Tag: Aimless Docket Reshuffling

A PRESIDENCY WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE IS A THREAT TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY: By Contrast, Individuals Seeking Asylum Through Our Legal System @ Our Southern Border Are No Such Thing — “None of the [U.S. intelligence] officials said there is a security crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where Trump has considered declaring a national emergency so that he can build a wall.”

James Hohmann from the “Daily 202” in today’s WashPost:

— Here are five of the main issues where the intelligence community leaders broke with Trump:

  1. Coats “said that North Korea was ‘unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities,’ which the country’s leaders consider ‘critical to the regime’s survival.’ That assessment threw cold water on the White House’s more optimistic view that the United States and North Korea will achieve a lasting peace and that the regime will ultimately give up its nuclear weapons.’”

  2. “None of the officials said there is a security crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where Trump has considered declaring a national emergency so that he can build a wall.”

  3. “Officials also warned that the Islamic State was capable of attacking the United States and painted a picture of a still-formidable organization. Trump has declared the group defeated and has said he wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria as a result.”

  4. “The officials assessed that the government of Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon, despite the Trump administration’s persistent claims that the country has been violating the terms of an international agreement forged during the Obama administration. Officials told lawmakers that Iran was in compliance with the agreement.”

  5. “Officials also warned, as they did last year, about Russia’s intention to interfere with the U.S. political system. … Trump continues to equivocate on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf, contradicting the unanimous assessment of all the top intelligence officials currently serving.”

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

Here’s a more detailed story by Shane Harris from today’s Post setting forth just how “out to lunch” our “Intelligence professionals,” whom Trump himself appointed, think the President’s “threat assessment” is, specifically including, but not limited to, his “manufactured security crisis” at the Southern Border. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/intelligence-officials-will-name-biggest-threats-facing-us-during-senate-hearing/2019/01/28/f08dc5cc-2340-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.5b8041d6dc0a

I’ve been saying on “Courtside” for some time that the real existential threat to our national security is Trump. While the Administration has undoubtedly completely screwed up our asylum system at the border and in the U.S. Immigration Courts that has almost nothing to do with “national security.”

It’s simply a matter of common sense: We know (or should know) almost exactly what the number oF arrivals is going to be, particularly when they travel in slow-moving “caravans” that easily can be tracked and anticipated. We certainly could “funnel” almost all of them into the legal screening system for asylum.

Get the Inspectors and Asylum Officers down there to do the screening, and the necessary Immigration Judges, ICE lawyers, and defense counsel to decide cases of those screened in! Take lower priority cases, most involving long-term residents who have been here and likely will continue to be here for years, off the overcrowded Immigration Court dockets!

This would allow processing of the “new influx” in a timely manner, with full due process, and without creating more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” in the Immigration Courts. It would also avoid the always ineffective, wasteful, and usually illegal “gimmicks” that the Administration has used to “game” the asylum system against applicants. And, certainly in this respect, getting more pro bono lawyers involved would be a much bigger help than more unneeded troops or Border Patrol Agents.  Let the Border Patrol go back to their job of apprehending those border crossers who aren’t turning themselves in at or near the border to apply for asylum. Stop wasting resources and solve the problem!

Meanwhile, we should all be scared by Trump’s disregard of the prudent advice of his “national security and intelligence team.”

PWS

01-30-19

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Trump, DHS Promise, “Reign Of Terror” Directed At Families In Ethnic Communities — “Orphaning” U.S. Citizen Children And/Or Feeding Them & Other Vulnerable Kids To MS-13 & Other Gangs As “Fresh Meat” America’s New Objectives! — But, The Law & Reality Could Be Problems For Trump & His Sycophants @ ICE!
  4. SPRINT TO THE BOTTOM: Trump Administration Trashes Refugees & Human Rights In A Despicable Return To “1939-Style Fascism Lite!” — America’s Rancid Conduct & Negative Leadership Presages Another Worldwide Refugee Tragedy — This Time The Blood Will Be Directly On Our Hands!

WELCOME A “NEW FACE ON THE STREET” — Louise Radnofsky Takes Over WSJ’s “Immigration Beat” — Trump’s War On America Mindlessly Trashes An Already Crippled Immigration System!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/shutdown-compounds-woes-for-immigration-system-11548702443?mod=mhp

Louise writes:

U.S. Shutdown Compounds Woes for Immigration System
The partial government shutdown that centered on border security appears to have left the nation’s strained immigration system in an even deeper hole than before.
By Louise Radnofsky
WASHINGTON—The partial government shutdown that centered on border security appears to have left the nation’s strained immigration system in an even deeper hole than before the five-week standoff.
A backlog at immigration courts, at more than 800,000 cases the day before the funding gap that

A backlog at immigration courts, at more than
800,000 cases the day before the funding gap that started Dec. 21, likely grew by around 20,000 for each
of the weeks the courts stopped hearing most cases. Litigation over immigrant-family separations and asylum claims by people crossing the border between official entry points stalled because Justice Department lawyers were furloughed.
E-Verify, the program that hard-liners favor because it bars hiring of illegal immigrant workers, was closed. Around 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents worked without pay for an agency already short of about 2,000 officers because of hiring issues and attrition.
“It’s chaos on top of disaster,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, a retired immigration judge and former chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals. “It’s already a system bursting at the seams….We have a shutdown over border security and immigration, but they shut the mechanism that issues final deportations. How does that make sense?”
The Trump administration says the court delays allow illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. even if they don’t have strong claims to do so. Immigrant advocates say the delays weaken the cases of immigrants who do have claims to stay, and leave them in limbo.
Before the shutdown, the administration tried to accelerate the court’s docket by imposing case- completion quotas on its 400 judges. The president also proposed adding 75 judges as part of an ultimately unsuccessful deal to end the shutdown. The shutdown effectively denied the government one year’s worth of work by 40 judges—with no new judges to show for it.
The active-case backlog was 809,041 at the end of November, said the Transactional Records Access

Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which tracks court activity. Between Dec. 21 and Jan. 11, a period that included some days where the courts would have been closed for holidays anyway, 42,726 scheduled hearings had been canceled, TRAC said.
TRAC estimated that each subsequent week the courts were closed would result in approximately 20,000 canceled hearings. Susan Long, TRAC’s co-director, said it couldn’t calculate a total for the backlog now because current Freedom-of-Information requests about the number of cases in the system, including new ones added, went unanswered as the people handling them were furloughed.

RelatedTrump Skeptical He Would Accept Any Border Deal
Analysis: For Democrats, Shutdown Success Also Brings Danger
CBO: Shutdown Will Cost $3 Billion of Projected GDP Who’s Negotiating Border Security

E-Verify, the voluntary online system employers use to verify workers’ immigration status, was suspended through the shutdown. Employers couldn’t enroll, create new cases or view existing ones. The 300 E- Verify workers at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were the only of the agency’s 17,973 employees to be furloughed because the program is funded through congressional appropriations; others, such as naturalizations, are funded through user fees.
Some supporters of tighter immigration restrictions say E-Verify is the federal government’s most important tool to curb illegal immigration because it makes it harder for illegal immigrants to work in the U.S.
Eric Ruark, director of research at NumbersUSA, a group advocating reduction of immigration both legal and illegal, said E-Verify is much more effective than border barriers, and his group has supported mandating its use for employers. “A wall is not at the top of our list,” he said.
E-Verify reported more than 40 million people were checked during the year ended Sept. 30, on requests from more than 266,000 employers, for an average of more than 750,000 cases a week. Citizenship and Immigration Services said employers were still required during the shutdown to obtain and submit information from new hires about their immigration status, even if they couldn’t immediately obtain a verification determination.
Customs and Border Protection required around 55,000 of its roughly 60,000 employees to work without pay through the shutdown, according to contingency planning documents drawn up by the Department of Homeland Security.
Meanwhile, Justice Department lawyers working on important litigation were furloughed, applied for stays, and courts agreed to postpone deadlines.

Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is suing the administration in several cases, said he planned to use the government’s request for a pause against it in the case over asylum-seeking outside of ports of entry. “The administration told the Supreme Court—and the country—that the asylum ban was critical for our national security yet then asked that the case be stayed during the shutdown, leaving no doubt that the administration itself does not actually believe the asylum ban is a matter of national security,” he said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman, one of a handful working through the shutdown, said the government had been granted stays in some cases and denied in others. She said she couldn’t comment in detail because the majority of her co-workers were still furloughed.
Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this article. Write to Louise Radnofsky at
louise.radnofsky@wsj.com

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

Welcome Louise, to “where the action is!”  Glad to have you “on the beat.” We all look forward to reading much more of your timely reporting and incisive analysis.

This article shows what a complete hoax Trump’s $5.7 billion border wall “demand” is. Trump’s disrespect for the workers who are the only thing propping up his corrupt and incompetent Administration of grifters is breathtaking as is his contempt for rational immigration enforcement.

Trump’s “malicious incompetence” just cost our country $3 billion in unrecoverable losses! And, he’s certainly vindictive enough to do it again in less than three weeks. So, those who still care about our nation had better have a “Plan B” to thwart his renewed attack on democracy.

The Trump Administration is Kakistocracy in action.

PWS

01-26-19

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  2. TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!
  3. SURPRISE (NOT): Many Of Us Already Knew That CBP Acting Commish Mark Morgan Is Sleazy, Cruel, Immoral, Unethical, & Not Very Bright — Now, It’s Confirmed By The DOJ’s Inspector General — That’s Why He’s A Perfect Fit For The Trump Regime’s Immigration Kakistocracy!
  4. DAG ROSENSTEIN INADVERTENTLY MAKES COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT IN SPEECH TO NEW JUDGES — Places Emphasis On Executive, Fealty To Attorney General, Not Independence. Impartiality, & Insuring Due Process! — REAL “Courts” Don’t Answer to Prosecutors!

🤡U.S. CLOWN COURT: Where Justice & Logic Are A Bad Joke, & Those We Should Be Welcoming Are Instead Shown The Door!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/my-immigrant-client-won-a-judges-compassion-ice-still-dumped-him-on-the-border/2019/01/24/7802a800-1e9c-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html

Attorney Marty Rosenbluth writes in the Washington Post Sunday Outlook Section:

Attorney  ’s client made a passionate case to the judge about our unjust system

This month, I went to court with José. He came to the United States without papers from Mexico when he was 15, in 1999. Now he has a wife, three kids and a job in construction in Raleigh, N.C. It all came apart when police pulled him over and arrested him for driving without a license. He soon landed in the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. He fought his deportation case alone for several months before his family finally called my law firm.

We first told him we couldn’t take his case because he had no chance of winning, so ethically we couldn’t take his money. Most people in deportation proceedings have few if any options to stay in the United States through the immigration courts. I urged him to take voluntary departure, which enables people to leave the country without getting a deportation order on their records, so it is easier to come back legally in the future. But he told me he was certain that, if he could just tell the court his story, the judge would see that letting him stay was right and just and fair. I told him that our immigration system had many rules and laws, but little or no justice.

In truth, I think José knew he had no chance, and he knew he’d have to leave. But he didn’t want to leave quietly. We agreed that I would accompany him — I wouldn’t say “help,” because he could have realized his plan without me, and I didn’t charge a penny — but he would address the judge directly. One of the most important things I do as an attorney is to just be present. Since the immigration laws are so defective, and the judges often play by their own rules (routine bond requests are usually denied, and this Georgia court has one of the lowest approval rates for asylum cases in the country), and the detention/deportation centers are designed to break people’s spirits, often there is not much else that can be done. Based on what transpired, I’m glad I went.

[Civil servants said separating families was illegal. The administration ignored us.]

José’s whole family came to support him — his wife and his kids and a friend. When we sat down at the bench, I told the judge that José would be speaking for himself. In immigration courts, migrants usually just answer questions, so the judge asked me if I was requesting to withdraw. I said I wasn’t: I was staying at the table, but José was going to do all the talking. And the judge, to his credit, heard him out.

The judge explained the law and what José would have to prove in order to win. Before hiring us, José had submitted an application, on his own, for “cancellation of removal.” There are four elements: He had to prove that he had been living here for more than 10 years, that he was a person of good moral character and that he hadn’t broken any laws that would bar him under the statutes from applying. José could show all of these things. But the fourth criterion is the hardest. José would have to prove that if he were deported, it would cause an “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a spouse, parent or child who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. Usually it means you have a child with cancer, or a spouse with a disability that makes them unable to work or support a family — something on that scale. If you can convince the court merely that your family would be made homeless or that your children would subsist on food stamps, that is not considered sufficient. That is just the usual hardship that deportees’ families experience.

Without missing a beat, José said to the judge, “I have the first three, your honor, but I do not have the fourth.” Turning around to look at his family, with obvious pride, he told the judge: “This is my family. These are my children. Everything I do, I do for them. But thankfully they are all healthy, which for the moment seems for some reason to be bad.” Truly, logic has no place in immigration court.

[I crossed the border seeking safety. Instead, they took my daughter away.]

The judge said that, based on this testimony, he would have to deny his application for cancellation of removal. Still, the judge offered José voluntary departure and explained, as I had, that it would make it easier for him to return.

I had met with José’s wife, Maria, too, and explained “VD,” which is a safer option than exiting the nation through the usual deportation machinery. People who are deported to Mexico from Stewart and many other detention centers are just dumped on the border, where gangs await them. (People deported to other countries are flown.) They are often robbed, kidnapped, raped or killed. Those who take VD, on the other hand, don’t get to leave jail, but they fly back on a regular commercial flight.

The problem with voluntary departure, though, is the cost: You have to buy your own fare, and it is very expensive, currently around $1,250. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will accept only a “Y” class ticket, or a full-cost coach fare, which can often cost more than first class. José thanked the judge and declined. “The tickets cost a lot of money, and my family will need the money after I leave.”

[My family immigrated here legally. I used to think that made us special.]

Maria interjected, crying. “Take the voluntary,” she said. “Take the voluntary!” My client began crying, too, followed by his kids.

I decided to take a chance. I asked the judge if José could talk to his wife over the barrier. Any direct communication and especially physical contact is strictly forbidden in this courtroom. To my surprise, he agreed. So Maria came forward, and she and José started hugging and kissing and crying. The bailiff moved to intervene, but I just shook my head and mouthed the word “Please.”

The couple talked for a few minutes, and then José sat back down and offered that he would take voluntary departure. But he’d gotten to hug his 6-, 8- and 12-year-old children across the barrier. Imagine that. Humanity in what passes for a court. This is not usually how immigration cases go. The judge gave José 30 days to buy his ticket before he would lose the “privilege” of taking VD.

In the end, José sat there smiling. And proud. He was still smiling as his family left the courtroom. And smiling when he gave me a hug. He’d known all along he wouldn’t win, but he wanted to be able to call out the injustice. And the judge, who has low rates of approval for just about anything, heard him out. (Only 31 of 347 judges denied asylum claims at a higher rate, according to the Transitional Records Access Clearinghouse.) It wasn’t a victory, exactly. José wouldn’t be staying with his family. But speaking a truth, to a hostile power, is still a kind of achievement.

[Trump’s attack on asylum is based entirely on false claims]

But it was a discordant one for such a ruthless corner of the law. And eventually the logic of our immigration system superseded his brave act.

This past week, according to a friend of his who called me to share the news, ICE came to his cell early one morning and said it would fly him to Mexico City; he wouldn’t even have to pay for his ticket. Then, that afternoon, officials came and handcuffed him, brought him to a room to wait with other detainees for several hours and deposited him on a bus. Not to the airport, as they had promised. They drove him to the border and dumped him out in Matamoros. I am looking into his legal options, because apparently no act of courage goes unpunished.

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

Thanks Marty, for giving us insight into the “parody of justice” that goes on daily in our Immigration Courts at the direction of a Department of “Justice” that long ago lost both its way and purpose and must be wrested from control of a major dysfunctional court system that it is so ethically and functionally unable to administer in anything approaching a fair and efficient manner.

I give the Immigration Judge credit for taking time to listen and allowing Jose to speak in court. In the toxic age of Trump, Sessions, Whitaker, and likely also Barr, Immigration Judges are pressured to prejudge cases and cut corners by denying claims without listening to the evidence to keep up with artificial “deportation quotas” imposed by Sessions and to keep up “productivity” which has replaced “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process” as the mantra of today’s “Clown Courts.”

On the other hand, there are alternatives available. The BIA precedents on what constitutes “exceptional and extremely hardship” are intentionally vague and subject to interpretation. How do I know? They were issued while I was serving as BIA Chair (one over my dissent).

They were supposed to be part of a group of cases, sometimes knows as the “basket of pain,” defining the term in a number of different contexts. But, after Ashcroft’s “Saturday Night Massacre” at the BIA “took out” those judges, including me, who sometimes ruled in favor of respondent’s positions, the project was abandoned. My remaining colleagues were afraid that ruling on anything so controversial, and particularly granting anything to a respondent, could be “career threatening,” probably with good reason. So, Immigration Judges were left to their own devices. Many of the BIA panels on the other hand, took a pretty hard line, all, of course, in unpublished decisions.

Coming to the Arlington Immigration Court from the BIA, I actually underwent some “culture shock.” In an early cancellation case, I was thinking that the respondents, although great folks who were doing good things for America and their citizen family, probably wouldn’t “make the cut” under the standards that my last BIA panel had been applying. But, when the Assistant Chief Counsel got up to make a closing, after I had given respondents’ counsel a rather “hard time,” I was surprised to hear an impassioned, well-reasoned, and well-supported plea joining counsel’s request for a finding of “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” and granting the case. “It’s Recinas, not Andazola,” as we came to say in Arlington, after the names of the BIA precedents that appeared to reach conflicting conclusions.

Some Immigration Judges would have found that deprivation of the support of the “primary breadwinner” is “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” and granted Jose cancellation of removal. And, some ICE Assistant Chief Counsel would have waived appeal. Just shows what a “crapshoot” justice has become in the Immigration Courts.

BS (“Before Sessions”) at the Arlington Immigration Court, the Assistant Chief Counsel would probably have offered “prosecutorial discretion” or “PD” to Jose. And, I would have encouraged Marty to take that offer and “live to fight another day.” I would have given Jose and his family my “bad things will happen if you screw up again in any way speech,'” “administratively closed” the case, and taken it off my docket. The court and both counsel would have saved time and Jose and his family could have gone on living their lives and contributing to America pending good behavior and an eventual legalization program by Congress.

Not a perfect solution to be sure. But, a fundamentally just one that allowed me, ICE, and the private bar to move on and deal with other higher priority cases that really needed my judicial attention.

Trump, Sessions, Nielsen and their White Nationalist Gang have stripped the Immigration Courts of whatever little sense of justice and judicial control remained. They intentionally have turned a struggling system into a totally dysfunctional and fundamentally unjust and unconstitutional one.

We can only hope that at some point the Article III Courts will have seen enough and will put this totally bankrupt system into “receivership;” or that some future Congress and a more competent and honest Administration will create an independent Immigration Court focused, as it should be, on fairness and Due Process. Until then, justice and logic will continue to be a bad joke in the “U.S. Clown Courts.” 🤡

PWS

01-28-19

Related posts:

  1. ABIGAIL HAUSLOHNER @ WASHPOST: UNDER TRUMP, MORE JUDGES, MORE DETENTION, MORE RANDOM CRUELTY, FEWER ACTUAL REMOVALS!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️KAKISTOCRACY WATCH: AILA Blasts Appointment Of Prosecutors Without Judicial Qualifications To Top Judicial Positions in Billy the Bigot’s Weaponized Anti-Due-Process “Court” System — Dysfunction, Bias, Illegitimate Decisions Run Rampant As Congress, Article IIIs Fail to Enforce U.S. Constitution!
  4. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!

HERE’S KATE DAVIDSON @ WSJ WITH OUR “DUH” ARTICLE OF DA DAY! – Destroying Is Easy, Fixing Is Hard — It’s Better NOT To Have An Incompetent Chief Executive

https://apple.news/APEHFZXOmRMuBB-MpjpX1Ag

Kate writes for the WSJ:

Federal employees will soon be called back to work, government buildings will reopen and services will resume—at least for the next three weeks—after President Trump and lawmakers struck a deal Friday to end the partial government shutdown.

But the logistics of getting the government and approximately 380,000 furloughed federal workers fully up and running again won’t be so simple.

The Office of Management and Budget director is expected to issue an official memo to all agencies telling them to take the appropriate steps to reopen the government. It’s unclear how long that process will take, after more than a month of disruptions to services across nine different federal agencies.

The Office of Personnel Management has asked workers to watch the news and report to work on the next scheduled working day as soon as they see that new funding legislation is enacted.

Many of those workers have been away from office computers and work phones for more than a month, and will return to expired passwords and a backlog of work.

. . . .

*******************************************s

Read Kate’s complete article at the link.

When you work for a large corporation with a malicious moron for a CEO and a “Board of Directors” (a/k/a GOP) composed mainly of sycophants and grifters, “bad things will happen.”

For destroying American Government for no reason at all, Trump, his GOP “fellow travelers,” along with his “tone-deaf” grifter cronies like Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross get the “Courtside Five Clown Award.” 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS😎

01-26-19

 

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION POLICY: “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE!” — Also, ICE Intentionally Falsifies Court Hearing Dates — Where Is The Accountability?
  3. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  4. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!

SPECIAL COURTSIDE “PRESS RELEASE” — “Court Chaos”

COURT CHAOS

“It’s chaos on top of disaster. By the end of next week, Trump will have added at least 100,000 cases to the already existing backlog of 800,000 + cases, plus another 300,000 that former A.G. Sessions diabolically and unnecessarily promised to artificially force back into the system. That’s 4-5 years of work for the Courts even with no new filings! People with good cases are denied justice while others postpone their day of reckoning indefinitely.

Many of these cases will never be decided unless Congress reforms this broken system by removing political control from the DOJ. I call this “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”) — cases being moved around by incompetent politicos at the DOJ without ever being completed. And under Sessions, the DOJ excelled at ADR, unnecessarily and artificially “jacking” the backlog by an incredible 50%+ in less than two years of politically biased and incompetent maladministration of the system. And, that’s even with more judges on the bench! Trump and his cronies have effectively destroyed one of America’s largest and most important court systems.

It must be reformed into a court independent of Executive overreach and incompetence. A new court must be established run by apolitical expert judges with the assistance of professional court administrators accountable to those judges, not Administration politicos. It’s not rocket science, just common sense, fundamental fairness, and above all, Constitutional Due Process.”

PWS

01-25-19

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

DENISE LU & DEREK WATKINS @ NY TIMES: A Very Clear Explanation Of How The Trump Administration’s Bias, Incompetence, & Commitment To Unfairness Have Accelerated The Demise Of The U.S. Immigration Court System

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/24/us/migrants-border-immigration-court.html

Court Backlog May Prove Bigger
Barrier for Migrants Than Any Wall

By DENISE LU and DEREK WATKINS 

Every day, dozens of migrants arrive at the southern border hoping to seek asylum and stay in the United States. President Trump champions a wall as the one thing that could keep them from starting a life in the country. Right now, the big hurdle for many migrants comes not at the border but on the other side.
. . . .
**********************************
I highly recommend the complete article, with some spectacular graphics, at the link.
The article says the Immigration Courts are “in crisis.” I say they are “in shambles!”
While this disaster has been unfolding since 2000, there is no doubt that the Trump Kakistocracy, featuring totally unqualified, biased, and managerially incompetent White Nationalist Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions bears the major responsibility for this mockery of justice and trashing of Constitutional norms. A 50% increase in backlog created by “malicious incompetence” is beyond outrageous and a shocking example of fraud, waste, and abuse by a cabinet officer with no accountability from a GOP Congress that has long abandoned its responsibility to govern in the public interest.
Not only do the self-generated backlog and Sessions’s distortions of law form a barrier for migrants, but also a barrier to legitimate immigration enforcement, another casualty of the Trump Kakistocracy. Under Trump, DHS has become so arbitrary, capricious, and unprofessional that its “Gonzo” policies have actually spawned an “Abolish ICE” movement as well as made DHS an anathema to serious law enforcement efforts of all types across the country.
PWS
01-24-19

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

Julia Edwards Ainsley @ NBC: DHS Set To Launch “Wait in Mexico” Program For Asylum Seekers — Expect Another Disaster!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/dhs-plans-begin-turning-asylum-seekers-back-mexico-await-court-n962401

Julia Ainsley

Julia reports:

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to begin turning asylum-seekers back across the southern border on Friday to wait in Mexico under a new policy designed to crack down on immigration by Central American families, according to three Department of Homeland Security officials familiar with the matter.

Customs and Border Protection officers will begin returning asylum-seekers trying to enter at the San Ysidro port of entry in California from Tijuana, Mexico, where thousands of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are already waiting in poor conditions.

Under current policy, immigrants who pass an initial “credible fear” interview are allowed to remain in the U.S. while they wait for immigration judges to decide their cases. Single adults are detained while they await their hearing, but a federal court decision in 2015 mandates that families with children be detained no longer than 20 days.

The Trump administration has blamed that court decision, known as the Flores settlement, for being a magnet that is driving record numbers of immigrant families to apply for asylum at the southern border. Last summer under the “zero tolerance” policy, DHS separated asylum-seeking parents from their children at the border, sparking international outcry.

Overall numbers of undocumented immigrants apprehended or stopped from legally entering the United States are lower than the historic highs reached in the early 2000s.

Children who travel without a guardian, immigrants who appear ill as well as other “vulnerable populations” will be exempt from the policy and allowed to wait in the U.S. for an immigration hearing.

Immigrant and civil rights organizations have threatened to sue the Trump administration over the policy, known as Migration Protection Policy, which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced was coming in her congressional testimony in December.

The policy is a unilateral move by the U.S. and not part of an agreement with Mexico, two officials said, though Mexico has agreed to care for immigrants who are waiting to apply. The Lopez Obrador administration in Mexico has been vocal about its opposition to the policy in the past.

Beginning Friday, the asylum-seekers who come to the San Ysidro port of entry will be sent back to Tijuana with a notice to appear in court in San Diego. On their court dates, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will provide transportation from the port of entry to immigration court. Asylum-seekers will also be given a 24-hour hotline to call for the status of their asylum cases.

SHUTDOWN HAS FURLOUGHED IMMIGRATION COURT JUDGES

Due to a backlog in U.S. immigration courts of more than 800,000 cases, asylum-seekers currently have to wait months or even years to see a judge. DHS has asked the Justice Department to expedite the cases of immigrants waiting in Mexico, and two officials said they expect the asylum-seekers affected by the new policy to wait no more than a year.

Agents fire tear gas at migrants at the border

NOV. 26, 201802:26

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

AMERICA’S SHAME: 🤡 “CLOWN COURTS” PLUNGE TO NEW DEPTHS UNDER TRUMP & DOJ: Unpaid Judges, Court Clerks Who Can’t Afford The Rent, Illegal Rulings & Idiotic Policies By Biased & Ignorant DOJ Politicos, Unachievable Expectations, Unnecessary Postponements Caused By Trump & DOJ, & On Top Of It All A Few Unqualified Judges Who Discriminate, Cut Corners, & Intentionally Deny Due Process, All Combine To “Tank” Already Low Morale To Incomprehensible Lows!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-claims-immigration-judge-paychecks-as-court-morale-hits-a-historic-low/

Kate Smith reports for CBS News:

The nation’s roughly 400 immigration judges are getting hit hard by the government shutdown:

  • They’re about to miss their second paycheck.
  • About three-quarters have been furloughed and unable to work, which means their case backlog is growing.
  • The result: Morale is at a “historic low,” said Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges and a Los Angeles-based immigration herself, in an interview with CBS News.

The immigration court docket is split into two categories: Hearings for immigrants who have been detained represent about 5 to 10 percent of the docket. These cases have been uninterrupted during the shutdown and have been overseen by approximately 100 judges who aren’t getting paid.

“I’ve been using the words ‘unprecedented’ and ‘surreal,’ and yet it keeps becoming more unprecedented and more surreal,” said Tabaddor. “It’s so unfortunate that we’ve reached this level of dysfunction.”

Adding to the low morale is a the massive backlog of cases, which has risen by nearly 50 percent since President Trump took office. As of November 30 the backlog stood at just over 800,000 cases, but if the shutdown continues through February it could break one million.

Worse still for the judges is a new quota system announced in October by the Department of Justice. It said that all judges would be required to complete 700 immigration cases in the following year; if they fall behind, their job security could be on the line.

“It’s so disconnected from reality,” said Tabaddor. “Those cases just can’t be completed in the timeframe that the administration is demanding. Frankly, it’s laughable.”

Given that many judges haven’t been able to work for more than a month, will the quota be waived? DOJ hasn’t given any guidance, said Tabaddor.

“It’s not like if you miss a day of work, they work just goes away,” Tabaddor said. “Everyone knows that they minute the shutdown is over, what awaits them is 10 times worse than what they left behind.”

“Judges jobs are on the line if they don’t meet these arbitrary number,” Tabaddor said. “People are very concerned.”

A call and email to the Department of Justice were not returned, but the agency’s website said that press inquiries may not be returned because of the government shutdown.

Currently, most non-detained judges have four to five thousand hearings scheduled through 2021 and in some cases 2022, Tabaddor said, noting that “every single day on their calendar is booked.” Immigrants who had hearings originally scheduled during the shutdown will most likely be forced to wait years before they’re able to get in front of a judge.

Forcing judges to rush through their quotas could have a devastating impact on immigration hearings, said Kate Voigt, the associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. When forced to choose between their own job security and a through understanding of an individual’s case, many judges have gone with the former, pushing through cases without giving immigrants their due process, Voigt said.

The Department of Justice has “increased pressures on judges to churn out cases at lightning speeds, at the expense of due process and case-by-case determinations,” Voigt said in an email to CBS News.

In Charlotte, North Carolina some judges have refused to hear testimony from female asylum seekers from Central America, citing an now-overturned policy statement from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions that removed domestic and gang violence from admissible asylum criteria, said Jeremy McKinney, an immigration attorney who serves clients in North Carolina and South Carolina, in an interview with CBS News. In one asylum hearing McKinney had last year prior to the government shutdown, Judge Barry Pettino refused to let his client testify, instead denying her asylum case outright because it dealt with gender-based violence, according to McKinney.

“My client didn’t think she was going to win her case, but she certainly didn’t think we were going to be in and out in 45 minutes,” McKinney said. “If the asylum seeker never gets to take the stand under oath, never gets to tell their story, that’s a fundamental due process problem right there.”

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

In the words of the distinguished Judge Tabaddor, “surreal!” Why is it “OK” to have a court operating in the “Twilight Zone” making life or death decisions? How would you like YOUR life or YOUR loved one’s life to be determined by this dysfunctional mess?

Simply shameful! Also completely unnecessary. Trump and the DOJ are totally unqualified to run any court, let alone one with life or death authority. Congress is paralyzed. If the Article IIIs don’t step in, take this over, and require the restoration of at least rudimentary Due Process, there might not be any removals in the future!

How will they “reopen” this mess even when the “Trump shutdown” ends? Why won’t most of the overworked, underpaid, under appreciated, stressed out Court Clerks who keep this (unautomated, paper heavy) “Rube Goldberg Contraption” afloat, and who live paycheck to paycheck, have found new jobs where they are fairly paid and appreciated? Why won’t all the retirement-eligible judges head for the exits where life is better, the paychecks keep coming, and you can actively fight the Trump idiocy?

PWS

01-23-19

 

PWS

01-23-19

Related posts:

  1. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. EOIR TARGETS UNACCOMPANIED KIDS FOR DEPORATION RAILROAD!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

FALSE EQUIVALENCY: No, “Trump’s Shutdown” Is Not A “Failure Of Both Parties” Or “Washington’s Fault” – It’s 100% On Trump & The GOP & Proves Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That They Are Incapable Of Governing In A Responsible & Reasonably Competent Manner!

FALSE EQUIVALENCY:  No, “Trump’s Shutdown” Is Not A “Failure Of Both Parties” Or “Washington’s Fault” – It’s 100% On Trump & The GOP & Proves Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That They Are Incapable Of Governing In A Responsible & Reasonably Competent Manner!

 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

I’m tired of hearing all the “fake news” about “shared responsibility” for the “Trump shutdown:” The totally insane and unnecessary shutdown that he promised to inflict and that Mitch McConnell and the GOP enablers delivered against the American people.

The shutdown is 100% a GOP responsibility, just as Trump originally threatened. The wall is at best an ineffective and overpriced method of addressing border security, particularly standing alone. And, it has absolutely nothing to do with current border security because it would take years, if not decades, to build. There is no way that it justifies shutting down the Government.

Trump’s latest offer clearly was made in bad faith. While he and Pence disingenuously presented a distortedly simple version to the public, the actual 1,000-page screed was filled with White Nationalist attacks on asylum, kids, and migrants drafted by neo-Nazi Stephen Miller as a “sharp stick in the eye” to Dems, Hispanics, refugees, and all Americans who believe in our Constitution and humane values. In other words, typical Trump/Miller/McConnell nonsense. Trump is actually offering “Dreamers” less than the Supremes have effectively guaranteed them. So, how is that a reasonable proposal or a good faith “starting point” for negotiations?

The GOP can and should join Dems in reopening Government now, no strings attached and with a much-needed pay raise for Feds, by a “veto-proof” margin. Forget Trump, his anti-American rants and schemes, and his diminishing White Nationalist “fan club.”

Then, the “Non-Bakuninist Branch” of the GOP needs to join the Dems in governing America, which Trump has proved beyond a reasonable doubt he has neither the ability nor the desire to do. Immigration should be part of that discussion; but, not the White Nationalist agenda on immigration that Trump and Miller keep pushing.

We need a realistic discussion that would strengthen protections for asylum seekers, use more smart technology, improved intelligence, Immigration Inspectors, Anti-Smuggling Officers, undercover agents, Asylum Officers, and Immigration Judges to deal with the border situation, and significantly expand legal immigration. The latter is a long overdue common-sense move to serve our country’s future needs (most reliable studies show that we need more, not less immigration), diminish the size and allure of the “extra-legal” system that arises when the law is out of whack with market realities (as ours is now), and allow DHS enforcement to focus on the “real bad guys” rather than artificially combining “bad guys” with folks coming to help us out (and help themselves and their families in the process).

Reform of the U.S. Immigration Courts which Trump and Sessions have utterly and cynically destroyed should also be on the agenda. There is only one answer: get those courts out of the politicized and incompetent U.S. Department of Justice and into an independent judicial structure where apolitical judges and professional court administrators can start fixing the absolutely disgraceful and dysfunctional mess that Sessions and his predecessors have made out of what could have been an effective and efficient provider of Due Process. Too late now! Just stop the hemorrhaging and start building something of which America can actually be proud rather than the current national embarrassment, which serves neither the individuals whose rights it was intended to protect nor legitimate DHS enforcement objectives. That’s the very definition of failure.

The Post and other mainstream media keep pushing a “false equivalency” in blaming “both sides” for the shutdown. That’s not true; the shutdown was engineered solely by Trump and the GOP BEFORE the Dems even took over the House, just as Trump had publicly and petulantly threatened.

While the Dems should look for ways to be part of the solution, the problem is Trump, the GOP, and those enablers who continue to support a fundamentally anti-American agenda that attacks our own governing institutions and the dedicated public servants who keep them running for all of us.

Every day must be a great day for Vladimir Putin with Trump and the GOP destroying America! It’s time for Dems and whatever responsible GOP legislators might remain to take the reins and save America from Trump and his Putin-serving policies before it’s too late! “Time’s a wasting” while Trump and the GOP are fiddling with our country’s security and future well-being. Unacceptable!

PWS

01-23-19

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories

SPLIT DECISION: Supremes Deliver “Gut Punch” To Transgender Americans, But Give Another Round To Dreamers

SPLIT DECISION: Supremes Deliver “Gut Punch” To Transgender Americans, But Give Another Round To Dreamers

 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

On Tuesday, a divided Supreme Court allowed a portion of Trump’s homophobic ban on certain transgender troops to go into effect. At the same time, they properly squelched the arrogantly disingenuous attempt by Trump and his “go along to get along” Solicitor General Noel Francisco to “expedite” review of lower court rulings that found that Trump, former Attorney General Sessions, and DHS acted lawlessly and without any apparent legal rationale in terminating the “DACA” program. In simple terms, decisions that required the Administration to follow the law.

Prior Solicitors General have sometimes balked at representing liars and presenting disingenuous arguments in behalf of their Government “clients.” (Actually, somewhat of a bureaucratic misnomer, because the “institutional client” is really the “People of the U.S.”  who pay Government salaries, regardless of whether they are citizens or can vote.) Not this one, who seems to savor the opportunity to carry Trump’s more than ample “dirty water” and reduce the credibility of his one-respected office to around zero. As I predicted, nobody serves Trump without being tarnished.

For the LGBTQ community, it’s a horrible signal that a narrow majority of the Supremes are unwilling to move into the 21stcentury and recognize their Constitutional rights to equal protection under the 14thAmendment as well as their rights as human beings. It’s also shockingly disrespectful to those who have stepped forward to risk their lives in the name of our country, something Trump took great pains to avoid. It’s doubly disappointing that Chief Justice John Roberts joined his far-right colleagues on this one, at least in part (he rejected the bogus argument for immediate review put forth by Francesco and instead sent the case back to the lower courts for further development).

Unlike some of his colleagues on the right, Roberts has some sense of institutional history, the horror and existential dangers to democracy of Trump as Chief Executive, and the future. Come on, “Chiefie,” we can all get smarter as we get older! Don’t blow your chance to “get on the right side of history.” Leave the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” behind in their dust and join your four more enlightened colleagues in moving America forward and showing some leadership and courage on the Supremes. As this month has shown, you might be the only person able to save America.

Paraphrasing what many pundits have said, “The Supremes can basically do anything they want, whenever they want to, for any reason they can come up with, because they are Supreme.” With that caveat in mind, the Court’s well-deserved slap down of Trump on DACA basically leaves the full protections in effect for Dreamers until the end of the Trump Administration. At that point, we’ll either get a new President, or there won’t be any country left for the “Dreamers,” the Supremes, or the rest of us to “dream about” or live in. The so-called “American Dream” will be at a tragic end. We’ll all be living in a continuing nightmare of cruelty, incompetence, and randomness.

I think the Supremes would be wise not to take up the DACA issue ever. It needs to be resolved by the lower courts, who have for the most part done a fine job, and the Congress, which hasn’t. But, assuming the Supremes do take the issue, they probably wouldn’t schedule argument before the October Term 2020. That makes it highly unlikely that they would reach and issue any final decision before the November 2020 elections. There would certainly be no reason for them to “rush to judgement” on this one.

Thus, Trump’s hollow offer of meager “Dreamer relief,” no path to green cards or citizenship and less than they have now under the court decisions, is even less of a legitimate “bargaining chip” than it was before. And, “poisoning the well” with Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist anti-asylum, child-abuse agenda shows how intellectually dishonest Trump and the GOP are and that the rancid “thousand pages of vile gibberish” that they launched as a “fake offer to reopen our Government” is a pure political stunt and an insult to 800,000 unpaid Government workers.

Moreover, all of this nonsense must be viewed in context of reality. That’s something that seldom intrudes on the daily intentionally created chaos and national dysfunction of this Administration. The Dreamers aren’t going anywhere! Almost all of them have legitimate applications for immigration relief that they can file in Immigration Court, including cancellation of removal, asylum, withholding of removal, or relief under the CAT.

Trump, Sessions, and now Whitaker have totally destroyed the U.S. Immigration Court system.  I’m not sure it will be able to reopen even when the Trump shutdown finally ends. With a politically-created backlog of well over one million cases, growing by tens of thousands with every day of the mindless Trump shutdown, virtually no “Dreamer” (other than a minute percentage who might be convicted of crimes and probably would have had their DACA status revoked or denied on that basis) would be scheduled for removal proceedings within the next four years, let alone by 2020. Indeed, if Congress doesn’t step in and provide Dreamer relief and an Article I independent Immigration Court to replace the current dysfunctional mess in the DOJ, some of these cases may well still be pending a decade from now!

This context also reaffirms the total disingenuous absurdity of SG Francisco’s argument that this is an “emergency” requiring “early intervention” by the Supremes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only “emergency” is the one intentionally caused by his “client” Trump — by illegally and unnecessarily trying to shut down the DACA program and aggravated by his Administration’s wanton destruction of our U.S. Immigration Courts, and by the “Trump shutdown.”

The Supremes must take a “hard line” against being “sucked in” to the many bogus “emergencies” that Trump creates to detract attention from his and his party’s inability to govern in even a minimally fair and effective manner. Perhaps, it’s also time for Francisco to reread the rule of ethics for lawyers and have a “heart to heart” with his “client” about abusing the Federal Courts with semi-frivolous litigation and presenting lies as “facts.” It’s never too late to learn!

PWS

01-23-19

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

TRUMP’S “OFFER” MIGHT WELL BE A STUNT – BUT, IT’S ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE DEMS TO STEP UP, SAVE LIVES, AND GOVERN RESPONSIBLY – They Should Make A Counterproposal – Here’s The “SMARTS Act Of 2019!”

There are opposing “schools of thought” on Trump’s latest immigration statement. For example, the LA Times says it another “Trump stunt to shift blame” that the Dems should resist.  https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-trump-shutdown-daca-20190119-story.html

Makes sense.

 

On the other hand, the Washington Post says that notwithstanding Trump’s annoying tactics, it’s an opportunity to reopen the Government and save the Dreamers that the Dems should pursue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-a-deal-to-help-the-real-people-behind-the-rhetoric/2019/01/19/f5b18866-1c17-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.5b08d589dfa9

Also makes sense.

 

I understand the Dems reluctance to enable Trump’s “hostage taking” strategy. But, I doubt they can solve that with Trump and the GOP controlling two of the three political arms of Government.

 

Indeed, a better idea would be for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell to get together “when the smoke clears” and see what they can do jointly to take back and fix the bipartisan Congressional budget process and protect it from overreach by Executives of both parties.  For two of the major legislative “gurus” of our age in the twilight of their careers, that would be a great “bipartisan legacy.”

 

But, for the time being, folks are suffering, and lives are in danger: Government employees, those that depend on Government, asylum applicants, Dreamers, TPSers, those in Immigration Court, and the families of all of the foregoing. So, I think the Dems should make a “robust” counterproposal that gives Trump at least part of his “Wall,” but also includes other important reforms and improvements that will diminish the impact of border migration issues in the future. Most important, almost everything in this proposal would save or improve some human lives and benefit America in the short and long run.

 

So, here’s my outline of the “SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019”

 

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

 

  • Federal Employees
    • Restart the Government
    • Retroactive pay raise

 

  • Enhanced Border Security
    • Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
    • Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
    • Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
    • Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
    • Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
    • Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
    • Anything else in the Senate Bill that both parties agree upon

 

  • Humanitarian Assistance
    • Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
    • Prohibit family separation
    • Funding for alternatives to detention
    • Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
    • Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

 

  • Asylum Process
    • Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

 

  • Immigration Court Improvements
    • Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
    • Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
    • Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
    • Vacate Matter of Castro-Tumand reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
    • Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
    • Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
    • Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
    • Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
    • Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
    • Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
    • Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
    • Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
    • Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
    • Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
    • Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
    • Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

 

  • International Cooperation
    • Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
    • Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

 

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

No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

 

PWS

01-20-19

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

CBS NEWS: TRUMP SHUTDOWN “NEEDLESSLY JACKING” IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG BY AS MUCH AS 25% IN SOME STATES — Effects Uneven, But Bad Everywhere — Myth That Trump Knows Or Cares About Immigration Enforcement Exposed!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-immigration-court-backlog-million-cases-pennsylvania-kentucky-minnesota-2019-01-17/

Kate Smith reports for CBS News:

Thes immigration court backlog could grow to more than one million cases if the government shutdown drags into February and March, according to data compiled by CBS News. Some states, including Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, are particularly vulnerable, and could see their state’s immigration courts’ backlog increase by more than a third.

Since the partial government shutdown began last month, immigration court hearings have ground to halt, effectively cancelling a vast majority of scheduled appearances.

Those postponed hearings will be added to the immigration court system’s already record-high backlog, which stood at more than 800,000 cases as of November 30, 2018, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Because of the government shutdown, more recent data is not available, said Susan Long, a director at TRAC, in an email to CBS News.

As of last Friday, nearly 43,000 hearings had been cancelled since the shutdown began, according to TRAC. If the shutdown continues through all of January, 108,112 immigrants will have had their appearances cancelled. That number grows to 185,071 if the shutdown continues through March 1, according to TRAC.

If the government remains shutdown through February 1, the backlog will rise at least 12.5 percent in cancelled cases alone, not including any new immigration hearings. If the government shutdown goes on until March 1, the backlog will reach at least one million hearings, a nearly 25 percent jump since the end of November.

“This level of dysfunction and chaos is simply unacceptable,” said Kate Voigt, the associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, in an email to CBS News. “Every day the shutdown continues, the immigration court backlog gets worse and people’s lives are unfairly held in the balance.”

Some states will feel the impact of the immigration court closure much more than others, according to data compiled by CBS News. In Bloomington, Minnesota, the state’s lone immigration court had a 8,547-case backlog as of November 30, but that could increase by more than 43 percent if the government shutdown persists through March 1, according to data compiled by CBS News.

Minnesota has seen a surge of Guatemalan immigration cases starting in recent years. That court had just under 800 Guatemalan pending cases in 2016, but the number surged to 2,326 this year, according to data from TRAC. If the shutdown continues through February 1, the court’s backlog will grow by at least 27 percent.

Pennsylvania’s immigration courts have also seen an influx of Guatemalan immigration cases, according to TRAC. Between the state’s two immigration courts — in Philadelphia and York — Pennsylvania already had a 15,945-case backlog at the end of November, nearly a third of which were for Guatemalans. If the government shutdown continues through February 1, the state’s total backlog will grow by at least 20 percent; that number rises to 32 percent if the shutdown goes through March 1.

“Every day the shutdown continues, the immigration court backlog exponentially grows, further burdening an already overloaded system with high quotas and so much at stake in the lives of immigrants in proceedings,” said Ruby Powers, a Houston-based immigration attorney, in an email to CBS News.

Immigration attorneys also point out that without these court hearings, deportations cannot be ordered for migrants who don’t have legal grounds to stay in the U.S.

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

How dumb is shutting down the only body that can produce final orders of removal (except for cases of recent arrivals)? It’s also the only body that can adjudicate asylum applications from arriving migrants who pass then”credible fear” process.

The Immigration Courts may never recover from Trump’s misguided enforcement policies and insanely bad management.

PWS

01-19-19

Related posts:

  1. NO, WE’RE NOT “OVERWHELMED” WITH ASYLUM SEEKERS – BUT TRUMP’S SHUTDOWN IS ADDING TO THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG, CREATING MORE “AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING” THAT HELPED CREATE THE BACKLOG IN THE FIRST PLACE, AND SCREWING ASYLUM SEEKERS WITH PENDING CASES! — We Won’t Be Able To Solve Immigration Until The Immigration Court is Removed From The Executive Branch & Becomes An Independent Court!
  2. TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION POLICY: “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE!” — Also, ICE Intentionally Falsifies Court Hearing Dates — Where Is The Accountability?
  3. EOIR DIRECTOR McHENRY TRIES TO EXPLAIN TRASHING OF DUE PROCESS TO SKEPTICAL HOUSE DEMS — DOJ Leadership Has Turned “Courts” Into “A DMV For Deportation,” Says Chairman Jose Serrano (D-NY)!— Many Cases From Trump Shutdown Still “MIA” While Lives Hang In The Balance!
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

NO, WE’RE NOT “OVERWHELMED” WITH ASYLUM SEEKERS – BUT TRUMP’S SHUTDOWN IS ADDING TO THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG, CREATING MORE “AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING” THAT HELPED CREATE THE BACKLOG IN THE FIRST PLACE, AND SCREWING ASYLUM SEEKERS WITH PENDING CASES! — We Won’t Be Able To Solve Immigration Until The Immigration Court is Removed From The Executive Branch & Becomes An Independent Court!

The latest TRAC IMMIGRATION report confirms what most of us familiar with the dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Courts already knew: Trump has already needlessly added 42,000 cases to the backlog and will have added at least 100,000 of the shutdown lasts through the end of January.

 

==========================================
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Since the beginning of the federal government shutdown, most Immigration Court hearings have been cancelled. As of January 11, the estimated number of cancellations reached 42,726. Each week the shutdown continues, cancelled hearings will likely grow by another 20,000. As many as 100,000 individuals awaiting their day in court may be impacted if the shutdown continues through the end of January.

Each week the shutdown continues the practical effect is to add thousands of cases back onto the active case backlog which had already topped eight-hundred thousand (809,041) as of the end of last November. Individuals impacted by these cancellations may have already being waiting two, three, or even four years for their day in court, and now may have to wait years more before their hearing can be rescheduled once the shutdown ends.

Immigration Courts in California have experienced the most hearing cancellations – an estimated 9,424 as of January 11. These and many more details are based on analyses of court records by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

For state-by-state impacts, see the full report at:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/543

In addition, many of TRAC’s free query tools – which track the court’s overall backlog, new DHS filings, court dispositions and much more – have now been updated through November 2018. For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools go to:

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

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

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://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 U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

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

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

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

But, that’s not all folks!

Amy Taxin reports for NBC LA:

https://apple.news/AB_FhnUCjSkylre8-ue8cZQ 

The partial government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s demand for a border wall is playing havoc with the nation’s already backlogged immigration courts, forcing the postponement of hearings for thousands of immigrants.

For some of those asking for asylum in the U.S., the impasse could mean years more of waiting — and prolonged separation from loved ones overseas — until they get a new court date.

But for those immigrants with little chance of winning their bids to stay in this country legally, the shutdown could help them stave off deportation that much longer — adding to the very delays the Trump administration has railed against.

“It is just dripping with irony,” said Sarah Pierce, policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “This administration has put a lot of emphasis on speeding up court cases, and the shutdown obviously is just going to cause massive delays.”

The shutdown has furloughed hundreds of thousands of government employees and halted services that aren’t deemed essential, including, in many instances, the immigration courts overseen by the Justice Department.

Hearings involved detained immigrants are still going forward. But untold thousands of other proceedings have been postponed. No one knows for how long; it depends on when employees return to work and hearings can be reset.

Immigration experts said cases could be delayed months or years since the courts have more than 800,000 pending cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, and many courtrooms are tightly booked.

Immigration Judge Dana Marks, former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said she has at least 60 hearings a day in her San Francisco courtroom and no space on her docket for at least the next three years.

“The cases that are not being heard now — there is no readily available place to reschedule them until at least 2022 or beyond,” Marks said of her courtroom.

Immigration judges hear a wide range of complex cases from immigrants from across the world, some who have recently arrived in the United States, others who have lived in the country for years and the government is seeking to deport.

Immigration judges have long sought more staffing to handle the ballooning caseload, which has roughly doubled in five years following a surge in Central American children and families arriving at the southern border. The Trump administration has tried to speed up the courts by assigning immigration judges quotas and stopping them from shelving cases.

Some of the toughest cases immigration judges hear are claims for asylum, or protection from persecution. And long wait times can be especially difficult for asylum seekers, since they can’t bring spouses or children to join them in the United States unless their asylum requests are approved.

Reynold Finnegan, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles, said one of his Afghan clients hasn’t seen his wife or children in nearly nine years. After being kidnapped and tortured by the Taliban, the man left his homeland, traveled across the world and made his way to the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum, Finnegan said.

He waited more than six years for his final hearing before an immigration judge, but it was canceled last week because of the shutdown, and he doesn’t know how much longer it will take.

“He is devastated,” Finnegan said. “He was really planning on seeing his wife later in the year when he got approved, and his children.”

Since the shutdown began in December, immigrants have had to prepare for their scheduled court hearings and in many cases travel to court, knowing the proceedings might be postponed. In Northern states, that can mean hourslong car trips through ice and snow and taking days off from work.

The delays are painful for many immigrants, especially those who have strong asylum claims or green card applications and want to get their lives on solid footing in the United States.

Those with the weakest asylum claims actually benefit from the delays, because they are able to remain in the U.S. in the meantime and hold out hope of qualifying for legal status by some other means down the road.

In the 2017 fiscal year, immigration courts decided more than 52,000 asylum cases. About 1 in 5 were approved, according to statistics from the courts.

Courts have been crippled by a government shutdown. More than 37,000 immigration hearings were delayed by one in 2013.

And it isn’t just immigration courts that are affected. Since Justice Department attorneys are allowed to work in limited circumstances only, some high-profile civil cases have been put on hold, including a lawsuit in Oregon by the widow of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, a man shot by police in 2016 after the takeover of a wildlife refuge.

Government attorneys have also sought to put on hold environmental cases, including challenges to logging projects and wild horse roundups in Montana and a lawsuit over the disposal in Oklahoma of toxic coal ash from power plants.

Most major criminal cases are expected to stay on track because of federal requirements for a speedy trial.

One aspect of immigration unaffected by the shutdown is the review of applications for green cards and citizenship. That’s because those tasks, which are handled by an agency in the Homeland Security Department, are paid for by application filing fees.

One asylum seeker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of persecution in her home country, said the wait has been unbearable since her 2014 court date was twice delayed. It is now set for February.

“The past four years have been horrible enough, but this uncertainty, and my life being handled with such, I don’t know, no one cares, basically,” she said. “The process takes forever — just to get the date in front of the judge.”

Associated Press writers Dave Kolpack, Amy Forliti and Matthew Brown contributed to this report.

 

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

But, wait!  That’s not all folks. There’s more!

Brittany Shoot @ Fortune writes that Immigration Court waiting times could double as a result of Trump’s shutdown!

https://apple.news/AEy1h1oc7RSux5Cdw1fo4PQ

The United States immigration courts are overburdened. Roughly 800,000 cases are portioned out between around 400 immigration judges, according to PBS NewsHour.And with the federal government shutdowncontinuing into its third week, applicants who have already waited years for their court date may now be shuttled to the back of the line, their hearings rescheduled as late as the 2022. This directly effects people’s everyday lives, as immigration status impacts basics such as the ability to get a work permit.

Focus on immigration enforcement under the Department of Homeland Security may be up, but the immigration courts, which fall under the Department of Justice, have not been given much attention despite the record-high demand for hearings that has been growing over the past decade. Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president emeritus of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told NewsHour the effects of the shutdown are having a “devastating impact.” San Francisco-based Judge Marks says that her own caseload of nearly 4,000 dockets includes cases that are already several years old. With no scheduling slots available, she says those cases may be reset to another date several years in the future.

Non-detained immigrants make up about 90% of judges’ caseloads, and those cases can end up involving anything from asylum decisions to deportations. The other 10% of cases, those for immigrants who are detained by immigration officials, are the only ones that can be processed during the shutdown. And that’s why the vast majority of those waiting for a hearing will simply be moved to the back of the line again.

The effects of the record-long government shutdownare also touching the lives of everyone from private-sector contractorsto Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents and travelers. And if the shutdown continues for another two weeks, its cost to the economy will surpass $5.7 billion, the amount it would cost to build President Trump’s border wall.

Visit FORTUNE.com

 

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

Yeah, it’s going to continue to get worse until the shutdown ends and the Immigration Courts are removed from the DOJ.

Also, don’t let Trump, the DOJ, or any of their apologists in Congress or elsewhere “con” you into blaming the largely contrived “flood of asylum applicants” for this. We must stop “blaming the victims” for the lousy policies and gross incompetence of this Administration!

The Immigration Court has been in trouble and should have been fixed years ago. But, Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, and Miller intentionally have made things much, much worse—with no hope of improvement in sight.

Returning Due Process and fairness as the primary focus of these courts as well as placing them under professional court administration working for the Immigration Judges, not bureaucrats in Washington or Falls Church, wouldn’t solve the current immigration issues overnight. But, it certainly would be a head start and a beginning of a solution. That’s one heck of an improvement over the “downward spiral” promoted by this Administration. And, it wouldn’t cost $5.7 billion to fix, either!

PWS

01-15-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  2. TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!
  3. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

EOIR & USCIS ISSUE COURT-REQUIRED NEW GUIDANCE ELIMINATING LARGE PORTIONS OF SESSIONS’S BOGUS GUIDANCE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE/GANG RELATED CASES — Advocates Should Be Pushing This At All Levels In All Forums!

Dear Colleagues,

Following up on U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s powerful decision in Grace v. Whitaker, which found major elements of Matter of A-B- and the related USCIS Policy Memorandum to be inconsistent with the law, we are pleased to share the instructions which the Court ordered USCIS and EOIR to provide asylum officers and immigration judges conducting credible fear interviews and reviews of negative credible fear findings.  This guidance takes immediate effect and should be relied upon and cited to by advocates.

The Court declared that the following policies contained in Matter of A-B- and the related USCIS Policy Memorandum are arbitrary, capricious, and in violation of immigration law as applied to credible fear proceedings:

1.     The general rule against claims relating to domestic and gang violence.

2.     The requirement that a noncitizen whose claim involves non-governmental persecutors “show the government condoned the private actions or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victim.”

3.     The Policy Memorandum’s rule that domestic violence-based particular social group definitions that include “inability to leave” a relationship are impermissibly circular and therefore not cognizable.

4.     The Policy Memorandum’s requirement that individuals must delineate or identify any particular social group in order to satisfy credible fear based on the particular social group protected ground.

5.     The Policy Memorandum’s directive that asylum officers should apply federal circuit court case law only “to the extent that those cases are not inconsistent with Matter of A-B-.”

6.     The Policy Memorandum’s directive that asylum officers should apply only the case law of “the circuit” where the individual is “physically located during the credible fear interview.”

While the Court’s order is limited to credible fear interviews in the expedited removal process, we urge advocates to use the Court’s reasoning in merits hearings before the Asylum Office and the Immigration Court, and on review before the BIA and circuit courts.  Of the six findings above, only (4) and (6) are specific to the nature of the credible fear process, which is intended to be a low screening standard, providing the applicant with the benefit of the most advantageous case law.  The other four findings (1,2,3, and 5) are more broadly based on Judge Sullivan’s interpretation of key statutory terms of the refugee definition, and his reasoning should be adopted and argued in the merits context as well.

Best,

Karen
Karen Musalo
Bank of America Foundation Chair in International Law

Professor & Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

SSRN Author Page:  http://ssrn.c

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

Thanks, Karen. The actual guidance memos can be found at the link in Karen’s e-mail.

The EOIR “guidance” asserts that it applies only in credible fear reviews. While technically true, as Karen more accurately points out, the rationale of Judge Sullivan’s findings 1, 2, 3, and 5 should apply equally in removal proceedings. Even if the “captive” BIA won’t listen the real, Article III Courts should. That’s why it’s critical to challenge all A-B- denials in the Circuits. And, as I noted before, no Circuit has yet had an opportunity to review A-B-.

Most, if not all, cases denied on the basis of Sessions’s flawed decision in Matter of A–B– should be subject to remand from the Article IIIs.  Just another example of how Sessions continues to harm individuals who deserve Due Process, while contributing to the largely DOJ-made backlog and wasting the time of the Article III Courts.

PWS

01-13-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  2. NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!
  3. JUDGE SULLIVAN STUFFS TRUMP’S REQUEST TO KEEP ON VIOLATING ASYLUM LAW PENDING APPEAL — Stay Denied In Grace v. Whitaker!
  4. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”

THE ABSURDITY OF TRUMP’S SHUTDOWN & ITS DEVASTATING EFFECT ON OUR ALREADY CRUMBLING IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM DETAILED IN OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS BY NAIJ PRESIDENT, HON. A. ASHLEY TABADDOR

01092019senate

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES
President A. Ashley Tabaddor c/o Immigration Court 606 S. Olive Street, 15th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90014 (213) 534-4491
______________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 9, 2019
Dear Senator,
As has been widely reported, the current government shutdown over U.S. immigration policy has placed an unmanageable burden on our nation’s Immigration Courts. As an Immigration Judge in Los Angeles presently on furlough and as President of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), I am acutely aware of the impact of the current government shut down on our Immigration Courts, Immigration Judges and the parties who appear before us.
There is currently a backlog of more than 800,000 pending immigration cases (an increase of 200,000 cases in less than two years, in spite of the largest growth in the number of judges in recent history – from under 300 to over 400 U.S. Immigration Judges). We, as Immigration Judges, are responsible for determining whether claimants can remain in the United States or must be deported or detained.
Because of the crushing backlog of cases, our individual court calendars are booked, morning and afternoon, every day of the week, multiple years in advance. Some days our judges have more than 80 cases on their dockets. Every day that our courts are closed, thousands of cases are cancelled and have to be rescheduled. However, the likely re-scheduling option is – as Washington Post editorial writers suggest – plucked from a New Yorker cartoon: “Never. Does never work for you?” While this is hyperbole, it is not far from the truth. Since it is impossible to predict when these cases can reasonably be rescheduled, it might as well be “never.”
The concept of “never” cannot be accepted and does not work for the United States. It is unacceptable to prevent those who should be deported to remain here indefinitely or to prevent those who are eligible for relief from being granted relief and receive the benefit they deserve. When a hearing is delayed for years as a result of a government shutdown, individuals with pending cases can lose track of witnesses, their qualifying relatives can die or age-out and evidence already presented becomes stale. Those with strong cases, who might receive a legal
1

immigration status, see their cases become weaker. Meanwhile, those with weak cases – who should be deported sooner rather than later – benefit greatly from an indefinite delay.
Judges, as public servants, along with our fellow federal employees and people across the country, are also being asked to carry the burden of a government shut-down. Every Immigration Judge across the country is currently in a “no-pay” status. Those who have been furloughed are anxious about having been prevented from continuing to work and earn their living. The judges who have been deemed as “excepted” are serving the American people without pay and doing so with added unnecessary pressures, including the Department’s recent announcement that most hearings will no longer be accompanied with in-person interpreters, and that the judges’ previous compressed work schedules and administrative time to review cases has been cancelled. On behalf of the NAIJ, I urge you to bring a rapid end to the current shutdown.
The root cause, however, of an increasing backlog of cases, the delays, uncertainty and unfairness in U.S. Immigration Courts is that our Immigration Court and judges are directly accountable to the U.S. Attorney General, the federal government’s lead prosecutor. This underlying structural flaw has led to repeated violations of the basic tenants of our American judicial principles, that of an independent and impartial judge and court. While we are grateful to Congress for the recent allocation of additional funding to our resource starved courts, such as added Immigration Judge teams, history has proven that the issues plaguing our Immigration Courts will not be corrected simply through more funding. The enduring solution, which has been publicly supported by multiple prominent legal organizations and scholars, is to remove the Immigration Court from the Justice Department and afford it with the true independence it needs and deserves. It is long past time to vest U.S. Immigration Judges – like our counterparts in U.S. tax and bankruptcy courts – with full judicial independence under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
We are available at your convenience to discuss these critical issues. Sincerely,
Hon. Ashley Tabaddor
President, National Association of Immigration Judges
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Wow! Trump is taking “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” — the REAL primary cause of the unmanageable court backlog — to new heights.

And, Judge Tabaddor isn’t even counting the 300,000 or so already closed cases that EOIR Director McHenry includes in his backlog count (undoubtedly on orders from his DOJ “handlers”)!

Nor does she include more than 300,000 Central Americans and Haitians that the Administration is mindlessly (and perhaps illegally) trying to boot out of their current status. Of course, the vast majority of the TPSers would have strong claims for “Cancellation of Removal.” So, in truth, they are not going anywhere except into the Court’s backlog. Trump will be long gone before the Immigration Courts even get to,the first of those cases!

Running hearings without in person interpreters! That’s almost a prima facie Due Process violation. I can virtually guarantee that it will result in many inadequate or disputed translations, meaning remands by the BIA and the Article IIIs for “redos.” Haste makes waste!

What if we actually invested in a system that “does Due Process right” the first time around? Certainly, it would make the system fairer and more efficient. It wouldn’t cost $5.7 billion either. Indeed some of that money could be spent on providing universal representation for asylum seekers.  Or how about a functioning e-filing system which almost all other high volume courts in America also have?

Could it get any dumber than Trump shutting down the Immigration Courts, essential to immigration administration and enforcement, over immigration enforcement? No, it couldn’t!

PWS

01-12-19

Related posts:

  1. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”