Judge Amiena Khan (Newark) and tell them that they are detailed to the positions of Acting EOIR Director, Acting BIA Chair, and Acting Chief Immigration Judge, respectively. (The first position is vacant and the other two positions are filled by Senior Executives subject to transfer at the AG’s discretion. The current Acting Director already has an SES position to which she could return, or she could be re-installed as the
EOIR General Counsel, a job for which she is well-qualified.)
Fourth call: Call the the head of of the Justice Management Division (JMD). Ask her/him to find suitable DOJ placements for the two current incumbents mentioned above and all current members of the BIA (all of whom are either SES or “Management Officials” subject to transfer at the AG’s discretion) in other DOJ positions at the same pay level where they can do no further damage to our justice system. Ask him/her to arrange for the temporary appointment of former DOJ employees Jamie Gorelick and Layli Miller-Muro as Acting Appellate Judges at the BIA.
Calls five and six: Call Jamie Gorelick and Layli Miller-Muro. Thank them, tell them you agree with their Post op-ed, and ask (or beg) them to come to DOJ on a temporary basis to help Judges Marks, Brennan, and Khan solve the current problems with asylum adjudications and take the necessary actions to get EOIR functioning as a legitimate, independent, due-process-oriented court system. In other words, turn their cogent op-ed into a “real life action plan” for restoring due process, humanity, and common sense to the Immigration Courts, with a focus on the now totally unprofessional, wrong-headed mis-adjudication of asylum cases.
Finally, sign this order:
All precedent decisions issued to EOIR by former Attorneys General Sessions and Barr, and former Acting Attorneys General Whitaker and Wilkinson, and all their pending actions certifying cases to themselves are hereby vacated. All cases shall be returned to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) for reconsideration. In the reconsideration process, the BIA shall, among other things, honor the letter and spirit of these binding precedents:
INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987)
Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I&N Dec. 439 (BIA 1987)
Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996)
In the reconsideration process the BIA shall also be guided by the principle of “through teamwork, innovation, and best practices, become the world’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”
See, it’s not that complicated. By the end of this year, women will get the protection to which they legally are entitled from the Immigration Courts. We all will see dramatic changes that will lead the way toward “equal justice for all’” in America and become a blueprint for the Immigration Courts to fulfill the above-stated principle.
It would also be a far better legacy for Judge Garland to be viewed as the “father of the fair, independent, expert Immigration Courts,” than to be remembered as running the most dysfunctional, unfair, and misogynistic court system in America, his current path. And, as an extra added bonus, Judge Garland, you will have a great start on building a premier source of “battle tested,” due-process-oriented, progressive jurists for future Article III appointments!
It’s a “win-win-win” that you no longer can afford to ignore, Your Honor!
Leon Krauze in the WashPost tells us what’s really happening at the border. WARNING: It has little to do with the myths and false narratives being peddled by the GOP, the Administration, and the media.
The current emergency at the border has found the U. S. media at its most solipsistic. Coverage seems more focused on whether the emergency should be called “a crisis” (it should) and what the political fallout for the Biden administration will be. With few exceptions — like the remarkable work of MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff or Politico’s Sabrina Rodriguez — many news outlets seem utterly uninterested in the stories of the migrants themselves.
This is wrong because it fails to provide one crucial piece of the puzzle: the very concrete context of human suffering.
. . . .
This by no means excuses the stories of anguish and confinement that have emerged over the last few weeks from within the facilities set up by the Biden administration to deal with the number of young migrants crossing the border, nor does it absolve the president himself from delivering on his promise of a humane immigration system, diametrically opposed to Trump’s cruel policies, designed in collaboration with unapologetic racist xenophobes like Stephen Miller.
The Biden administration can and should do better. But the current debate cannot ignore the very concrete despair facing thousands of immigrant families who, under the direct threat of violence or abuse, chose to push their young children to the United States, in search of safety.
If the alternative was famine, gang violence, kidnapping, rape or sexual slavery, wouldn’t you bet it all on the journey north? If more people understood this, the political debate and the coverage surrounding the crisis would be much more empathetic and we would get closer at delivering concrete, humane solutions.
Now, let’s hear more “simple truth” from Suzanne Gamboa over at NBC News:
Suzanne Gamboa, Political Editor, NBCLatino, NBC NewsDate: October 21, 2013 Place: Washington, DC Credit: Maria Patricia Leiva/OAS Creative Commons License
America’s immigration impasse — an endless loop across different administrations — is largely self-inflicted, because Congress has repeatedly failed to acknowledge one simple thing: Immigration happens.
Accordingly, immigration laws must be continually adjusted, reformed and revised, experts say.
“People will always want to come to the U.S., and the U.S. will always need people,” said former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was a top immigration adviser to President George W. Bush.
Until there is a system that allows enough legal immigration to meet the economy’s needs, there will be illegal immigration, Gutierrez said.
“That’s just part of how our economy is set up. It’s part of demographics,” Gutierrez said. “Our birthrate is not high enough to be able to fill the needs of our economy.”
The coronavirus pandemic reinforced the importance of immigrant labor to the American economy, including labor by the undocumented.
All of those people and many other immigrants, including young immigrants — often called “Dreamers” based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act — will play a key role in helping the economy recover from its pandemic bust.
But immigration requires periodic calibration, and the economics and the changing patterns are lost in the politics.
“People are going to move — as they are all around the world — where they think they can find places to better feed their children. That’s the bottom line, and that’s the history of migration to the United States,” said Luis Fraga, director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
. . . .
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Everyone should read the rest of the stories at the above link.
Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration
By Judge (Ret) Paul Wickham Schmidt
“Courtside” Exclusive
March 26, 2021
Notwithstanding the endlessly disingenuous and self-centered alarmist rhetoric coming from all directions on the border mess, often mindlessly regurgitated by the press (not just Fox News), the real “crisis” involves the human lives at stake and the unnecessary human misery we are causing by failing to establish, professionally staff, and fairly and competently operate the legal refugee and particularly asylum systems required by law. This “due process crisis” actually has devastating and debilitating practical effects, starting with the dysfunctional immigration, refugee, and asylum system and the beyond dysfunctional Immigration Courts.
Heck, we don’t even pretend to comply with Constitutionally-required due process of law for asylum seekers who present themselves to us seeking life-saving refuge. Most of those who show up at legally-established border ports are told that the border is “closed” and that there is no way for them to apply. OK, so they attempt to cross between ports and immediately present themselves to the Border Patrol. But, they also are told there is no way to apply and are orbited back to some of the most dangerous countries in the world without any process whatsoever, let alone due process of law. Who are we kidding with all our dishonest pontificating about “the rule of law?”
It’s a strange way to implement the statutory command that any foreign national “irrespective of . . . status, may apply for asylum,” along with a constitutional guarantee that “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Gee, you don’t even need one of those fancy Ivy League law degrees to understand that language. You just have to be able to read, comprehend, and act.
What you do have to do to get where we are today is to view asylum seekers and other migrants (predominantly people of color) as less than human — “non-persons” in a constitutional sense. It’s what some of us call “Dred Scottification of the other” and it has accelerated over the past four years — not just in immigration.
The whole idea of a “court system” being run by the Executive who also is the chief of enforcement is beyond constitutionally preposterous. It’s a “negative tribute” to the Supremes and other Article III life-tenured judges who have grown so distant from their own humanity and immigration stories as to become willfully blind to the ongoing farce that constitutes “justice” and “due process of law” for asylum seekers and other immigrants in the U.S.
Today’s nearly non-existent “asylum system” is a deadly and illegal “catch 22,” with the Supremes sitting in their marble palace refusing to do the primary task that justifies their continued existence: enforce the Constitution against Government misbehavior and in favor of the “little guys” and the “vulnerable.” No thanks, not up to the job!
The real tragedy is that there are plenty of folks out here with the knowledge, integrity, courage, and ability to establish a legal system that would actually comply with out laws, our Constitution, and further offer the hope of constructively addressing some problems before refugees arrive at our borders. But, they remain “benched,” even by the Biden Team. So the “good guys”are going to keep attacking the corrupt and broken system in court and at the polls for as long as it takes to get some course correction — years, decades, centuries — ask most African Americans how long it takes to achieve the true justice that America promises to all, but historically has only delivered to some.
In the long run, a fair system would undoubtedly accept many more legal refugees and asylum seekers. That’s what happens in refugee situations — it’s the core of what we call “forced migration” — when you sign on to international conventions intended to prevent the “next holocaust,” and you fairly and humanely apply the rules meant to protect refugees and those who face torture. And, as they have in the past, the overwhelming number of refugees and asylees, like the overwhelming majority of immigrants (essentially all of us, except Native Americans) will adapt, fit in, and contribute to the health, wealth, and future of our nation. They will change, but so will we — ultimately for the better!
Sure, America wouldn’t be as white, “Christian” (to the extent that adherence to a nominal Christian denomination, rather than actually performing Christ’s extremely difficult, self-sacrificing, risky, compassionate mission, defines Christianity), and nominally heterosexual as it was when White Nationalist myths and whitewashed history ruled the roost. But, it would be a better nation — one that actually has a chance of prospering, realizing the full potential of all its residents, and leading the world in the 21st century. A nation that could devote more human, natural, and monetary resources to building and exporting greatness, rather than to an endless stream of cruel, inhuman, stupid, and wasteful enforcement and deterrence gimmicks.
Bottom line, folks are going to come to America, as they have throughout history. Some will stay, some won’t. But, come they will, unless and until those like Trump and the GOP create such a mess that our own people start fleeing to foreign shores. Immigration, regardless of status, is a sign of strength. Xenophobia a sign of fatal weakness.
Our real choice isn’t whether we want to “close” borders, bar refugees, and abuse children as the Cottons, Cruzes, Millers, and Hawleys advocate. It’s whether we create a robust, orderly, rational legal system to screen, regulate, and distribute the inevitable flow or whether, as we have for the past decades, we force millions to reside and work underground — part of an “extralegal” or “black market” system that pols of both parties and those who profit from that underground system have created.
Sprawling mismanaged enforcement bureaucracies, dysfunctional “courts,” armies of publicly-paid lawyers defending the indefensible, for-profit civil prisons, big agriculture, hospitality giants, loads of upwardly mobile professionals who need child care to pursue careers, communities that live off of marketing ethnic culture, meat packing conglomerates, architects and construction firms who are “building America,” even news media fixated on hyping the problem rather than fixing it (see, e.g., yesterday’s Biden press conference), the list of those who profit from a talented, hard working, reliable, loyal, yet politically and socially disenfranchised, workforce is endless.
Even the GOP’s “Cotton-Cruz crowd” benefits from having an imaginary enemy to rant and rail and gin up hate against — safe in the knowledge that the tanking of our economy, upheaval of society, and possible threat to their privilege that would result from realizing their disingenuous call to boot the entire undocumented population will never happen. Their kids and grandkids can continue to reap the privilege that comes from exploiting an essential, yet politically neutered, workforce. It’s really more about institutionalizing racism to maintain economic and political power over the eventual non-white majority that drives their bogus and ugly narratives.
We can degrade ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽⚖️Due Process Forever! It’s a vision based on a written promise, not a “pipe dream!”
Elizabeth Gibson Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
COVID-19 & Closures
Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.
EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, April 16, 2021. (It is unclear when the next announcement will be. EOIR announced 4/16 on Fri. 3/5, 3/19 on Wed. 2/10, 2/19 on Mon. 1/25, 2/5 on Mon. 1/11, and 1/22 on Mon. 12/28.) There is no announced date for reopening NYC non-detained at this time.
Pew: To better understand the existing U.S. immigration system, we analyzed the most recent data available on federal immigration programs. This includes admission categories for green card recipients and the types of temporary employment visas available to immigrant workers. We also examined temporary permissions granted to some immigrants to live and work in the country through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status programs.
TRAC: As of the end of President Biden’s first full month in office, the number of individuals arrested by ICE and booked into civil immigrant detention fell sharply from 5,119 ICE book-in arrests during January 2021 to just 1,970 during February 2021. According to the latest ICE figures, this was a drop of 62 percent just in a single month.
NPR: The U.S. government had 4,276 unaccompanied migrant children in custody as of Sunday, according to a Department of Homeland Security document obtained by NPR. The children are spending an average of 117 hours in detention facilities, far longer than the 72 hours allowed by law.
NBC: Restrictions on what border agents can share with the media were passed down verbally, say officials. Some have released videos of the border surge anyway. See also How Border Patrol Manipulates Media.
CNN: Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Sunday that he thinks he is “close” to securing the Republican votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster to advance a key immigration measure that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
USCIS: USCIS stopped applying the Public Charge Final Rule to all pending applications and petitions on March 9, 2021. USCIS removed content related to the vacated 2019 Public Charge Final Rule from the affected USCIS forms and has posted updated versions of affected forms. See also Withdrawal of USCIS Proposed Rule on Affidavit of Support Requirements.
Law360: The House on Thursday approved two major immigration proposals that would provide a path to lawful status and eventual citizenship for several million “Dreamers” brought to the country as children and farmworkers working without authorization in American agriculture.
The court vacated and remanded the BIA’s decision affirming the IJ’s adverse credibility determination, finding that alleged discrepancies between the petitioner’s interview account and his hearing account failed to support the adverse credibility finding. (Cuesta-Rojas v. Garland, 3/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031737
Where the petitioner cited two post-2006 events as evidence of changed country conditions, the court held that the BIA’s failure to assess whether those changes were sufficient was arbitrary and capricious, and reversed the BIA’s denial of his motion to reopen. (Lucaj v. Wilkinson, 3/10/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031732
Law360: The First Circuit on Wednesday refused to disturb a Massachusetts federal court’s decision denying bail to several immigration detainees convicted of violent crimes, finding that it was reasonable to decide the detainees still belonged behind bars in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Where the Guatemalan petitioner’s Notice to Appear (NTA) was delivered in English, the court rejected her argument that the NTA violated her due process rights because it did not detail in her native language the consequences of failing to attend her proceeding. (Lopez v. Garland, 3/12/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031733
Law360: The Seventh Circuit on Monday squashed an attempt by 14 states led by Texas to revive the Trump administration’s public charge policy, which penalizes immigrants for using certain public benefits, after the Biden administration decided not to defend it.
The court held that the categorical approach does not require a petitioner seeking cancellation of removal to show that there is a realistic probability the state prosecutes people for the conduct that makes the state offense broader than the federal offense. (Gonzalez v. Wilkinson, 3/9/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031738
The court held that the BIA did not err in determining that the petitioner’s conviction for second-degree felony assault in Minnesota was a particularly serious crime barring statutory withholding of removal and Convention Against Torture (CAT) relief. (Jama v. Wilkinson, 3/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031739
The court remanded petitioner’s Convention Against Torture (CAT) claim to the BIA for reconsideration in light of the fact that the IJ took judicial notice of, and relied upon, DOS’s Country Report, yet the BIA’s decision did not take it into account. (Aguilar-Osorio v. Garland, 3/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031744
The court held that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying the petitioner’s motion to reopen after determining that the petitioner had failed to present evidence demonstrating that country conditions in Mexico had changed since his 2003 removal order. (Rodriguez v. Garland, 3/15/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031741
The court held that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s determination that the Salvadoran petitioner had failed to establish past harm rising to the level of persecution, and concluded that her proposed social groups were not cognizable. (Villegas Sanchez v. Garland, 3/11/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031740
The court held that Matter of G-G-S- was not arbitrary or capricious, and that BIA applied the correct legal standard in determining that petitioner’s convictions were for particularly serious crimes rendering him ineligible for withholding of removal. (Birhanu v. Wilkinson, 3/9/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031745
Law360: A federal judge on Thursday ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to facilitate vaccinations of immigrants detained at the agency’s Buffalo Service Processing Center in upstate New York.
Law360: Three nonprofit organizations have sued Arizona’s attorney general in federal court seeking the cancellation of an agreement requiring the state’s input in federal immigration policies, saying the Trump administration official who made the arrangement lacked the authority to do so.
ASISTA: Safe Horizon and ASISTA File Lawsuit Against USCIS and DHS, Seeking Information on Policy Change Making it More Difficult for Victims of Serious Crime to Obtain Relief Under the U-Visa Program.
On March 11, 2021, HHS ORR and ICE and CBP signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) regarding consultation and information sharing in matters relating to unaccompanied children. The April 13, 2018, MOA among the agencies dealing with UAC matters has been terminated. AILA Doc. No. 21031235
Law360: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will no longer rule out petitions for special status from mistreated youth based on state courts’ failure to assess whether they have ties to gangs, a policy change stemming from a class settlement last year.
EOIR issued a policy memo (PM 21-16) rescinding and cancelling PM 20-01, Case Processing at the Board of Immigration Appeals. Upon this rescission, the BIA returns to the case management system established by regulation that was effective on 9/25/02 to manage the Board’s caseload. AILA Doc. No. 21031748
Advance copy of USCIS and EOIR interim final rule further delaying until 12/31/21 the effective date of the final rule “Security Bars and Processing” (85 FR 84160) which had been scheduled to become effective on 3/22/21. Public comment is also sought on whether the rule should be revised or revoked. AILA Doc. No. 21031930
Advance copy of USCIS final rule extending the expiration date of the temporary final rule on interpreters at asylum interviews published at 85 FR 59655, which was originally scheduled to expire on 3/22/21, for 180 days. The final rule will be published in the Federal Register on 3/22/21. AILA Doc. No. 21031932
CBP issued a notification of the continuation of temporary travel restrictions limiting travel of individuals from Mexico into the United States at land ports of entry along the United States-Mexico border through 4/21/21 due to COVID-19. (86 FR 14813, 3/19/21) AILA Doc. No. 21031934
USCIS notice extending the designation of Syria for TPS for 18 months, from 3/31/21 through 9/30/22, and redesignating Syria for TPS for 18 months, effective 3/31/21 through 9/30/22. (86 FR 14946, 3/19/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012930
Check out item #7 under “Top News,” the story from the WashPost of Agnes Lee, the new Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Law Journal. In addition to being a brilliant and accomplished student, she happens to be an undocumented resident of the U.S. Congrats to Agnes, the Law Journal, and the entire Georgetown Law community!
⚖️Shout Out for Georgetown Law Students:
Of course, never missing an opportunity to “self-promote,” I heartily encourage current Georgetown Law students who wish to learn and engage in active dialogue about immigration, social justice, and racial justice in America today, as well as to pick up pointers on how to actually practice law, to register for my “compressed semester, 2-credit course Immigration Law & Policy” to be given this June (in person, and virtual options).
Thanks to the great group of students, it’s always a lively, engaged, and diverse group researching, presenting, and discussing perhaps the most important (and misunderstood) current topic for America’s and the word’s future — one on which, sad to say, the myths, false narratives and misinformation are rampant, spreading even as I write this.
While I provide an outstanding “practice oriented” text, the class topics, abundant study questions, a challenging but very “doable” final exam, along with the inevitable anecdotes and “war stories” from my nearly 50-year career, the students actually control the substance though their own research on current and historical events and sharing of personal experiences with the immigration system (everybody has some, whether they realize it or not). It’s also a chance to “network and bond” with a group of wonderful colleagues who can “be there for you” throughout your careers.
Indeed, I hope to put together a panel of “young superstars”🌟 of the New Due Process Army,🌟 including former students/and or court interns, who can share their career experiences on “why they chose to make a difference in human lives and how they have accomplished it.” Additionally, one of the best “up and coming” minds in the business, my friend Professor Cori Alonso Yoder, currently a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law, has offered to meet with the class to share some of her knowledge and real life experiences with “Life-saving 101.” So, it should be a vibrant an exciting month. Don’t miss it!
Also, despite the seriousness of the topic, we always have some fun doing it!
Also, remember, NDPA superstar🌟 Liz Gibson, of “The Gibson Report,” is one of my former Georgetown Law students, a CALS Asylum Clinic veteran, a former Arlington Immigration Court intern, a former Judicial Law Clerk at the NY Immigration Court, and an alum of the prestigious Immigrant Justice Corps! In a relatively short time, Liz has used her skills, knowledge, and training to make a lifetime’s worth of “real life positive impact” on the lives and futures of our fellow humans!
