https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/lawsuits-challenge-massive-end-of-asylum-rule

Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:

Lawsuits Challenge Massive “End of Asylum” Rule

1. Pangea Legal Services, et al. v. DHS et al. – “[T]he Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, and Sidley Austin LLP filed suit today challenging the mammoth asylum rule in the Northern District of California on behalf of organizational plaintiffs Pangea Legal Services, Dolores Street Community Services, Inc., CLINIC, and CAIR Coalition. The complaint challenges all substantive and procedural merits related issues (it does not challenge the changes to credible fear).” – Blaine Bookey, Legal Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, University of California Hastings College of the Law

2. Human Rights First v. Wolf – “Human Rights First, alongside counsel at Williams & Connolly, filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s sweeping new anti-refugee regulation, which will gut protections for those seeking asylum and make it virtually impossible for refugees to secure asylum in the United States.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States federal district court in Washington, D.C., asks the court to intervene and stop the government from enforcing the rule, which is scheduled to take effect on January 11, 2021.

“This rule seeks to end asylum in the United States as we know it. Over the past four years, this administration has employed an array of tools in the hope of dismantling the legal protections Congress provided for refugees and asylum seekers,” said Hardy Vieux, Human Rights First’s senior vice president, legal. “Human Rights First is heading back to federal court to dash that hope. And to affirm that Congress sought to protect people fleeing persecution, not demonize them incessantly, even in the waning days of an administration long consumed with denying protection to those most in need of it. This holiday season, and every season, we shall continue to exalt the rule of law.”

Human Rights First v. Wolf et. al. challenges the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice’s rule, rammed through in the waning days of the Trump administration. The complaint in Human Rights First v. Wolf et. al. can be found here.

Human Rights First, an organizational plaintiff in the suit, argues that the rule violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the Administrative Procedure Act, international law, and the United States Constitution. In its complaint, Human Rights First argues, “If allowed to stand, the rule will eviscerate the ability of noncitizens fleeing persecution to obtain asylum and related relief in the United States. The United States will instead send refugees back to countries where they face persecution, torture, and possible death—the very outcome Congress expressly designed the INA to avoid.”

The rule, which fundamentally rewrites United States asylum law, will illegally render the majority of asylum seekers ineligible for asylum while tilting every phase of the asylum process in favor of denial and deportation. The rule also upends the procedures for asylum adjudication, further limiting procedural protections for refugees seeking protection in the United States.

The United States government is attempting to make it impossible for our asylum-seeking clients to secure protection. Many of Human Rights First’s clients who have already been granted asylum would, under the rule, be denied protection. One Human Rights First asylum-seeking client stated, “[I]t really disappoints me to learn that the United States, a country [I] have looked up to as a beacon of freedom, is trying to put people like me in harm’s way. I fear for my safety.”

Through this lawsuit, Human Rights First is standing up for the rights of asylum seekers like our clients. Human Rights First’s comments this past summer opposing the draft rule are here.

Human Rights First provides pro bono legal representation for refugees seeking asylum in the United States, in partnership with volunteer lawyers at many of the nation’s leading law firms. Our refugee clients have fled persecution in Cameroon, China, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Eritrea, Honduras, Iraq, Nicaragua, Syria, Venezuela, and other countries where their lives and freedom are at risk.’

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Thanks to all the NDPA heroes involved in this effort!

Hey hey, ho ho, the EOIR Clown Show 🤡🤮 has got to go!

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt — “EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

Due Process Forever!⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👩‍⚖️🇺🇸

PWS

12-22-20

Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

EYORE — “Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

Grim Reaper — Recent Barr Appointee Prepares to Take Bench
Fangusu, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/advance-copy-of-eoir-final-rule-procedures-for-asylum-and-withholding-of-removal-credible-fear-and-reasonable-fear-review#

“Over 87,000 comments were filed. DOJ and DHS ignored them. This is Steven Miller’s final FU to us all,” says my friend Dan Kowalski over at Lexis Nexis Immigration Community.

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Man, the ink was barely dry on my speech last night to Houston AILA, when EOIR graphically illustrated my points about:

why the EOIR Clown Show/Kakistocracy has got to go; and
why we finally need an Attorney General with a human rights background who will act immediately to suspend these absurd and unlawful regs and remove the “perps” of this “crime against humanity” at EOIR and their accomplices.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/12/10/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%97%bdhouston-weve-got-a-problem-its-called-eoir-its-time-for-the-clown-show-%f0%9f%a4%a1-to/

It also illustrates why the new DHS Secretary needs to do a thorough housecleaning and reorganization of the immigration kakistocracy that has aided and abetted Miller in his neo-Nazi campaign against immigrants of color.

Also, it shows why the NDPA and the human rights advocacy community must speak out and be heard on who should be the next AG and what his or her priorities must be in immediately acting on immigration and human rights as the keys to civil rights and equal justice for all!

This issue can’t be “back burnered” as past Dem Administrations have done! An attack on justice and humanity for asylum applicants is an attack on justice for all of us. We need immediate, decisive action to restore human values and human dignity to our justice system!

That requires a real Immigration Court, with real independent judges unswervingly committed to due process, equal justice, and human rights, not the current “Star Chamber Charade.” 🏴‍☠️🤮 The Immigration Courts will be under the control of the Biden Administration. Fixing them must be a top priority!

As I told the Transition Team about EOIR, “Either you fix it immediately, or you own it.”

And this is not a disgraceful mess that I would want to own if I were the Biden-Harris Team. Particularly if I wanted more goodwill in the Hispanic and African American (African asylum seekers are one of the groups targeted on racial grounds by Miller and the current regime) communities in future elections!