immigrationcourtside.com

🌽🥔🍠🌶🥑FOOD MATTERS! — PORTLAND FOOD PANTRY CATERS TO IMMIGRANT, ETHNIC COMMUNITIES IN MAINE!

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/11/21/a-portland-food-program-learns-what-foods-immigrants-in-need-want-most/

Gillian Graham reports for the Portland Press Herald:

During the five years Betsy Paz-Gyimesi has been working as an interpreter and engagement specialist for Spanish-speaking families in Portland schools, she has seen the same scene play out many times.

When they go for help to a food pantry, they’re offered food they will not eat. Some are afraid of canned foods because they believe they are dangerous. Others have cultural or religious needs that aren’t met by the American items on the pantry shelves.

Most of the families Paz-Gyimesi works with come from Central America, and they don’t all qualify for benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and other similar programs. Because there are few options for them at the food pantry, their children often rely heavily on schools for meals, Paz-Gyimesi said.

But that will begin to change next month as Wayside Food Programs in Portland launches a pilot program to better address food insecurity in immigrant communities by providing food packs customized to the needs and preferences of those receiving emergency assistance.

Working with leaders of immigrant communities, Wayside developed lists of basic pantry items they commonly use and a guide to their specific food preferences that can be used by other food programs, said Mary Zwolinski, Wayside’s executive director.

“Our hope is that it helps with the issue of food equity,” she said.

The pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted Maine’s racial and ethnic minorities, laid bare that the state’s existing emergency food structure was not adequately serving all of their needs. Some of the people most vulnerable to hunger didn’t access existing food programs. When they did, many did not find food – Jasmine rice, dried fish, pork-free products – that fit their cultural, religious and dietary restrictions and preferences.

. . . .

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

Nice effort! Maine has been a bastion of community cooperation, creative encouragement of, and positive interaction with immigrant communities! Seems like a good model that can be replicated throughout America. Read the full article at the link!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-22-21

⚖️9TH PANEL LETS IT ALL HANG OUT ON IMMIGRATION CASE — Goulart v. Garland

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/11/18/19-72007.pdf

From the dissent by U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman, EDNY, sitting by designation:

Goulart is not a sympathetic character. I can understand the desire to remove convicted burglars from this country. Indeed, Judge VanDyke questions why I have bothered to “champion” the cause of a convicted burglar. The answer should be obvious. The judicial oath, which was adopted in the Judiciary Act of 1789, requires us to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.” See 1 Stat. 73, 76 (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 453). We take such an oath, which derives from biblical teachings, see Deuteronomy 1:17, so as not to be blinded by our like or dislike of the parties. We are not called to decide whether Goulart is a good person, but rather whether a person who has been banished from the United States without legal justification should be permitted to seek to return. The Supreme Court has held that the precise statute under which Goulart was deported violates the Constitution. Principles of law and equity require that he be permitted to move for reconsideration in this case. I respectfully dissent.

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

Wow! Three opinions on a three-judge panel! Been there, done that! Reminds me of my long gone days on the “Schmidt BIA” when we all took our jobs seriously, even if it often didn’t result in “fake unanimity” (the watchword of today’s dysfunctional BIA).

For those who like to apply “ideological analysis” to Article III decisions, this one doesn’t “fit the mold:”

Judge Richard A. Paez (“majority” opinion) is a Clinton appointee.

Judge Lawrence VanDyke (concurring opinion) is a Trump appointee.

Judge Edward R. Korman (dissenting opinion) is a Reagan appointee.

That being said, the majority’s rationale that a deported respondent should have been a “legal clairvoyant,” predicting the eventual Supreme Court decision finding the statute under which he was convicted unconstitutional, is a piece of absurdist legal sophistry. Wonder what the result might have been if the panel majority didn’t look at him as an “alien bank robber,” not deserving of fair treatment or legal rights? Reminds me of what my former “boss” the late “Iron Mike” Inman used to yell at me during heated arguments at the “Legacy INS OGC:” “What did they teach you at that law school!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-20-21

😎🗽⚖️ OF COURSE, GREAT LAWYERING MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN IMMIGRATION COURT! — Only Nativists & Former Director McHenry Would Bogusly Claim Otherwise! — Another “Real Life Success Story” From Professors Benitez & Vera @ The GW Law Immigration Clinic! — Garland’s DOJ “Goes Molasses In November” On Improving Access To Counsel & Elevating The “Pro Bono Experience!”

Please thank them all on my behalf. I’m extremely grateful for what each of them did on my case.” This is what our client, E-K- said upon receiving well wishes from several of his former student-attorneys after he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen yesterday. Please see the attached photo of E-K- with Prof. Vera after his oath ceremony. E-K- authorized our use of his picture.

E-K- became a Clinic client in 2009 after an unsuccessful interview at the Arlington Asylum Office. In February 2010, E-K-, a native of Cameroon, had his first Individual Calendar Hearing based on his political opinion and imputed political opinion following his involvement in a sit-in and his presence during a protest. DHS appealed the initial grant of asylum and on remand the Board of Immigration Appeals instructed the Immigration Judge to pay attention to credibility. However, the Immigration Clinic and E-K- prevailed again in 2013 and the asylum grant was finalized! The Clinic then assisted E-K- with his green card application, naturalization application, and naturalization interview. Next up: his wife’s green card application!

Please join me in congratulating Alexa Glock, Anca Grigore, Rebekah Niblock, Victoria Braga, Alex North, Jonathan Bialosky, and Paulina Vera, who all worked on the case.

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

Alberto Manuel Benitez

Professor of Clinical Law

Director, Immigration Clinic

The George Washington University Law School

650 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

(202) 994-7463

(202) 994-4946 fax

abenitez@law.gwu.edu

THE WORLD IS YOURS…

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

Real life success stories from real life humans represented by well-trained law students in a “Surreal Immigration Court System!”

Brings to mind the disgraceful incident when former Trump-Era EOIR Director James McHenry created a bogus “Fact Sheet” with a ludicrous narrative in a dishonest attempt to show that lawyers and knowing individual rights in Immigration Court were irrelevant to success.

McHenry’s lies, myths, and intentional distortions were universally panned by immigration experts as reported by Courtside at the time.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/16/the-asylumist-weighs-in-on-eoirs-fact-sheet-sometimes-myths-and-facts-get-mixed-up-especially-in-the-trump-administration-which-has-redacted-human-rights-report/

https://www.naij-usa.org/images/uploads/newsroom/

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/16/truth-matters-setting-the-record-straight-aila-blasts-eoirs-false-unethical-anti-asylum-screed-together-the-documents-deceptive-information-and-polarizing-r/

Under Judge Garland, the DOJ claims to recognize and promote representation in Immigration Court. But, leaving aside the mushy rhetoric, their actions say otherwise:

- “Dedicated Dockets” and sloppy mail-out notices established without consultation with the private bar;
- Proposed asylum regulations almost universally opposed by the private bar;
- Failure to slash the overwhelming, due process inhibiting, 1.5 million case backlog;
- Continued “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” fueled by changing and misplaced administrative “priorities”that totally ignore the needs of the pro bono bar;
- Continuing support for “imbedded Immigration Courts and TV Courts” established in or near DHS Detention Centers located in obscure places where attorneys are not easily obtainable;
- Overly restrictive and widely inconsistent bond determinations in Immigration Court that inhibit effective representation;
- Ridiculous backlog of Recognition and Accreditation applications that impedes new opportunities for well-qualified pro bono representatives in Immigration Court (See, e.g., VIISTA Program, Villanova Law);
- Failure to “swap out” a legally substandardly performing BIA and some Immigration Judges for “real, well-qualified Judges with immigration and due process expertise;”
- Long-delayed e-filing, making pro bono representation more difficult and less efficient;
- Overall lack of dynamic court management and appropriate professional dialogue with the private bar;
- Substandard EOIR “judicial training” that puts undue burden on private attorneys, particularly those operating pro bono;
- Lack of positive precedents, particularly on asylum, that would help parties and judges move many “grantable” asylum cases through Immigration Courts fairly, efficiently, and consistently with due process and “best practices;”
- Continuing lawless use of Title 42 @ Southern Border causing diversion of legal resources that could otherwise be channeled into representation!

In other words, the DOJ under Garland has failed to deliver on the promise of restoring the rule of law and promoting representation in Immigration Court. Seems like nothing short of Article I will “get the job done!”

It’s painfully obvious that the politicos running the dysfunctional Immigration Courts @ DOJ have never actually had to practice before them, particularly pro bono! So, they just go on repeating many of the uninformed mistakes of their predecessors!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-19-21

🏴‍☠️👎🏽MORE REBUKES FOR GARLAND’S INEPT BIA, ASHCROFT: 1st Cir. Questions Ashcroft’s Matter Of Y-L-, 23 I&N Dec. 370 (AG 2002) Even As OIL Disavows BIA’s (Non) Analysis — 11th Slams BIA’s Unreasonable Rejection Of Future Persecution, Withholding, CAT For Sri Lankan!

From Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-puts-a-dent-in-matter-of-y-l–decarvalho-v-garland#

CA1 Puts a Dent in Matter of Y-L-: DeCarvalho v. Garland

DeCarvalho v. Garland

“The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) held that Janito DeCarvalho’s conviction for possession of oxycodone with intent to distribute in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 94C, § 32A(a), constitutes a “particularly serious crime” that makes him ineligible for withholding of removal. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(B)(ii). The BIA also denied DeCarvalho’s application for deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). DeCarvalho petitions for review of the BIA’s decisions, principally arguing that the Attorney General’s decision in Matter of Y-L- unlawfully presumes that all aggravated felonies involving trafficking in controlled substances are particularly serious crimes. See 23 I. & N. Dec. 270, 274–75 (U.S. Att’y Gen. 2002). We deny his petition for review insofar as he seeks CAT relief. We grant the petition in part, however, because the immigration judge (IJ) informed DeCarvalho, who was proceeding pro se, that he was eligible for potential relief only under the CAT. In so doing, the IJ treated DeCarvalho’s conviction for drug trafficking as if it were a per se bar to withholding of removal, a position that the government now disavows on appeal. We remand to the agency with instructions to give DeCarvalho a new hearing to determine whether he is entitled to withholding of removal.”

[Hats off to Trina Realmuto, Tiffany Lieu, and Jennifer Klein!]

***********

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca11-on-future-persecution-cat-jathursan-v-atty-gen#

CA11 on Future Persecution, CAT: Jathursan v. Atty. Gen.

Jathursan v. Atty. Gen.

“Pathmanathan Jathursan, a native and citizen of Sri Lanka, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) final order affirming the immigration judge’s denial of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”). The BIA found no clear error in the immigration judge’s findings that Jathursan failed to establish (1) past persecution on account of a protected ground, (2) a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of a protected ground, or (3) that he would more likely than not be tortured in the event he returned to Sri Lanka. Following oral argument, we grant Jathursan’s petition for review in part, vacate the BIA’s order in part, and remand to the BIA for further consideration of his asylum and withholding-of-removal claims based on his fear of future persecution as a Tamil failed asylum seeker. We also vacate and remand on the BIA’s denial of relief under CAT.”

[Hats off to Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran!]

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

What’s the “worst of all worlds?” Let’s try a ”holdover BIA” still channeling Trump/Miller biased nativist restrictionism combined with a Dem AG with infinite tolerance for substandard judging, an anti-immigrant culture, and bad decision making that disproportionately adversely affects people of color! 😎 Add that to an out of control, largely self-created, jaw-dropping 1.5 million case backlog and you get a formula for national disaster!

These “TRAC Lowlights” show a totally unacceptable and inept performance by the DOJ and Judge Garland that should have every American who believes in due process, equal justice, and “good government” outraged and demanding a change at DOJ! https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/quickfacts/?category=eoir

Highlights from data updated today on immigrants facing deportation in court include the following:

Immigration Courts recorded receiving 49,817 new cases so far in FY 2022 as of October 2021. This compares with 21,154 cases that the court completed during this period.

According to court records, only 0.68% of FY 2022 new cases sought deportation orders based on any alleged criminal activity of the immigrant, apart from possible illegal entry.

At the end of October 2021, 1,486,495 active cases were pending before the Immigration Court.

Los Angeles County, CA, has the most residents with pending Immigration Court deportation cases (as of the end of October 2021).

So far this fiscal year (through October 2021), immigration judges have issued removal and voluntary departure orders in 24.7% of completed cases, totaling 5,232 deportation orders.

So far in FY 2022 (through October 2021), immigrants from Guatemala top list of nationalities with the largest number ordered deported.

Only 20.7% of immigrants, including unaccompanied children, had an attorney to assist them in Immigration Court cases when a removal order was issued.

Immigration judges have held 2,011 bond hearings so far in FY 2022 (through October 2021). Of these 714 were granted bond.

You don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to see how an undisciplined system run by clueless politicos and bureaucrats (rather than judges and experts) that takes in more cases than it can decide, picks on unrepresented individuals, deports large numbers of Guatemalans to a country that is clearly in crisis, and grants bond to only 1/3 of the custody cases even with a minuscule percentage of so-called “criminal immigrants” in proceedings is failing, miserably, every day.

What’s even worse, is that there is NO credible plan to fix this! NONE! Throwing more bodies into the maelstrom, poorly thought out proposed asylum regulations, dedicated dockets, and misuse of Title 42 to block proper access to those seeking asylum and other forms of legal protection won’t do the trick. No qualified expert would propose any of the foregoing as the solution to fairly and legally reducing backlogs. That tells us all we need to. know about the qualifications of the folks “pulling the strings” on immigration in the Biden Administration.

The message: The GOP hates immigrants, and the Dems disrespect them!

We’ll see whether the Biden Administration’s contemptuous treatment of immigrants, their families, communities, and supporters, particularly their failure to “clean up, clean out, and reform” their wholly owned “courts” at EOIR, proves to be a great political strategy. Frankly, I can’t see how dumping on a key group of supporters from the last successful election proves to be a “winner” in 2022 or 2024!

The extraordinary quality of the work done by the NDPA all-stars 🌟highlighted above by Dan speaks for itself, as does the unacceptably poor quality of the legal work done by EOIR and a BIA that is bogusly presenting itself as “experts.” Obviously, as has been clear from the beginning of the Biden Administration, the wrong people are on the BIA and Team Garland has disgracefully failed to do the serious and gutsy “recruitment and replacement” necessary to fix this dysfunctional EOIR system and save lives!

The absolute disaster for our legal system and the reprehensible result of Garland & Co’s failure to “pull the plug” on the “Miller Lite BIA” and to make wholesale merit-based positive changes in the recruitment, selection, and composition of the Immigration Judiciary will go down as a legacy that not only will reflect ill on Garland and his lieutenants, but will also be a major factor promoting the failure of American democracy.

You can tell a lot about the values of a society by the way it treats the most vulnerable among it. Right now, sadly, that’s “nothing to write home about!”🤮

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-18-21

THE GIBSON REPORT — 11-15-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Amid Good News About Rebounding Asylum Grant Rates, Administration’s Plans To “Snail Mail” 78,000 Notices, COVID Confusion @ EOIR, Abuse Of Title 42, Violence Against Those Waiting In Mexico, Dem Plans To “Deep Six” Immigration Reform Legislation, & Dumping On Migrants Fleeing Left-Wing Regime In Venezuela Headline Latest List Of Unforced Errors Frustrating Advocates!

NEWS

U.S. to send deportation case notices to 78,000 migrants who were not fully processed

CBS: The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plan, dubbed “Operation Horizon,” is designed to place tens of thousands of migrants who received ad hoc processing near the southern border into deportation proceedings. The agency will be sending migrants “notices to appear,” as well as other documents.

Immigration Court Rescinds Covid Guidance, Leaving Questions About Current Policy

Hoppock: In a memorandum dated November 8, 2021, the Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, David Neal, has rescinded the agency’s formal COVID-19 guidance, leaving a number of questions unanswered on how the courts will handle COVID-19 in the coming days and months.

Asylum Grant Rates Climb Under Biden

TRAC: While asylum denial rates had grown ever higher during the Trump years to a peak of 71 percent in FY 2020, they fell to 63 percent in FY 2021.

It’s Time to End the Pandemic Emergency at the Border

NYT Editorial Board: The Biden administration says that border patrol agents are simply following orders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were put in place to keep the country safe from Covid-19. But there is little doubt that the administration has used the policy as a stopgap measure to quickly remove migrants who are gathering at the southern border in large numbers, pushed by the economic fallout from Covid in South and Central America and pulled by the rumors of lenient treatment under a more welcoming American president, among other factors. See also Trump CDC official: No ‘public health reason’ for border closure, Title 42.

Democrats are set to leave immigrants in the lurch again

Vox: Immigration provisions in Democrats’ budget reconciliation bill are likely on the chopping block.

Border crossings by Haitian migrants plunged in October, CBP data show

WaPo: CBP figures show about 1,000 Haitians were taken into custody along the Mexico border last month, down from 17,638 in September, when huge crowds waded across the Rio Grande to a makeshift camp in Del Rio, Tex., creating a humanitarian and political crisis for the Biden administration.

New fast-track docket for migrants faces familiar challenges

AP: Roughly 35 of the country’s more than 530 immigration judges are assigned to the new docket, according to the most recent data provided by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees federal immigration courts. Many juggle the duties on top of their normal caseloads. While it’s still early, the effort has made progress: As of mid-September, it was handling nearly 16,000 cases, and more than 100 had received at least an initial decision, according to the agency.

Migrant kids, some U.S.-born, endure hardship in Mexico border camp

Reuters: Inside the camp, which is fenced in and controlled by police, Reuters spoke to over 20 migrant children, four of whom had documents showing they were born in the United States.

Mexico considers tighter entry rules for Venezuelans after U.S. requests

Reuters: Mexico is considering setting tougher entry requirements for Venezuelans, partly in response to U.S. requests, after a sharp rise in border arrests of Venezuelans fleeing their homeland, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Haiti, 5 Other Countries Added To H Visa Program

Law360: Workers in a half dozen countries, including Haiti, will be newly eligible to come to the United States on temporary, employment-based visas next year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday.

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

AAO U Visa Victory

Lexis: He asserts that first-degree robbery under section 569.020(1) (now section 570.023) of the Mo. Rev. Stat. is substantially similar to the qualifying crime of felonious assault… the Petitioner has met his burden of establishing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the offenses are substantially similar.

CA1 Says It Lacks Jurisdiction over Petitioner’s PSG Claim Because He Failed to Exhaust Administrative Remedies

AILA: The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the petitioner’s claim that the BIA erred by rejecting his proposed particular social group (PSG) of “Brazilian landowners,” finding that the petitioner had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. (Gomes v. Garland, 11/3/21)

CA1 Upholds BIA’s Affirmance of IJ’s Adverse Credibility Determination Where There Were Numerous Inconsistencies in Petitioner’s Testimony

AILA: The court upheld the denial of asylum to the petitioner, holding that substantial evidence supported the IJ’s and BIA’s adverse credibility determination because inconsistencies in petitioner’s testimony were cumulatively persuasive of a lack of credibility. (Mashilingi v. Garland, 11/2/21)

CA4 Holds That Conviction in Virginia for Felony Eluding Is a CIMT

AILA: The court concluded that the definition of crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) does not violate the U.S. Constitution, and that Virginia’s felony eluding statute, Va. Code §46.2-817(B), constitutes a CIMT. (Canales Granados v. Garland, 11/4/21)

9th Circ. Greenlights Removal Despite Vacated Conviction

Law360: The Ninth Circuit has upheld a 1996 deportation order against a Mexican man even though his guilty plea for possessing cocaine was vacated, saying the conviction that the order was based on was legally valid when it was issued.

CA9 Says Stop-Time Rule Is Not Triggered by Final Order of Removal

AILA: The court held that the stop-time rule—which sets out the circumstances under which a period of continuous physical presence is deemed to end for cancellation of removal—is not triggered by a final order of removal. (Quebrado Cantor v. Garland, 11/3/21)

CA9 Finds IJ’s Denial of Continuance of Petitioner’s Merits Hearing Violated His Right to Counsel

AILA: Applying a fact-based inquiry, the court held that the IJ’s refusal to grant a continuance of the petitioner’s merits hearing deprived him of his right to counsel, and thus granted the petition for review. (Usubakunov v. Garland, 11/1/21)

TPS Holders File Class Action Lawsuit Challenging USCIS’s Allegedly Unlawful Denial of Adjustment of Status Applications

AILA: Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court challenging USCIS’s rescission of a 30-year policy that allowed TPS holders to seek lawful permanent resident (LPR) status upon return from travel abroad. (Gomez, et al. v. Jaddou, et al., 11/8/21)

Asylum Seekers File Class Action Lawsuit Challenging USCIS’s Delay in Renewing EAD Applications

AILA: Five asylum seekers filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California challenging USCIS’s allegedly unlawful delay in adjudicating applications to renew employment authorization documents (EADs) for asylum seekers. (Tony N. v. USCIS, 11/10/21)

Major Settlement Changes How USCIS Adjudicates Work Permits for Nonimmigrant Spouses

AILA: AILA and litigation partners Wasden Banias and Steven Brown celebrate the historic settlement with DHS in Shergill, et al. v. Mayorkas, which provides structural changes for nonimmigrant H-4 and L-2 spouses suffering from long-delayed processing times for EAD applications.

EOIR Announces Fully Virtual eRegistration Process for ECAS

AILA: EOIR announced that eRegistration for ECAS will be fully virtual. Starting November 15, two-phase eRegistration is required to validate a registrant’s identity, but practitioners no longer have to appear in-person to show photo ID. The memo lists registration times and contact information.

EOIR Provides Updated Guidance on its Response to COVID-19

AILA: EOIR released guidance stating that its website will be the principal method of communication with the public regarding updates to EOIR’s protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic and will no longer issue these formal documents. Guidance is effective 11/8/21.

USCIS Provides Policy Guidance on Naturalization for Military Service Members

AILA: USCIS provided policy guidance stating that current or former members of the U.S. armed forces who serve honorably during specifically designated periods of hostilities may be eligible to naturalize. Guidance is effective 11/12/21, comments are due by 12/31/21.

ICE ERO Releases Updated COVID-19 Pandemic Response Requirements for ICE Detention Facilities

AILA: ICE ERO updated its COVID-19 Pandemic Response Requirements (PRR) to set forth expectations and to assist detention facility operators in sustaining detention operations during the pandemic. The PRR sets mandatory requirements and best practices for all detention facilities housing ICE detainees.

DOS Updates Guidance on Rescission of COVID Travel Restrictions from Previous Travel Ban Countries

AILA: DOS stated they can process visa applications for individuals physically present in Brazil, China, India, Iran, Ireland, the Schengen Area, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Applicants who were refused should request reconsideration, but should not expect readily available visa appointments.

DHS Announces Fee Exemptions and Streamlined Processing for Afghan Nationals Resettling in the United States

AILA: DHS announced that it will exempt certain filing fees for Afghan nationals who were paroled into the United States for humanitarian reasons on or after July 30, 2021. They will also streamline processing requests for work authorization, Green Cards, and associated services.

USCIS Provides Guidance for Afghan Nationals Applying for Adjustment of Status

AILA: USCIS stated that Afghan nationals with an approved Form I-360 who are employed by the U.S. government or ISAF in Afghanistan and plan to file Form I-485 must be physically present in the United States and provide a U.S. address on Form I-485. Filing fees for Form I-485 may be waived.

USCIS Opening a New Lockbox Facility

USCIS:We are planning to open a new facility in Elgin, Illinois, next year to expand our lockbox capability.

RESOURCES

AILA: DHS Provides Samples of “Operation Horizon” NTAs

AILA: Client Flyer: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

AILA: Practice Pointer: COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements for Travelers to the United States

AILA: Practice Alert: Fraihat COVID-19 Detention Release Requests May Still Be Filed

CLINIC: Access to Driver’s Licenses for Undocumented Residents

CLINIC: All About Employment Authorization Documents: FAQs for Legal Practitioners

ILRC: Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Other Immigration Options for Children and Youth – New 6th Edition

USCIS: Follow Up Questions and Answers from the CIS Ombudsman’s Listening Session: Get to Know the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO)

EVENTS

11/16/21 Title 42 and International Law: Understanding the obligations of states during Covid-19

11/16/21 Advocating for Prosecutorial Discretion Under the Current Enforcement Priorities

11/16/21 Considerations for I-601A Waivers and I-212

11/16/21 Terrorism Bars to Asylum and the Taliban

11/17/21 Helping Immigrants Navigate HRA-Administered Benefits

11/17/21 To Go or Not to Go: Strategic Considerations in Seeking Judicial Review

11/18/21Dealing with Post-Consular Interview Nightmares for Immigrant Visas

11/18/21Ethical Representation: Serving Clients with Criminal Contacts on November 18, 2021 at 3-4:30pm

11/18/21U Visa Webinar Series: Qualifying Criminal Activity

11/18/21Migration and Borders in the 2020s (Law and Enforcement) Dialogue

11/19/21Seeking Affirmative Immigration Protections for Immigrant Workers in Labor Disputes

11/22/21-12/13/21Webinar Series: Selected Issues in Family-Based Immigration

11/23/21Responding to Inappropriate Immigration Judge Conduct

11/23/21Establishing Social Group in Asylum Claims

11/23/21But I’m Not an Expert! What You Need to Know About Common Non-Immigration Questions Your Clients Expect You to Know

11/29/21-12/3/21Partial to Full Accredited Representative Initiative 2021

12/1/2154th Annual Immigration and Naturalization Institute

12/2/21Litigation Strategies for Asylum Claims Post-vacatur of Matter of A-B-, Matter of A-C-A-A-, and Matter of L-E-A- II

12/2/21Post-Conviction Relief For Immigrants: New Laws, New Developments, New Advice

12/3/21How Does the Central American Minors Program Work and the Role of Attorneys

12/6/21-12/17/-21 NYIC: Immigration Court Practice

12/7/21Hardship in Non-LPR Cancellation Cases

12/9/21December Immigration Update

12/9/21 ASISTA: U Visa Webinar Series: Demonstrating Helpfulness (Beyond the Certification)

12/15/21CGRS: Developing Skills in Appellate Oral Advocacy

12/15/21FOIA

12/16/21Ethical Scenarios for Removal Defense

02/03/22Basic Immigration Law 2022: Business, Family, Naturalization and Related Areas

02/04/22Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Crime Victim, and Other Immigration Relief 2022

ImmProf

Monday, November 15, 2021

At the Movies: Blue Bayou (2021)

PBS Documentary: American Exile

Podcast: Why we forget U.S. violence toward Chinatowns

Immigration Article of the Day: The Unexamined Law of Deportation by David Hausman, Georgetown Law Journal

From the Bookshelves: Court of Injustice: Law Without Recognition in U.S. Immigration by J.C. Salyer

Sunday, November 14, 2021

A Navy medic and photographer uses art to reflect on his time in Afghanistan

From the Bookshelves: Design to Live: Everyday Inventions from a Refugee Camp. Edited by Azra Aksamija, Raafat Majzoub and Melina Philippou.

Saturday, November 13, 2021

NYT Editorial Board Calls to “End the Pandemic Emergency at the Border”

Women of Color in Immigration Enforcement

Webinar: Responding to Inappropriate Immigration Judge Conduct

Immigration Article of the Day: A Pathway to Health Care Citizenship for DACA Beneficiaries by Medha D. Makhlouf and Patrick J. Glen, California Law Review Online

Friday, November 12, 2021

Justice Gorsuch asks if insular cases are wrong while deciding SSI exclusion for Puerto Rican citizen

Mississippi Rising

Event: Seeking Affirmative Immigration Protections for Immigrant Workers in Labor Disputes

World of Migration Podcasts on Immigrant Integration

Belarus-Poland border crisis traps thousands in “catastrophic” conditions

New Research on Campaign Donations by Private Immigration Prison Companies

Immigration Article of the Day: The Sanctuary of Prosecutorial Nullification by Zohra Ahmed, Albany Law Review

Thursday, November 11, 2021

U.S. Workers Sue USCIS for Unlawful Delays in Renewal of Employment Authorizations

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

USCIS Veteran’s Day Acitivites and Naturalization Ceremonies for Noncitizens in Military

Asylum Grant Rates Climb Under Biden

Webinar: Migration and Borders in the 2020s – Law and Enforcement

The Daily: “How Did We Let People Die This Way?”

Immigration Article of the Day: Selling Immigration Visas: A Market-Based Approach to Boost American Innovation by Sarah Hickman & Korok Ray

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

DACA Associated with Improved Birth Outcomes Among Mexican-Immigrant Mothers

DHS Announces Fee Exemptions, Streamlined Processing for Afghan Nationals as They Resettle in the U.S.

Monday, November 8, 2021

Foreigners by Claudia Fontes

From the Bookshelves: Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker by Maggy Krell

Filipino Nurses Dreading COVID, The Latinos of Asia by Anthony Ocampo

National Building Museum Announces The Wall/El Muro – An Exhibition About the US-Mexico Border Wall

Podcast: Sharing Rsponsibility for Refugees

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

The inadequacy of mailed NTAs has been well-established. 80,000 notices mailed to addresses gathered in haste and confusion by an agency renowned for sloppy work! What could possibly go wrong?

Unanswered Questions:

How many older cases that might otherwise have been completed were “reshuffled” to achieve 100 “Expedited Docket” completions?
How many of those “completions” were in absentia?
How many were asylum grants?

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-17-21

😎🗽👍🏼 HOW MAINE HELPS ASYLUM SEEKERS HELP THEMSELVES & HUMANITY — It’s A “Win-Win” That Can Be Replicated!

uhttps://www.pressherald.com/2021/11/14/we-bring-our-dreams-with-us-all-of-us/

Eric Russell in the Portland (ME) Press Herald:

. . . .

Jobs are more plentiful and increasingly well-paying, but asylum seekers can’t work for at least six months, sometimes longer – a willing and able workforce sidelined. They also can’t qualify right away for federal assistance programs like food stamps.

Every so often, staff members hear rumblings from someone in the community who suggests that asylum seekers are being helped at the expense of others, which isn’t true.

“There isn’t anything offered to them that isn’t offered to anyone else who walks through our door,” Guthrie said. “If someone presents, we try to help them.”

. . . .

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

With chronic labor shortages, Maine has benefitted greatly from doing the right thing, setting a great, positive example that could and should be a model for other states. Helping everyone to realize their ambitions and reach their full human potential is the way forward!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-16-21

GAME DAY IN GREEN BAY — NOV. 14, 2021

Packers 17, Seattle Seahawks 0

PWS

11-15-21

HAMILTON NOLAN @ THE GUARDIAN: America Needs Help & Carrying Out Dem Platform (Including Fixing Immigration) Would Provide It — So Why Do Dems Get Sidetracked Fighting Asinine GOP Culture Wars They Can’t Win? — “Racism is a wonderfully effective political tool for Republicans, yet explicit racism is frowned upon in polite society now, so there is a constant flow of new issues to stand in for racism in political discourse.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/11/democrats-fake-culture-wars-crt-republicans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I do not know if I can survive three more years of Democrats stumbling over themselves to disavow the Democratic platform in a doomed attempt to win bad-faith culture wars. It is too painful, like watching ruthless hunters herding panicked animals over the side of a cliff. The poor, dumb beasts inevitably go extinct if they are not able to outthink such a rudimentary strategy.

Message to Democrats: embrace economic bread-and-butter issues to win | Matthew Karp and Dustin Guastella

Walk around your town. Explore a major American city. Drive across the country. What are the most important problems you see? There is poverty. Homelessness. A lack of affordable housing. Vast and jaw-dropping economic and racial inequality. There is a lack of public transportation, a broken healthcare system, environmental degradation, and a climate crisis that threatens to upend our way of life. These are real problems. These are the things that we need our government to fix. These are what we need to hear politicians talk about. These are what we must debate and focus on, if we are really concerned about human rights and our children’s future and all the other big things we claim to value.

I guarantee you that neither “cancel culture” nor “critical race theory” nor, worse of all, “wokeness” will grab you as enormous problems after your exploration of America, unless that exploration ranges only from a college faculty lounge to a cable TV studio to the office of a rightwing thinktank. These are all words that mean nothing. To the extent that they are real at all, they are niche concerns that plague such a small subset of Americans that they deserve to be addressed only after we have solved the many other, realer problems.

All these terms function primarily as empty vessels into which bad-faith actors can pour racism, so that it may appear more palatable when it hits the public airwaves. Common sense tells us we should spend most of our time talking about the biggest problems, and less time on the lesser problems, and no time on the mythical problems. To engage in long and tortured debates over these slippery and indefinable culture war terms is to violate that rule, with awful consequences for everyone.

Republicans will push these culture wars as far as they can, but it takes Democrats to make the strategy work

Let’s not bullshit about this. Racism is a wonderfully effective political tool for Republicans, yet explicit racism is frowned upon in polite society now, so there is a constant flow of new issues to stand in for racism in political discourse. Lee Atwater, who invented Nixon’s “southern strategy”, explained this all decades ago, and it is still true. George Wallace could be outright racist, but subsequent generations of politicians have had to cloak it in “welfare reform” or being “tough on crime” or, now, opposition to “wokeness” and “critical race theory” – things which mean, by the way, “caring about racism”.

Three-quarters of a million Americans are dead from a pandemic. We have a Democratic president and a booming economy. So we will get culture wars, and more culture wars, all of which are built on stoking various forms of hate. This is a game that serious leaders should not play. Unfortunately, we don’t have too many serious leaders. We have the Democratic party.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link. Nobody manipulated “stand in racism” more skillfully than incoming Virginia GOP Governor Glenn Younkin. So, we can expect a steady onslaught of these sleazy, yet highly effective, tactics over the next three years.

By now, a Dem Administration could have eliminated Title 42 restrictions, regularized asylum processing at the border, instituted a robust refugee program near the Northern Triangle to “incentivize” applications abroad, slashed the Immigration Court backlog to a manageable size, and replaced unsuitable Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges with competent ones who would do the right thing and issue the necessary positive guidance to end systemic abuses by both EOIR and DHS.

As an added bonus, unnecessary and expensive litigation in the Circuits resulting from EOIR‘s poor performance could be reduced. The savings on both sides could be “repurposed” into increasing Immigration Court representation.

Sure, Repubs would drum up racist myths and carry out an energetic campaign of hate and xenophobia to rally their base. They undoubtedly would make the outrageously false claim that complying with the Refugee Act of 1980, the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Convention Against Torture amounts to “open borders.” But, in case the Dems haven’t noticed, that’s already happening!

The Biden Administration could shoot everyone approaching our border dead and the GOP would still say “open borders.” Honesty, reality, and human decency simply aren’t part of the GOP game plan. Yet, the Dems keep falling for the bait!

The Administration is basically carrying out a “Miller Lite” restrictionist immigration policy and demeaning themselves by violating statutory and constitutional requirements right and left. But, that hasn’t stopped the GOP from dishonestly claiming “open borders,” nor has it deterred the so-called “mainstream media” from repeating this BS.

What the Dems have done is “de-energized” an important segment of their own base as well as dis-served the nation by continuing illegal anti-immigrant policies at a time when we could and should be admitting more immigrants through a revived legal immigration system and much more honest and robust refugee and asylum programs. In other words, Dems have shot themselves in both feet!

Following the asylum and refugee laws and giving applicants due process isn’t actually a “policy option.” It’s the law!

Dem spinelessness and intransigence on immigration have created the worst of all worlds. Even with truth, logic, justice, and common sense potentially on their side, the Dems cluelessly are helping the GOP succeed on their toxic agenda of stupidity, dishonesty, hate, and “deconstruction of democracy.”

There is, of course, no guarantee that any particular actions will bring electoral victory in the future. But, rather than being the GOP’s foil, why not do the right thing? Even if they ultimately lose, the Dems would save some lives, improve the situation of millions of Americans, and, at the very worst, go down fighting for something worthwhile, rather than being “herded over the cliff” by the GOP racists.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-12-21

🏴‍☠️TOTALLY LOST IN TRANSLATION!🤮 — Inadequate Interpretation Is Just One Of Many Mockeries Of Due Process In Garland’s Disgracefully Dysfunctional Immigration Courts! — “[T]he promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade!”

https://cmsny.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ab341dd06620fe24c64cc2f00&id=8c2b818989&e=be87a1d505

By Maya P. Barak, University of Michigan-Dearborn:

This quote sums it all up for me:

. . . .

Ultimately, perceptions of justice within immigration court merit examination not despite the fact that due process can be used to manipulate images of fairness, but because of it.

This study highlights just some of the many problems running deep within the US immigration system. Current interpretation and technology practices reveal the promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade—at least from immigration attorneys’ perspectives. Further exploration of due process within immigration court is needed to determine whether or not addressing existing interpretation and technology problems through the reforms proposed here would improve immigrants’ access to justice in a meaningful way. Drawing inspiration from movements to abolish the death penalty, prison, and the police, meaningful immigration court reform efforts should also reduce the need for an immigration court altogether.

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

When I arrived at the Arlington Immigration Court in 2003, I found the contract interpreters to be excellent — some truly outstanding. A key part of the “Due Process Team.”

Before I retired in 2016, however, EOIR “re-competed” the interpretation contract and awarded it to a company that did not appear to have sufficient qualified interpreters already on staff to perform the functions. That company offered to employ most of the interpreters of the “deposed contractor,” but evidently at lower salaries and less favorable terms. The predictable result: Some of the best interpreters left and went to Article III Courts, State Courts, or other types of interpretation offering better wages and working conditions.

“[T]he promise of justice in immigration court is little more than a façade!” This bears repeating, over and over, until we get the radical due process reforms and long overdue personnel changes we need at EOIR.

This isn’t exactly “new news” to Garland and friends! Shortly after the “Ashcroft Purge of ’03,” Peter Levinson wrote a scholarly, yet scathing, expose’ of the “farce of justice at the BIA” entitled “The Facade Of Quasi-Judicial Independence In Immigration Appellate Adjudication.”

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/05/17/courtside-history-lest-we-forget-the-ashcroft-purge-at-the-bia-in-2003-destroyed-the-pretext-of-judicial-independence-at-eoir-forever-heres-how-read-peter-levinson/

“Eyore In Distress” — Some believe that Attorney General Merrick Garland could be charged with “cruelty to stuffed animals” for his callous failure to heed the desperate cries for help from poor abused, long suffering EYORE.

Nearly two decades later, now almost a year into the second “post-Ashcroft” Dem Administration, and still no effective corrective actions at EOIR! Indeed, whatever remnants of due process might have existed in 2003 have deteriorated steadily since then, despite nearly nine years of Dem Administrations and enough weighty evidence to sink a battleship. During that time, thousands of lives and American families have been ruined and several generations of immigration attorneys driven to despair (some quitting the field) by a system any first year law student could see is totally out of compliance with Constitutional due process and fundamental fairness!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-12-21

😎🗽ASYLUM GRANT RATES REBOUND MODESTLY UNDER BIDEN AFTER FOUR YEARS OF SYSTEMIC ARTIFICIAL WHITE NATIONALIST REPRESSION UNDER TRUMP, EVEN AS NUMBER OF ASYLUM DECISIONS RECEDES — Grant Rates Still Lag Far Behind FY 2012 When Well Over 50% Were Granted, Showing Inexcusable “Lost Decade” In EOIR’s Asylum Adjudications & Proper Legal Development Of Asylum Law!

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Asylum Grant Rates Climb Under Biden

Under the new Biden administration, asylum seekers are seeing greater success rates in securing asylum. While relief grant rates had fallen ever lower during the Trump years to just 29 percent in FY 2020, they rose to 37 percent in FY 2021 under President Biden.

However, with the ongoing partial Court shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a sustained drop in the number of asylum decisions. Even with the greater odds of success, the number of asylum seekers who were granted asylum during FY 2021 was only 8,349 with an additional 402 granted another type of relief in place of asylum. In sheer numbers, this was only about half the number of asylum seekers who had been granted relief during FY 2020, the final year of the Trump administration.

The improved asylum grant rates during FY 2021 began only after the new Biden administration took office at the end of January 2021. Tracking asylum grant rates month-by-month rather than year-by-year, the increase in asylum grant rates under President Biden for the last quarter of FY 2021 (July-September 2021) was even larger: asylum seekers’ success rates climbed to 49 percent. Not only was this much higher than at any period during the Trump years, the asylum success rate was up five percentage points from 44 percent during the last quarter of the Obama administration.

Historically, asylum seekers have had greater success in the Immigration Court for affirmative as compared with defensive asylum cases. At one time, the majority of asylum applications decided by Immigration Judges were affirmative cases referred by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). However, most asylum applications today are considered defensive applications and filed in response to the Department of Homeland Security initiating removal proceedings in Immigration Court.

Asylum seekers who are represented by an attorney – as most are in affirmative asylum cases – have greatly increased odds of winning asylum or other forms of relief from deportation. For all Court decisions in FY 2021, nearly nine out of ten (89%) asylum seekers in affirmative and defensive cases were represented. This was clearly a vital factor in improving overall asylum success rates since in the prior year, FY 2020, representation rates were 80 percent or nine (9) percentage points lower.

Read the full report – the first in a two-part series – to obtain many more details about trends in Immigration Court asylum decisions over the past two decades at:

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/667

The impact of gender, age, language, and nationality will be covered in the second report in this two-part series. Readers need not wait to probe these and many more details on asylum decisions using TRAC’s free web query tool — now updated through September 2021 and expanded to cover gender, age, and language details. As before users can also drill in to see how decisions vary geographically, by state, Immigration Court, and hearing location. Go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/asylum/

To examine a variety of Immigration Court data, including asylum data, the backlog, MPP, and more now updated through September 2021, use TRAC’s Immigration Court tools here:

https://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive a notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

https://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

Follow us on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/tracreports

or like us on Facebook:

https://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

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

Here’s some historical perspective. When the Refugee Act of 1980 was enacted, the INS took the position that the standard of proof for asylum was the same as the “traditional” standard for the pre-existing relief of withholding of deportation. That was a “clear probability,” of persecution, which means “more likely than not.”

Because this was a high standard that had been “over-rigorously applied” to deny almost all withholding cases (refugees from communism — Other Than Chinese — were about the only folks who had any chance of being granted withholding, and that was rare) the asylum grant rate remained very low for the first six years following enactment of the Refugee Act. In 1987, that grant rate was only approximately 11%.

In 1987, the Supreme Court decided INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987). (As the Acting General Counsel/Deputy General Counsel of INS, I had helped the Solicitor General prepare and articulate the Government’s position. My future Immigration Court friend and colleague, Judge Dana Leigh Marks, then known as Dana Marks Keener, argued for Ms. Cardoza-Fonseca. I sat at counsel’s table with the “SG’s Team” during the oral argument before the Court. Shortly thereafter, I left INS to go into private practice at Jones Day.)

To the surprise of many of us, the Supremes soundly rejected the INS position and ruled in favor of Ms. Cardoza-Fonseca. The Court said that a “well-founded fear” of persecution was intended to be a much more generous standard, significantly less than a probability and including a “10% chance” of persecution.

Thereafter, the BIA issued a precedent implementing the “well founded fear” standard as “significantly less than a probability” — an “objectively reasonable” fear of persecution — in Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I&N Dec. 437 (BIA 1987). Mogharrabi also stood out as one of the very few BIA precedents up to that time actually granting, rather than denying asylum on appeal. (When I returned to Government service in 1995 as Chairman of the BIA, I was a “true believer” in making the as yet “unfulfilled promise of Cardoza and Mogharrabi” a reality! That’s still at the top of my “Due Process Forever Wish List!”)

In the immediate aftermath, while “parroting” the Cardoza and Mogharrabi generous standards, most Immigration Judges and BIA panels appeared to actually continue to apply the more restrictive “probability” or “more likely than not” standard. But, over time, the Circuit Courts of Appeals and sometimes even Board Members (most often in dissent) began “calling out” EOIR Judges for what appeared to be an intentional misapplication of the asylum standard.

A regulation change to provide a “rebuttable presumption of future persecution” arising out of past persecution also helped. That is, once the Article III Courts forced EOIR judges to actually apply, rather than ignore or disingenuously “work around,” the regulatory presumption. See generally, Matter of Chen, 20 I&N Dec. 16 (BIA 1989) (particularly the concurring opinion by Judge Michael J. Heilman) for the “Bush I Era” historical impetus for the past persecution regulations. Ironically, the BIA sometimes had trouble “following up” on the generous teachings of their own Chen precedent.

Additionally, Judge Marks and other trained asylum experts from outside the Government who joined the Immigration Court prior to 2001 began actually applying the correct standard to grant asylum. (By stark contrast, Sessions and Barr “stacked and packed” the BIA with some of the most virulent anti-asylum judges in America while appointing far too many individuals with no immigration or asylum expertise whatsoever to be Immigration Judges at the trial level. The idea was to “build the deportation railroad” 🚂 with the BIA and Immigration Court as “mere whistle stops,” at best.)

Consequently, over time, between 1987 and 2013, there was a slow but steady increase in asylum grant rates as Courts and some Immigration Judges and BIA Members pushed EOIR to finally “live up” to the more generous Cardoza/Mogharrabi standard. A number of those who helped this push for justice for asylum seekers are now members of our “Round Table of Former Immigration Judges!”🛡⚔️

The world certainly was a dangerous place for refugees in the years leading up to FY 2012, when asylum grants actually reached their “high water mark” of well over 50%. But, it has gotten even more dangerous over the past decade.

That, until recently, asylum grant rates had steadily declined since FY 2012 while conditions for refugees continued to worsen shows that the EOIR system is largely about politically driven enforcement manipulation rather than a test of reality or a fair, efficient, competent, and legally sound approach to asylum law.

The modest but welcome rise in asylum approval rates under Biden happened notwithstanding a BIA that continues to churn out unduly and intentionally restrictive precedents and to botch basic asylum decisions on a regular basis! It also occurred under an Attorney General who has largely “looked the other way” and exhibited indifference as the BIA (composed mostly of “holdover” Trump-era appointees or “survivors” of the Trump regime) continues to abuse asylum seekers.

Lawyers and applicants who have kept fighting for their rights in a system designed to railroad and demoralize them deserve much credit for the improved results and for constantly battling to expose the “Garland BIA’s” gross deficiencies to the Article III Circuit Courts. That’s what the “New Due Process Army” is all about!

Just think what the asylum grant rate might look like with a better BIA of independent expert judges who consistently provided positive precedents and guidance on asylum law and consistently enforced them against those Immigration Judges who have improperly and unethically created “Asylum Free Zones” in some jurisdictions!

Think of how many lives could be saved with better judges at the trial, and particularly the appellate, levels of EOIR! Backlogs and unnecessary litigation would also begin to decrease — without bogus and wasteful “enforcement gimmicks” like Garland’s “Dedicated Dockets” designed and implemented from above by disconnected, sometimes clueless, bureaucrats as a toxic example of backlog-building “Aimless Docket Reshuffling!”

Not rocket science! 🚀 Too bad nobody at Garland’s DOJ appears to care much about human lives and taxpayer dollars going down the drain on an unfair, backlogged, and stunningly dysfunctional asylum system at EOIR and on the Southern Border. ☹️

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-10-21

🤮POLITICS: REBECCA SOLNIT: DEMS NEED TO STOP “TRYING TO UNDERSTAND” THE NEO NAZI GOP RIGHT WING & FIGHT IT LIKE THE THREAT TO HUMAN DECENCY, TRUTH, & ETHICAL BEHAVIOR THAT IT IS! — “And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?”

https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-on-not-meeting-nazis-halfway/

From Literary Hub:

Rebecca Solnit: On Not Meeting

Nazis Halfway

Why Is It So Hard for Democrats to Act Like They Actually Won?

By Rebecca Solnit

November 19, 2020

When Trump won the 2016 election—while losing the popular vote—the New York Times seemed obsessed with running features about what Trump voters were feeling and thinking. These pieces treated them as both an exotic species and people it was our job to understand, understand being that word that means both to comprehend and to grant some sort of indulgence to. Now that Trump has lost the 2020 election, the Los Angeles Times has given their editorial page over to letters from Trump voters, who had exactly the sort of predictable things to say we have been hearing for far more than four years, thanks to the New York Times and what came to seem like about 11,000 other news outlets hanging on the every word of every white supremacist they could convince to go on the record.

The letters editor headed this section with, “In my decade editing this page, there has never been a period when quarreling readers have seemed so implacably at odds with each other, as if they get their facts and values from different universes. As one small attempt to bridge the divide, we are providing today a page full of letters from Trump supporters.” The implication is the usual one: we—urban multiethnic liberal-to-radical only-partly-Christian America—need to spend more time understanding MAGA America. The demands do not go the other way. Fox and Ted Cruz and the Federalist have not chastised their audiences, I feel pretty confident, with urgings to enter into discourse with, say, Black Lives Matter activists, rabbis, imams, abortion providers, undocumented valedictorians, or tenured lesbians. When only half the divide is being tasked with making the peace, there is no peace to be made, but there is a unilateral surrender on offer. We are told to consider this bipartisanship, but the very word means both sides abandon their partisanship, and Mitch McConnell and company have absolutely no interest in doing that.

Paul Waldman wrote a valuable column in the Washington Post a few years ago, in which he pointed out that this discord is valuable fuel to right-wing operatives: “The assumption is that if Democrats simply choose to deploy this powerful tool of respect, then minds will be changed and votes will follow. This belief, widespread though it may be, is stunningly naive.” He notes that the sense of being disrespected “doesn’t come from the policies advocated by the Democratic Party, and it doesn’t come from the things Democratic politicians say. Where does it come from? An entire industry that’s devoted to convincing white people that liberal elitists look down on them. The right has a gigantic media apparatus that is devoted to convincing people that liberals disrespect them, plus a political party whose leaders all understand that that idea is key to their political project and so join in the chorus at every opportunity.”

There’s also often a devil’s bargain buried in all this, that you flatter and, yeah, respect these white people who think this country is theirs by throwing other people under the bus—by disrespecting immigrants and queer people and feminists and their rights and views. And you reinforce that constituency’s sense that they matter more than other people when you pander like this, and pretty much all the problems we’ve faced over the past four years, to say nothing of the last five hundred, come from this sense of white people being more important than nonwhites, Christians than non-Christians, native-born than immigrant, male than female, straight than queer, cis-gender than trans.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito just complained that “you can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Now it’s considered bigotry.” This is a standard complaint of the right: the real victim is the racist who has been called a racist, not the victim of his racism, the real oppression is to be impeded in your freedom to oppress. And of course Alito is disingenuous; you can say that stuff against marriage equality (and he did). Then other people can call you a bigot, because they get to have opinions too, but in his scheme such dissent is intolerable, which is fun coming from a member of the party whose devotees wore “fuck your feelings” shirts at its rallies and popularized the term “snowflake.”

Nevertheless, we get this hopelessly naïve version of centrism, of the idea that if we’re nicer to the other side there will be no other side, just one big happy family. This inanity is also applied to the questions of belief and fact and principle, with some muddled cocktail of moral relativism and therapists’ “everyone’s feelings are valid” applied to everything. But the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?

I’ve spent much of my adult life watching politicians like Bill Clinton and, at times, Barack Obama sell out their own side to placate the other, with dismal results.

I think our side, if you’ll forgive my ongoing shorthand and binary logic, has something to offer everyone and we can and must win in the long run by offering it, and offering it via better stories and better means to make those stories reach everyone. We actually want to see everyone have a living wage, access to healthcare, and lives unburdened by medical, student, and housing debt. We want this to be a thriving planet when the babies born this year turn 80 in 2100. But the recommended compromise means abandoning and diluting our stories, not fortifying and improving them (and finding ways for them to actually reach the rest of America, rather than having them warped or shut out altogether). I’ve spent much of my adult life watching politicians like Bill Clinton and, at times, Barack Obama sell out their own side to placate the other, with dismal results, and I pray that times have changed enough that Joe Biden will not do it all over again.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

As Rebecca points out, “understanding,” “compromising,” and “engaging in productive dialogue” with the disingenuously disgruntled and “uber angry” far right turns out to be a “one way street” (surprised?). A “fools errand” if you will.

I dealt with transgender youth on a number of occasions during my career on the bench of the Arlington Immigration Court. All of they had suffered severe mental trauma and/or physical mistreatment from peers and adults who should have known better. Most had attempted suicide one or more times.

How is it acceptable for them and their fundamental identities to be “abused” and “dehumanized” by out of control, irresponsible “adults” and “parents” at school board meetings and other events? The GOP should be ashamed for giving in and seeking “political capital” from these reprehensible and cowardly attacks on students, teachers, and public officials trying to do the right thing on accommodating the needs of LBGTQ+ students and African American and other minority students and immigrants whose histories, humanity, and contributions for many generations continuing into the present have not been dealt with honestly, fairly, and humanely by our society. How will appeasing or meeting halfway those peddling lies and hate make things better for future generations?

Just how much “understanding,” “compassion,” “courtesy,” or “compromise” did George Floyd’s family, vulnerable transgender youth, or black students suffering from generations of systemic societal racism and anti gay laws, policies, and social institutions (and “false denial”) get from these folks on the right?

Stunning examples of Dems failures to stand up for their principles, and the disastrous consequences for humanity, are the continuation of Stephen Miller’s grotesque misuse of Title 42 at the border and AG Garland’s failure to clean house and institute common sense reforms at his dysfunctional, anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, anti-due process, intentionally dehumanizing Immigration Courts known as EOIR! His “tolerance” for gross abuses by so-called “courts” that he controls and for the dehumanization and mistreatment of asylum seekers and other migrants on a daily basis is not “compromise” or “understanding!” It’s an ongoing national disgrace!

Did Stephen Miller really win the last election? Garland & Mayorkas are acting like he did!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-09-21

🤮👎PROPER CAT ANALYSIS A VICTIM OF GARLAND’S “ANY REASON TO DENY” BIA — Arulnanthy v. Garland, 5th Cir.

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/19/19-60760-CV0.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca5-on-jurisdiction-cat-arulnanthy-v-garland#

“The collateral consequences of the BIA’s order ensure that Arulnanthy’s petition for review remains justiciable despite his removal to Sri Lanka. Substantial evidence supports the finding that Arulnanthy was not a credible witness. And the BIA was right to consider Arulnanthy’s lack of credibility fatal to his asylum claim. But the BIA’s refusal to consider his country-conditions evidence in the purely objective CAT context was error. We therefore REMAND the petition as to the CAT claim and DENY it in all other respects.”

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

This isn’t “rocket science” and the 5th Circuit is hardly known as a hotbed of due process and fundamental fairness for migrants!

But, when the BIA starts with “the migrant loses” as the “bottom line,” and then reasons backwards (if they bother reasoning at all, in their usual haste to keep the “deportation assembly line” moving) the “analysis” is likely to be defective. This 5th Circuit panel actually took their job of analyzing the record before them more seriously than Garland “faux expert” BIA!

One would think that a former Court of Appeals Judge would take due process, impartiality, and quality control seriously in his “wholly owned and operated ‘court’ system.” But, that would be someone other than Judge Garland!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Xenophobia, Never!

PWS

11-09-21

🏈COURTSIDE SPORTS — THE AARON RODGERS SELF-CREATED DEBACLE: Taking One For The “I in Team!”

Jerry Brewer @ WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/11/05/aaron-rodgers-vaccines-ivermectin-ego/

By Jerry Brewer

November 5 at 6:30 PM ET

You can trust Aaron Rodgers only to do what’s good for Aaron Rodgers. On a football field, his independence can be tolerated, and often preferred, because few quarterbacks have ever played the game as divinely as he can. For 17 seasons, the Green Bay Packers have benefited from Rodgers doing things his way because his way keeps them at a level hard to maintain in the parity-driven NFL.

This does not make him trustworthy, however. The Packers can trust his talent and stretch the definition of team to accommodate a player so stubborn and extraordinary. But they cannot trust him, not on matters that require deference or social responsibility or faith in anything other than his big ol’ ego.

No one can trust Rodgers to be more than what we have allowed him to become: a superstar in love with himself. Greatness has long been his shield. Now, as he uses it to plow through the saddest controversy of his career, it should be clear why Green Bay is wary of riding on his back for much longer.

[Aaron Rodgers lashes out against NFL, ‘woke mob’ in defense of vaccination status]

Rodgers — sometimes charming, often patronizing, always selfish — has caved to expectation for a change. On Friday, he provided what many had demanded all week after he was exposed for misleading the public about his coronavirus vaccination status: an explanation.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

“I realize I’m in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now,” Rodgers said during his regular appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “So before my final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I think I would like to set the record straight on so many of the blatant lies that are out there about myself.”

When a preamble uses “woke mob” and “cancel culture” as a throat-clearing exercise, buckle up.

Rodgers proceeded to paint himself as a victim. Instead of limiting his argument to a legitimate concern — he said he could not take either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine because he is allergic to an ingredient in them and also shared concerns that many have about the Johnson & Johnson shot — Rodgers drifted into conspiracy theories and tired, facile anti-vaccine opinions.

[Sally Jenkins: Aaron Rodgers is entitled to stay unvaccinated. He is not entitled to lie about it.]

“I go back to these two questions for the woke mob,” Rodgers said. “If the vaccine is so great, how come people are still getting covid and spreading covid and unfortunately dying from covid? If the vax is safe, how come the manufacturers of the vaccine have full immunity?”

His comments included a revelation that he had taken ivermectin, an anti-parasitic widely used in large animals and dismissed as an ineffective covid-19 treatment by the Food and Drug Administration. So the former guest host of “Jeopardy!” is now mangling facts.

. . . .

In a pandemic that has killed more than 750,000 Americans, Rodgers is unwilling to abandon his recalcitrance and think about the team. He didn’t care enough about the Packers to follow the NFL protocols for unvaccinated personnel because he didn’t believe in them. He doesn’t care enough about everyone else to trust facts because he doesn’t agree with them.

. . . .

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Rodgers had largely redeemed himself from an embarrassingly bad opening performance in a loss to the Saints by helping lead the Pack to seven straight victories. Now, his leadership, integrity, and reputation are in tatters, probably irredeemably.

Without Rodgers, the Pack lost a potentially winnable game to the KC Chiefs on Sunday afternoon behind rookie QB Jordan Love, who frankly didn’t look ready to replace a three-time MVP.

Sure, it’s only one game, and the start was on short notice. But, performing at a reasonably high level on short notice is what being an NFL backup is all about. That’s particularly true for someone who is the “designated heir apparent.” I would have expected more from Love, even under difficult circumstances.

Some have opined that Love’s lackluster performance gives Rodgers more “leverage” in his relationship with the Packers. Assuming he recovers from COVID and isn’t suspended as a result of a league investigations into the incident, Rodgers is likely to be back on the field soon and might well get his team in the the post-season again.

But, his leadership and integrity will probably never recover from his gutless, selfish, and inexcusable self-victimization, as well as spreading of lies and conspiracy theories (not surprisingly, Prevea Health abruptly severed its relationship with “Mr. Ivermecton.”)

For better or worse, the public, particularly young athletes, do listen to what superstars like AR say. In no way is getting vaccinated against COVID “just about one’s personal choices.” No, it’s about building trust, setting good examples, social responsibility and creating a safer society for everyone. On those counts, the “sure-fire Hall of Famer” has forever established himself as a “Hall of Shamer.”

PWS

11-08-21

😎👍🏼🗽🇺🇸BIDEN, DEMS GET THE JOB DONE FOR AMERICA ON INFRASTRUCTURE, WITH SOME BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FROM GOP!

President Joseph R.Biden
46th President of The United States
(Official portrait of Vice President Joe Biden in his West Wing Office at the White House, Jan. 10, 2013. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)..This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.)

😎👍🏼🗽🇺🇸BIDEN, DEMS GET THE JOB DONE FOR AMERICA ON INFRASTRUCTURE, WITH SOME BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FROM GOP!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Nov. 7, 2021

After a long series of very public squabbles and false starts, President Biden this week delivered on one of his key campaign promises with a $1 trillion investment in America’s infrastructure. With a rebounding economy, it’s hard to think of any higher priority than rebuilding and modernizing America’s often crumbling roads and bridges, among other things. Directly or indirectly, that effort also should create lots of good jobs across the country.

Whether they are prepared to admit it or not, every American will benefit from this historic investment in our country. It remains to be seen however, whether the Dems will be able to reap any political capital from spearheading this achievement (with some bipartisan help). In the past, “messaging” about their substantial, positive achievements for all Americans has not been a Dem strongpoint.

PWS

11-07-21

⚠️BIA’S GRUDGING ACCEPTANCE OF SUPREMES’ RULING ON “STOP TIME RULE” MASKS ATROCIOUS ANTI-ASYLUM PRECEDENT TARGETING INDIGENOUS REFUGEES! — Garland Ignores Bad Law, Anti-Immigrant Precedents Flowing From His Court!”🤮 — Matter of M-F-O-, 28 I&N Dec. 428 (BIA 2021)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1446396/download

“Floaters” — Garland, Mayorkas, and other Biden honchos appear unable to get beyond this “Stephen Miller vision” for legal asylum seekers. “Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”
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)

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

“Inside Baseball”⚾️ — The human, administrative, and taxpayer costs of the BIA’s unwillingness to uphold the statute in the face of DHS and EOIR “Management” intransigence — and their disregard for clear warning signals from the Supremes — are unfathionable to anyone outside this totally dysfunctional and out of control system! See, e.g., https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-on-stop-time-rule-quebrado-cantor-v-garland.

Could there be any clearer example of the need to take this mess out of the DOJ and create a competent, expert, independent Article I Immigration Court with real judges?

The asylum/withholding portion of this decision appears to be an atrocious misconstruction and intentional misapplication of asylum law by the BIA!

In fewer than five minutes of “internet research,” I found three authoritative pieces of evidence that should have been sufficient to show an endemic, ongoing racial and psg persecution of Indigenous Guatemalans and a total failure of state protection. See, e.g., https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca6-18-03500/pdf/USCOURTS-ca6-18-03500-0.pdf; https://monthlyreview.org/2020/09/01/a-violent-guatemala/; https://minorityrights.org/trends2018/guatemala/.

This, in turn, should long ago have been adequate for a BIA of better-qualified appellate judges who have asylum expertise and are willing to to stand up for the legal rights of asylum seekers to issue a precedent finding a “pattern or practice” of such persecution in Guatemala. See, e.g., 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(iii)(A).

With such a precedent, cases like this could be expeditiously granted at the Asylum Office or in focused Immigration Court hearings, instead of “kicking around the system” for more than three years and then being wrongly decided at both the trial and appellate levels. Wonder why our immigration system is a mess? Look no further than Garland’s anti-immigrant EOIR!

The panel’s conclusion that indigenous status wasn’t even “a reason” for gang persecution is preposterous — proof of institutional bias against asylum seekers, particularly those from the Northern Triangle!

The improperly and intentionally skewed asylum denial rates at our Southern Border feed the nativist fiction that asylum seekers are illegally seeking entry into the US. In reality, they appear to be victims of systemic racial, ethnic, and xenophobic bias fueled by both DHS and DOJ even under this Administration.

We currently have no functioning legal asylum system at ports of entry, nor have we had one for several years. “Gimmicks” like “Remain in Mexico” and “Title 42” have illegally replaced our legal protection system.

Why WOULDN’T folks seek refuge through irregular entry in such an insane situation? Who in their right mind wouldn’t?

This system further generates bogus “apprehension” numbers used by DHS, DOJ, and politicos of both parties to generate false panic about the arrival of persons seeking legal status that we have unlawfully suspended!

Many of these individuals deserve to be legally admitted and allowed to contribute to our society! Instead, they are demonized, demeaned, dehumanized, and otherwise mistreated by our Government.

Indeed, GOP politico-restrictionist-alarmists are already trying to inflame public opinion by raising the manufactured “specter” that a slow moving so-called “caravan” of unarmed, desperate, and vulnerable migrants seeking to apply for legal refuge from some of the most repressive and dangerous countries in the world are an existential threat to the security of what is supposed to be the most powerful nation on earth! Letter asking BIden to enforce laws at brder 11.4.21 What poppycock!

They mischaracterize the group as having “nonexistent asylum claims.” But, how would they or anyone else know, since we currently have no system to fairly adjudicate such claims and no reliable information about the individual circumstances on which they are based?

Instead of engaging in racially charged panic and lawless enforcement, why not just direct them to report to legal ports of entry where they could be properly screened by trained Asylum Officers in a prompt and fair manner? 400 well-trained Asylum Officers doing two cases per day could complete the screening in a matter of days or several weeks at most!

Those who pass credible fear could be referred to Immigration Court in cooperation with legal aid and NGO groups to help them prepare and insure appearance. Represented asylum seekers appear for Immigration Court at a rate approaching 100%! Why wouldn’t an Administration truly interested in a fair and orderly asylum system concentrate on increasing representation rather than imposing more “guaranteed to fail” enforcement-only gimmicks?

Those who do not pass credible fear could be returned, provided that can be done in a safe and humane manner, perhaps working with the UNHCR and other international aid organizations to insure safe and orderly acceptance in the home nations.

And, unlike the current lawless system, we would actually have some empirical information about the claims of those applying at the border. It seems likely that under a fair and legal application asylum law, many would have valid asylum claims. But, without a fair hearing system and more Immigration Judges and BIA judges who are experts in asylum law and will fairly apply it, who knows? Right now, everyone is just “guessing” about the potential merits the claims because we don’t now have, and haven’t for some years had, a fair system for deciding those individual cases!

Here’s a still-timely article from Professor Bill Hing (ImmigrationProf Blog) about how we are repeating our past mistakes of mistreating Central American asylum seekers. https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_race_poverty_law_journal/vol17/iss2/5/

The same is true of Haitians seeking asylum. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2021/11/biden-is-replaying-a-forgotten-us-atrocity-against-haitian-refugees.html

An Administration unwilling to stand up for values, justice, and the rule of law for the most vulnerable among us doesn’t stand for much of anything at all. Maybe cowardice and lack of moral compass is the reason why Dems can’t govern and keep losing elections they should have won!

The GOP long ago “cornered the market” on dishonesty, immorality, and anti-democratic behavior. The Dems can gain nothing, and lose much, by emulating them!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-05-21

Gillian Graham reports for the Portland Press Herald:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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From the dissent by U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman, EDNY, sitting by designation:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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From Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Eric Russell in the Portland (ME) Press Herald:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Packers 17, Seattle Seahawks 0

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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By Maya P. Barak, University of Michigan-Dearborn:

This quote sums it all up for me:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Xenophobia, Never!

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Jerry Brewer @ WashPost:

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😎👍🏼🗽🇺🇸BIDEN, DEMS GET THE JOB DONE FOR AMERICA ON INFRASTRUCTURE, WITH SOME BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FROM GOP!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Nov. 7, 2021

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🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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