"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Hundreds of Americans are dying every day from COVID-19. Unemployment is at 8.4%. Everything is fine.
By Jennifer Bendery
WASHINGTON ― The Senate is back in session after a month of recess and Republicans’ first order of business isn’t a comprehensive coronavirus relief bill. Or emergency stimulus in response to high unemployment. Or legislation addressing nationwide unrest over police violence targeting Black Americans.
It’s confirming more judges.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has long said his top priority is getting President Donald Trump’s nominees settled into lifetime federal court seats, didn’t disappoint on Wednesday. At a time when nearly 190,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and unemployment is at 8.4%, the Senate kicked off its first full day of business with a vote to confirm a district court judge, procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees, another vote to confirm one of those nominees, and two more procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees.
Democrats and Republicans are in a standoff over coronavirus relief legislation. The House passed a sweeping $3 trillion package in May that has gone nowhere in the Senate, where Democrats are ready to pass the House bill but Republicans don’t even agree with each other on what to do. Some prefer no action at all on another coronavirus package because it would add to the growing federal deficit.
McConnell will try to pass a narrowly focused COVID-19 relief bill this week, but it’s purely a political exercise ― an effort to give vulnerable Republicans something to run on ahead of the November elections. It includes funding for small businesses and schools and enhanced $300-a-week unemployment benefits. It leaves out another round of stimulus checks, which Republicans previously supported, and does not include rental assistance or aid to cities and states, which Democrats have insisted on. And it’s not even clear if a majority of Republicans will support the bill.
The Senate Judiciary Committee also met Wednesday for the first time in more than a month. The panel, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has jurisdiction over a number of issues related to the health and economic fallout from COVID-19. Graham could, for example, hold hearings that looked at the needs of state and local law enforcement on the front lines of the pandemic. He could hold hearings on the health and safety of corrections staff and incarcerated people. He could hold hearings on changes in immigration policy tied to the pandemic.
Instead, the committee held a hearing to advance five more of Trump’s judicial nominees.
One of those nominees isn’t even qualified to be a federal judge, according to the American Bar Association. Just as the hearing got underway, the ABA released an embarrassing “not qualified” rating for Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Trump’s nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
“The nominee presently does not meet the requisite minimum standard of experience necessary to perform the responsibilities required by the high office of a federal trial judge,” reads the ABA’s review of Mizelle’s nomination.
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Mizelle, 33, is eight years out of law school and has practiced law for four years. She has participated in a total of two trials (as a law student) and has not tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel.
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“This nominee has been put forward not only because she is an ultraconservative ideologue, but also because she is a Trump loyalist, having worked in the Trump Justice Department to dismantle many critical civil rights protections,” reads a Tuesday letter to senators from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 220 national civil rights groups. “The Senate must reject her nomination.”
Trump’s most lasting legacy will arguably be his judges, who will sit on the nation’s courts for decades after he’s left the White House. He has had confirmed a total of 204 Article III judges, including two Supreme Court justices, 53 appeals court judges and 147 district court judges. A common thread among his court picks is that many are young, white, male and hold extreme ideological views on abortion, LGBTQ rights and other civil rights.
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Read the complete article at the link.
Why The Private Sector Immigration Bar Holds The Key To A Better Article III Judiciary For America
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
Sept. 10, 2020
Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, the Trump regime🏴☠️ has got to go!
And that includes Moscow Mitch and every GOP Senator on the ballot this Fall. The serious long-term damage they have inflicted on our nation is already catastrophic! Let’s not let it become fatal!
Our sinking “Ship of State,” including the failing Federal Judiciary that is largely unrepresentative of our diverse nation, too often lacks engagement with the “human face” of our justice system, and sometimes demeans our best humane national values, can still be saved and put the on the correct course.
It won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight, particularly with the life-tenured judiciary. But, it must start in November. Remember, the law is about humanity, fairness, and equatable human relations, as embodied in the due process and equal protection clauses of our Constitution.
It’s not the dusty, musty, wooden, racially tone deaf, sometimes intentionally unfair, anti-civil-rights, anti-human rights, and often contrived “anti-social ideologies of the right” that blind a disproportionate number of Trump-Mitch appointees and enable lawless, fundamentally anti-American tyrants like Trump and his cult of sycophants to run roughshod over our country, our national values, and human decency.
Yesterday, Courtside highlighted the monumental achievements of a real American legal heroine and superstar, Attorney Sarah Owings of Atlanta, Georgia. She could have done other things with her skills and her career. Instead, she devoted herself to “working in the trenches of the law,” laboriously making an intentionally unfair and dysfunctional system fairer, and preserving the rights and saving the lives of some of the most vulnerable among us.
That’s what a real lawyer does. Disgracefully, these are the folks now largely missing from our elitist, out of touch with humanity Federal Bench.
Compare her “real life” qualifications, contributions, and courage with those of a strikingly unqualified, lightweight right wing dilettante like Mizelle. That’s one reason why our nation and our judiciary are in failure right now. Lack of leadership and lack of moral courage and human values. It’s literally killing individuals across our nation, a disproportionate number of them people of color. It must stop. Social justice can no longer be demeaned and demolished by those in charge!
It’s past time to stop “undervaluing and ignoring” the outstanding ”practical scholarship” (see, “Law You Can Use”), great courage to speak truth to power, energy, dedication, “retail level litigation skills,” and creative problem solving abilities of the private sector immigration bar, many serving in pro bono, low bono, clinical, or NGO capacities, in Federal Judicial Selection.
As tell law students, “if you can win an asylum case in today’s conditions, everything else you do in law will be a piece of cake.” There are good reasons why some of the largest law firms in America have found pro bono Immigration Court work to be some of the greatest “real life legal training” out there! Also, good reasons why some of the best legal minds and legal strategists in America are working pro bono on amicus briefs for our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges!
A new, independent, Article I Immigration Court with a “merit-based” judicial selection system should be the ideal training ground and future selection pool for a better, fairer, more efficient, more diverse, more representative, and more effective Article III Judiciary. One that would have an unswerving commitment to Constitutionally required “equal justice under law.” A judiciary that would fairly and efficiently solve problems rather than avoiding and often aggravating them! An Article III Judiciary that would actually understand and appreciate immigration and human rights laws and their fundamental connection to the goal of equal justice for all!
The talent necessary to stop the bleeding and vastly improve the American justice system is out there. What’s lacking right now is the leadership and political power to make a better future a reality, for all Americans.
We must take back our nation, before it’s too late for humanity!
Owings had left Monroe decades earlier to attend a small liberal arts college in Tennessee, where she studied English and Russian. After graduation, she moved to Georgia, where she worked as a preschool teacher for a year before going to law school. During her first seven years as an immigration attorney, she fought for her clients in Atlanta’s notoriously punitive immigration courts.
“For a long time, that was the only place I saw how things worked,” she said, “so I thought it was normal for a judge to be like, ‘Fuck you.’ Because that’s how things are here.”
Owings began taking cases in more isolated parts of the state. Almost every month, she drove 150 miles south of Atlanta, deep into rural Georgia, to visit clients detained at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin. Stewart had opened in 2006, a year before Owings got her license. When it opened, the facility was so remote that it didn’t have a court of its own. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the federal agency that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, had yet to find judges who wanted to live in Lumpkin, a rural town of fewer than 2,000 pockmarked by vacant storefronts, where there are more immigrant detainees than actual residents. While it scrambled to bring the legal system to rural Georgia, the agency came up with a high-tech solution. Since it couldn’t get judges to come to Lumpkin, it would bring the detainees to Atlanta — not physically, but through videoconference.
Owings could have fought her clients’ cases remotely, too, from Atlanta, but it was important to be with them in person. For most of a decade, she worked this way: Atlanta, Lumpkin, court, new cases, asylum granted — or, more likely, denied.
Ten years and two presidential administrations later, the virtual courtrooms Owings had fought against had expanded to her hometown. Under President Trump, a crop of new detention centers began opening up in Louisiana in 2018 and early 2019, just a few hours from Monroe. “I was mad at my state, my home state, for having allowed this to happen,” she said. Owings expanded her practice to Louisiana in spring 2019 and started flying down to Monroe and crashing at her parents’ house the night before hearings.
In Lumpkin, Owings had seen firsthand how the government used rural, isolated detention centers to warehouse immigrants out of sight, far from their families, their lawyers (if they had any), and from anyone who might care about what happened to them. She had seen how private prison companies wooed local officials, convincing them that turning vacant local jails into immigrant detention centers would reverse decades of economic stagnation. The big business of detainees would save Louisiana’s dying towns.
But Owings understood the cost of opening detention centers. “We have these small jurisdictions that bit down on a dirty nickel hard because they’re starving for money. And so they’re going to lock up a bunch of humans in these conditions,” she said. “There’s going to be civil rights violations, there’s going to be medical neglect, there’s going to be terrible things that happen, and people are going to be put into these little boxes and forgotten about so that they can be disposed of as quickly as possible and made as miserable as possible through the process.”
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) network of detention centers spread across the state, Owings’ fears quickly materialized. Like the immigrants she represented in Georgia at the beginning of her career, the people imprisoned in Louisiana are kept hundreds of miles away from lawyers and advocacy organizations that could help them — and now, even from the judges who determine whether they can stay in the country.
One of those jurisdictions is Winn Parish, a rural community in northern Louisiana, an hour-and-a-half drive from Owings’ childhood home. In 2019, the local government agreed to convert a local prison into an ICE detention center. That facility, the Winn Correctional Center, is where Samuel spent four of his six months in federal custody.
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Read Gabby’s complete article at the link, including the unusual “happy ending” for “Refugee Samuel.”
What was the point of Samuel’s detention? Of course, there wasn’t any! No legitimate point anyway!
He wasn’t a danger to society, and he wasn’t a “flight risk,” particularly with Sarah Owings representing him. The real reason was to punish him for seeking legal refugee, to coerce him into giving up his claim, and also to harass Owings by making her life more difficult. Unpleasant as Immigration Court tries to be these days, representing someone in detention in the middle of nowhere can be even worse. What a waste of taxpayer money that could be used to address pressing problems!
I feel for the residents of places like Winn Parish. Certainly, if we put our heads together, we could help them come up with some type of economic development that would use their skills and work ethic, without exploiting the human misery of others. Maybe these are the types of ideas that both immigrant entrepreneurs and immigration/human rights advocates have to work on along with Americans in economic distress. Perhaps refugees like Samuel, creative, courageous folks who have had to “reinvent themselves” in a strange land could help out!
Last night, I was on a “Zoom Seminar” dealing with the lessons from the Netflix series “Immigration Nation.” One of my fellow panelists was a doctor from Cuba who had spent a lengthy time in DHS detention and been treated badly before finally being granted asylum with the help of counsel.
Nobody in the audience could fathom why their taxpayer dollars had been used to unnecessarily detain and abuse this talented individual Obviously, she was neither a security nor a flight risk. Rather, her presence in the U.S. as a recognized refugee benefits both her and our country.
We had to explain to the audience that immigration detention these days has more to do with punishment, coercion, and a race-driven White Nationalist immigration agenda than it does with any legitimate governmental purpose. The “New American Gulag” is just another par of the Trump regime’s false immigration narrative that neither Congress nor the Article III courts have bothered to critically examine.
In some ways, Sarah and Samuel might have caught a break; apparently the San Diego Immigration Judge both understood asylum and protection laws and was unafraid to go against “Billy the Bigot’s” preferred result of deny everything.Hats off to that Immigration Judge for courageously “doing the right thing” even in the face of political pressure to cut corners and railroad refugees out of the country without due process!
All to often, the highly politicized EOIR — “Home of The American Star Chamber” stocks detention center “courts” with judges whom they believe to be predisposed to the White Nationalist “deny, discourage, disparage, and deport” program. Seldom are they disappointed; at most detention center “kangaroo” courts the denial rates hover close to 100%.
Adding insult to injury, some of the worst judges, with horrible public reputations for unfair and rude treatment of asylum seekers and their attorneys, and astronomical asylum denial rates, were actually promoted by “Billy the Bigot” to his wholly owned and highly biased appellate “tribunal,” known as the BIA. Some of these unqualified judges were from the Atlanta Immigration Court, whose attitude toward refugees and their attorneys was accurately portrayed by Owingsas “so I thought it was normal for a judge to be like, ‘Fuck you.’”
Advocacy groups have made a well-documented case for Atlanta as an “asylum free zone.” Its “judges” apparently revel in that reputation. So much so, that Billy the Bigot seeks to make Atlanta the “model” for his entire unconstitutional “court system” that isn’t a “court system” in any normal sense of the word — except, perhaps, in as the term would be used in a corrupt third-world dictatorship.
Many thanks to Sarah Owings for dong this work and for doing it so well and faithfully under such difficult circumstances. You are truly an “American heroine,” Sarah!
To state the obvious, a system run in accordance with our Constitution, that honored human dignity, and that actually sought “full due process with efficiency” would have dedicated due process, practical-solution-oriented individuals like Sarah on a new, independent, Article I Immigration Bench. Additionally, the immigration appellate level is sorely hurting for judges with the necessary qualifications.
I hope that the day won’t be far off when Sarah and many of her courageous and multi-talented colleagues in the “New Due Process Army” will assume their proper roles on the Federal Bench and in the immigration policy apparatus.
The inexcusable national disgrace and abrogation of justice taking place in Atlanta, Lumpkin, Jena, Winn Parish, and many other “Immigration Star Chambers” is helping to fuel the continuing racial injustices in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Memphis, Rochester, and numerous other locations throughout our nation.
“Dred Scottification” is all about “dehumanization of the other before the law.” The failure of the Article III Judiciary, starting with the feckless Supremes, and our inept Congress to put an end to these racist-inspired abuses in Immigration Court and elsewhere is a national tragedy of the highest and most debilitating proportions: One that is literally ripping our country apart.
It also shows why we need a new, diverse, representative, progressive Federal Judiciary with judges committed to due process, equal justice, racial justice, and social justice. We’re a long way from that now; and the existential struggles our nation is experiencing at all levels, and the scandalous inability of our institutions competently to solve problems in a constructive manner, shows why change and progress must start sooner rather than later!
Dartunorro Clark is a political reporter for NBC News:
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Last year, advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City in the mid-1990s. She said the friendly encounter turned violent when Trump, then a businessman, pushed her up against a dressing room wall, unzipped his pants and forced himself on her. Carroll said she pushed him off and ran from the store.
Trump has denied the claim, saying “she’s not my type” and it “never happened.” Carroll said no attendants were in the dressing room area at the time of the alleged assault, and she did not file a report with the New York Police Department.
Carroll filed a defamation suit against Trump in November after the president denied her allegation. The Justice Department argued that because the president denied the accusation in his official capacity, the agency can defend him against the suit. She is seeking unspecified damages and a retraction of Trump’s statements.
Carroll’s lawyers also served notice to Trump’s legal team this year for Trump to submit a DNA sample for “analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA” present on the dress she said she wore at the time of the alleged assault. A New York judge last month also denied Trump’s move to temporarily halt the suit.
“Sir, I and my attorney Robbie Kaplan, are ready! So is every woman who has ever been silenced! So is every American citizen who has been trampled by Bill Barr and the DOJ! BRING IT!” Carroll wrote.
Carroll and Kaplan released separate official statements Tuesday night calling the move by the Justice Department offensive.
Kaplan said: “Realizing that there was no valid basis to appeal that decision in the New York courts, on the very day that he would have been required to appeal, Trump instead enlisted the U.S. Department of Justice to replace his private lawyers and argue that when he lied about sexually assaulting our client, explaining that she ‘wasn’t his type,’ he was acting in his official capacity as President of the United States.
“Even in today’s world, that argument is shocking. It offends me as a lawyer, and offends me even more as a citizen. Trump’s effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent, and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out.”
Carroll said in her statement that the Justice Department’s court filing shows that Trump “will do everything possible” to stop the case from going forward. She added, “But Trump underestimates me, and he also has underestimated the American people.”
Dartunorro Clark
Dartunorro Clark is a political reporter for NBC News.
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
Let’s see: Billy the Bigot has weaponized the Immigration Courts against those individuals whose rights it was supposed to protect. He denies the reality of “institutionalized racism” in the face of “indisputable video evidence” that it is alive and well in the U.S. today. He has failed to protect the rights of the LGBTG community. He has undermined the voting rights and political power of Americans of color. Now, he blatantly misuses DOJ resources to mount a personal defense of a corrupt and dishonest Prez in litigation arising out of his alleged private actions more than a quarter century before he was sworn into his Government office.
Who knows what else “Billy the Bigot” has up his sleeve in his never-ending quest to destroy the U.S. Justice System at your expense, in more ways than one! When the “people’s lawyers” become the personal lawyers of a corrupt would-be authoritarian head of state, you know that you’re well on your way to “failed state” status, no matter how high your GNP might be at present.
A more overriding observation: Trump and his corrupt cronies have managed to manipulate the U.S. Justice system over nearly four years to avoid accountability or public disclosure of his many acts of corruption, starting with hiding his tax returns. That’s a sure sign of systemic institutional failure!
This November, vote like your life and the future of democracy depend on it! Because they do!
An outside expert who inspected an immigration detention center in Virginia that experienced a massive coronavirus outbreak is recommending that some high-risk inmates be released after finding flaws in the center’s screening procedures.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the inspection last month after several detainees filed a lawsuit with the help of legal activist groups. Brinkema faulted the detention complex in Farmville for an outbreak that affected more than 90% of the center’s nearly 300 detainees, including a 72-year-old detainee who died. Government officials fought unsuccessfully to block the inspection.
The expert, Homer Venters, inspected the site last month and filed a report made public Friday that says the center does a poor job of screening inmates for COVID-19 symptoms. He recommended that detainees at high risk for the disease be released.
The report cites “multiple and systematic deficiencies” in the complex’s health services and concludes that to be detained there “represents a significant health risk for high-risk patients.”
A report prepared by an expert hired by the detention center reached different conclusions. That expert, William Reese, said the biggest problem he saw was that detainees were refusing to wear masks. Given the inmates’ “lack of cooperation … it is remarkable that the facility has had no new positive tests among Detainees in nearly a month,” Reese wrote.
Venters, in his report, wrote that inmates dismissed staff entreaties to wear masks because they blamed the facility for getting them sick in the first place. The inmates also told Venters that they felt the masks were unnecessary since most everyone in the facility had already contracted the virus.
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At an earlier hearing, Brinkema criticized a “bureaucratic circus” for causing the outbreak, saying the center violated its own procedures by accepting 74 transfers from facilities in hot spot states Florida and Arizona without implementing any quarantine procedures.
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined comment on the report, citing the ongoing litigation.
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Read the full report at the link.
Your taxpayer dollars at work, being used by DHS to abuse detainees and cover up Government wrongdoing.
We’ll see what Judge Brinkema makes of this absurdly dysfunctional, taxpayer funded mess. “Kakistocracy in action,” as veteran “DHS Watchers” say!
But, if the immigration justice system were functional, this problem would never have gotten to Judge Brinkema. A “real” Immigration Court, with fair, impartial, expert judges, free from political bias and interference, would have shut down most of the unnecessary and abusive DHS Gulag long ago. A real Appellate Division of that court would have established sensible nationwide precedents requiring release of vulnerable detainees to suitable placements.
Due process, fundamental fairness, and a truly independent and properly qualified judiciary that enforced them would save lives while promoting systemic efficiency. “Regime change” is an essential first step to saving our democracy. It starts in November!
Since taking office, President Trump’s administration has rained a hailstorm of policy actions on refugees and asylees. A newly published analysis identifies three types of policies: those that abandon longstanding U.S. legal principles and policies, most notably non-refoulement and due process; those that block the entry of refugees and asylees; and those that criminalize foreign nationals who attempt to seek asylum in the United States. Simply put, these are the As (abandoning), Bs (blocking) and Cs (criminalizing) of the Trump administration policies on refugees and asylees.
Historical antecedents of Trump’s policies may be found in the refusal to accept Jews fleeing Nazi Germany during World War II (abandoning) and the interdiction of Haitians trying to escape the violent regime of then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier that began in 1981 (blocking). The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting even minor immigration offenses (criminalizing) harkens back to the early 20th century when the eugenicists warned of “inferior aliens” who were likely to be insane or criminal; however, now the federal government keeps asylum seekers locked in detention centers, often under contracts with the private prison industry. The criminalization of refugees and asylees in conjunction with the comprehensive sweep of his initiatives abandoning and blocking refugees and asylum seekers has sent U.S. humanitarian protection policy to an unprecedented nadir.
There is little evidence of a policy evolution or maturation over time. The Trump administration opened in 2017 with policies exhibiting all three ABCs: abandoning refugee admissions; blocking Syrian nationals from refugee resettlement; and expanding expedited removal and detention. The administration’s efforts to criminalize asylum seekers reached a crescendo in 2018 with “zero tolerance.” Policy initiatives in 2019 again drew on all three ABCs: A) setting refugee admissions for fiscal year 2020 at the lowest level since the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980; B) allowing state and local officials to refuse placement of refugees; and C) detaining migrant children and families indefinitely, including those arriving to seek asylum.
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Generous humanitarian policies require energetic civic engagement and steadfast legislative efforts. Restoring the policies of the past will not be sufficient in the years ahead, because past policies were prone to inequities and bottlenecks that arguably had a magnet effect for migrants with less compelling cases, and most certainly delayed relief for those who qualified. Policymakers would be wise to weigh the advice of researchers, experienced advocates and legal experts who call for the repeal of three particularly harmful provisions: the one-year deadline for filing asylum applications, expedited removal, and “safe third country” agreements.
A sound course of action is for Congress to establish, and the administration to execute, robust and fully funded refugee and asylum policies that are generous in their priorities, thorough in their review, and expeditious in their processing.
Ruth Ellen Wasem is a professor of policy practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas in Austin, and a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She has testified before Congress about asylum policy, legal immigration trends, human rights and the push-pull forces on unauthorized migration. Follow her on Twitter @rewasem.
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Read Ruth’s complete article at the link.
We need a progressive, realistic, humane refugee and asylum policy.
A prerequisite to these efforts is an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court comprised of judges with real life experience, demonstrated expertise in refugee and human rights laws, an unswerving commitment to guaranteeing due process and fundamental fairness for all, and the courage to stand up for the Constitutional and human rights of the most vulnerable among us, even in the face of abuses and bias from the other branches of Government.
The current legal framework for protection, although in need of forward looking reforms, is nowhere near as unfair, inhumane, dysfunctional, deadly, and counterproductive as the Trump regime has made it. Why? Because, for the most part, the Federal Courts have “gone along to get along” with the regime’s lawless nativist, restrictionist schemes and gimmicks, rather than standing up for due process, equal protection, fundamental fairness, human rights, and human decency.
That’s a serious problem for democracy. One that demands a critical re-examination of whom we are selecting for our Federal Judiciary and why, as a group, they have performed so poorly in thwarting racist and hate-driven tyranny by an out of control and fundamentally dishonest, bigoted, and biased regime!
Gathering the dead after the Colfax massacre, published in Harper’s Weekly, May 10, 1873
Former Klan leader David Duke once famously urged his fellow Klansmen to “get out of the cow pasture and into hotel meeting rooms” if they hoped to accomplish their goals.
The message was clear: A hate group with a mainstream veneer can get much further than a hate group that looks like one. It’s a lesson the radical right seems to have heeded as more hate groups monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center present a mainstream face to the public as they peddle academic racism, white nationalist immigration policy or other beliefs that are every bit as corrosive to our nation as the beliefs spouted by someone in Klan or neo-Nazi garb.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is one such hate group masquerading as a public policy think tank. Inspired by a recent resolution by the Republican National Committee that was aimed at giving the Trump administration cover for its racist and bigoted policies, FAIR decided to attack the SPLC’s hate group designations, claiming the SPLC is the “godfather” of “cancel culture” and is willing to attack any group that is not “woke” enough.
These allegations are nothing more than the latest fearmongering dog whistles that have been used by white supremacists to silence organizations and people – particularly people of color – when they speak out against injustice.
FAIR maintains that it “advocates mainstream immigration policy views.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the group has long advocated upending the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a law that ended a decades-long, racist quota system limiting immigration mostly to northern Europeans. In 1994, FAIR President Dan Stein said supporters of the act wanted to “retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance.” In 2011, FAIR launched an effort to end birthright citizenship provisions of the 14th Amendment, which is how most Americans become citizens.
Kris Kobach, who worked for FAIR’s legal arm, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, helped write Arizona Senate Bill 1070. Known as the “papers, please” law, the anti-immigrant law forced police officers to detain people they suspected of being undocumented immigrants and made it a misdemeanor for noncitizen immigrants to fail to carry their immigration papers.
Kobach also helped other states and communities across the country enact nativist laws designed to punish those who aid and abet “illegal aliens.” Those laws often proved to be massive financial burdens to the governments that passed them and, in many cases, sparked racial strife.
FAIR’s demonization of immigrants was laid bare in April 1999 when the group attacked then-U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Michigan Republican, for supporting more visas for foreign workers with technology skills. A FAIR newspaper ad placed a picture of Abraham, an Arab American, alongside a photo of Osama bin Laden and asked, “Why is a U.S. Senator Trying to Make It Easy for Osama bin Laden to Export Terrorism to the U.S.?”
What’s more, Donald A. Collins Sr., a member of FAIR’s advisory board and board emeritus, has written for VDARE, an anti-immigrant hate site that has a long history of publishing the works of white nationalists and antisemites. The site is named after Virginia Dare, said to have been the first English child born in the New World. Joe Guzzardi, a FAIR advisory board member, has worked as a VDARE editor.
It’s not “rocket science” to figure out FAIR isn’t a “woke” group. Nor is it rocket science to acknowledge that Kris Kobach, Stephen Miller, Jeff Sessions and others like them are White Nationalist racists!
It is entirely fitting that Donald Trump — the least law-abiding president in our history — was renominated at a convention that was itself a seeming cavalcade of crime. Every night featured apparent violations of the 1939 Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities “in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an individual employed or holding office in the Government of the United States.”
The White House certainly qualifies as such a facility. Yet Trump used it as a convention prop, even going so far as to televise a naturalization ceremony for immigrants — some of whom did not realize they would be shown at the Republican convention — as part of the nightly show. Trump not only flouted the law but also reveled in doing so. During his acceptance speech, he boasted, “We’re here — they’re not,” and the New York Times reported that Trump “relished the fact that no one could do anything to stop him.”
While the president is exempt from the civil provisions of the Hatch Act, he could be subject, once he leaves office, to criminal penalties if he should “intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce … any employee of the Federal Government … to engage in … any political activity.” That is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
This is, of course, barely scratching the surface of an administration that should more accurately be described as an ongoing criminal conspiracy. While many of Trump’s awful acts — e.g., confining children in cages or unleashing riot police on peaceful protesters — are merely violations of democratic norms, there is also plentiful evidence of lawbreaking on his part.
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has identified Trump as “Individual-1” in a conspiracy with his attorney Michael Cohen to violate campaign finance laws by secretly paying off two women with whom Trump allegedly had affairs. Cohen went to prison; Trump, who as president claims immunity from prosecution, wasn’t indicted.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III uncovered a great deal more potential illegality. He found 10 instances when Trump might have obstructed justice, and in at least four of those cases he found evidence that Trump’s conduct met all three elements of the obstruction-of-justice statute. Each violation carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The recent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee suggests that Trump also lied to Mueller when, in written testimony, he claimed not to remember speaking to Roger Stone about WikiLeaks. If he committed perjury, that would subject him to up to five years’ imprisonment.
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Trump could try to short-circuit justice by seeking to pardon himself before he leaves office — or even by resigning a few hours early and having Vice President Pence sworn in to issue a pardon (as President Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon). In that case, the special counsel would be limited to investigating Trump’s accomplices (unless they are also pardoned) and helping state prosecutors. But the special counsel should still issue a comprehensive report on Trump’s lawbreaking. We must expose and root out this ethical rot before it eats away at the foundations of our democracy.
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Read the rest of Boot’s article at the link. Actually, Max understates the case. Trump long ago ate the ethical underpinnings of American democracy for lunch, with the “JR Five” providing “table service.”
Under “normal” circumstances, the scenario outlined by Boot in his final paragraph would be beyond preposterous! But, in the failed state of American democracy under Trump, it’s perfectly plausible. Whose going to stop him from the “final abuse and mockery of our republic?” Feckless Congress? The Supremely and Serenely Complicit ones? No way. Trump will exploit the moral cowardice and spinelessness of the other failed two branches of Government until the end!
It started about the time that Roberts and his colleagues threw Muslims, refugees, and migrants under the bus in their ridiculously wrong and intellectually dishonest “Travel Ban Fiasco.” The “Dred Scottification” of migrants and people of color and open corruption, aided and abetted by Roberts and his gang, have continued largely unabated since then.
Max’s use of the term “rot” brings to mind the refugees from many nations, most people of color, rotting in Mexico, futilely waiting for “asylum hearings” that might never come and where denial without due process has been predetermined. This is what “American Justice” has become under Trump, Billy the Bigot, Wolfman the Illegal, and Roberts the Complicit!
Actually, separating families, misrepresenting the policy to Federal Courts, and long-term “civil” detention of families in life-threatening conditions as a “deterrent” to exercising important, fundamental legal and human rights might well be criminal violations in a functioning justice system. Sadly, America basically lacks the latter these days because of the Supremes’ coddling of the “crimes against humanity” committed by Trump, Miller, Barr, Wolf, Cooch, and their co-conspirators.
As those of us with experience adjudicating asylum cases know, lack of accountability before the courts and failure of the judiciary to exercise independent judgment to control a corrupt and tyrannical executive are hallmarks of failed states and banana republics.
Let’s see! America’s founders created an independent judiciary to insure the right of the “King” to use the Government as his personal servants to violate the Bill of Rights, exploit the nation for his own gain, and create “alternate Kings’ Courts” where the “judges” are his employees, he makes the rules, the results are largely preordained by the King’s personal biases and the interests of his royal cronies, and the penalty can be “death without due process.” Not likely!
But, that’s what happens when judges’ fealty to ideology, party, or personality often exceeds their loyalty to the Constitution and to the human rights and human dignity of their fellow men, women, and children. It happens when we create an elitist, right-leaning judiciary, out of step with and non-representative of the majority of Americans, where actual knowledge and experience defending the human rights of individuals against Government overreach, courage to speak truth to power, and demonstrated unswerving commitment to equal justice under law is far, far undervalued, even intentionally ignored. Where practical problem-solving skills and human empathy, perhaps the two most important qualities for fair and honest judging, are all too often disrespected and even demeaned.
Better Federal Judges for a better, fairer, functional America! One where the humanity of all persons is honored and respected, rather than being mocked by those in positions of power and privilege. One where the highest Court finally stands up for and enforces the hard-fought Constitutional right to vote, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, rather than aiding and abetting the blatant schemes of the GOP to suppress voting and deny deserved political power to Americans of color. One where an honest Court enforces to the maximum degree the Voting Rights Act rather than intentionally and disingenuously gutting it at the demand of some in the White power structure.
These travesties have unfolded right in front of us. Yet, even so called “liberal-progressive” commentators largely shrug them off as somehow “normal” or “just the way the system functions.” That’s BS! It’s “judicial malpractice.” It’s a major reason why two centuries after our founding we have not yet achieved racial justice and why our nation is coming apart at the seams under grotesque misgovernance and judicial complicity.
The current Federal Judiciary has facilitated the takeover of our Government by an ongoing criminal conspiracy, as described by Boot. We need change! Sooner rather than later! And, it can’t and won’t happen with the current cast of characters in the Executive, the Senate majority, and the Article III Judiciary.
PANEL: THACKER, QUATTLEBAUM, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges.
OPINION BY: Judge Quattlebaum
DISSENTING OPINION: Judge Stephanie D. Thacker
KEY QUOTES FROM JUDGE THACKER’S DISSENT:
The majority opinion begins its analysis with a reminder of the applicable standard of review, emphasizing the importance of deference in this context. But the majority fails to mention a threshold requirement for the application of deference — in order to be accorded deference, agency decisionmakers below must conduct sufficient analysis to which we can defer. See Cordova v. Holder, 759 F.3d 332, 338 (4th Cir. 2014) (“[T]he Supreme Court long ago instructed that ‘the process of review requires that the grounds upon which the administrative agency acted be clearly disclosed and adequately sustained.’” (quoting SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 94 (1943))). Here, neither the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) nor the Board of Appeals (“BIA”) provide even the bare minimum level of explanation that our precedent requires. This failure is an abuse of discretion.
The agency decisions here are precisely the kinds of cursory opinions we have repeatedly rejected for their failure to engage with an applicant’s arguments and evidence. I therefore respectfully dissent.
. . . .
In conclusion, I borrow from the majority opinion, which likens the standard of review to an offensive lineman in football. In light of the limited analyses below, which were at worst nonsensical and cursory at best, the standard of review “offensive lineman” in this case cannot protect the decision below. Instead, the weak analysis of the agencies left their blind side wide open.
I dissent.
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“[A]t worst nonsensical and cursory at best.” Those prophetic words from Judge Thacker’s dissent should outrage every American! Don’t vulnerable individuals, effectively on trial for their lives, deserve better from the U.S. Justice system? Is the “half-baked” standard applied by the panel majority really the way we would want ourselves or our loved ones judged in any matter of importance, not to mention what is in many ways a “capital case?” What’s going on in our Article III Judiciary?
Read the full opinion at the link. This is a prime, very disturbing example of the “any reason to deny” standard used by the Trump regime to subvert justice for asylum applicants of color. Here, as effectively pointed out by Judge Thacker it was (laboriously and wordily) “rubber stamped” by twocomplicit Article III Judges.
To call this “second class justice” would be far too generous. It’s basically no justice at all and a damning illustration of how intellectual absurdity and race-driven results have become institutionalized and acceptable, not just in the Immigration Courts, but in various places throughout our judicial system that is failing to deliver on the Constitutional requirement of “equal justice for all.”
Any activists who think that the problems of racial tension in America are going to be resolved without addressing the systemic judicial failure to stand up against the illegal, racially-biased mistreatment of asylum seekers and other migrants by the likes of Trump, Miller, Sessions, Barr, and Wolf, as enabled by the Supremes and other Article III Judges who have “swallowed their whistles,” is mistaken.
As cogently pointed out by Judge Thacker, this was a “no brainer remand” under any application of the proper standards. Indeed, the panel majority spent more time and effort, and killed more trees, looking for ways to “paper over” the BIA’s indefensible and unprofessional performance than it would have taken them to correct it! This panel majority appeared much more interested in “rehabilitating the BIA” and “codifying injustice” (probably as an aid to rubber stamping more assembly line injustice in the future) than it was in achieving justice for the young man whose life was at stake.
Indeed, Judge Quattlebaum and Judge Rushing are so arrogantly “tone deaf” and impervious to human suffering that they employ a “snarky sports analogy” in essentially imposing a potential death sentence on a young Salvadoran refugee without any serious pretense of due process or effective and intellectually honest judicial review. Is this how Quattlebaum and Rushing would like to be “judged” if they or their loved ones (or someone they considered “human”) were on trial for their lives? No way! So why is it “due process” for this young man?
Obviously, these are two judges who are confident in a privileged life “above the fray” that puts them beyond moral and legal accountability for the unjust human misery and suffering that they cause. It’s all a “sports joke” to them. But, not so funny to those whose lives are at stake in what once was supposed to be a serious legal process but now has devolved into a deadly and totally dysfunctional “Clown Show.”
It’s also a national disgrace and a serious indictment of our entire justice system that this type of clearly “dangerous and defective judging” goes on in our life-tenured judiciary. America deserves better from our Article III Judiciary!
JUST WATCHED
Barr’s response to Trump’s claim stuns CNN reporter
Replay
MUST WATCH
Play
Barr’s response to Trump’s claim stuns CNN reporter 02:21
Washington (CNN)Attorney General William Barr made a series of false and misleading claims in a contentiousinterview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.
Barr also made additional claims that have not been proven or were lacking in context. Here are fact checks of some of his remarks.
Blitzer noted that the intelligence community’s top elections official said that Russia is working to help President Donald Trump get elected, while both China and Iran prefer Democratic opponent Joe Biden to win. Blitzer asked Barr: “First of all, do you accept that Russia is once again interfering in the U.S. presidential election?”
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Barr said, “I accept that there is some preliminary activity that suggests that they might try again.”
Facts First: The intelligence official, William R. Evanina, said that Russian interference is happening now, not that Russia “might” try to interfere. In an August statement, Evanina said, “We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.'”
Barr went on to tell Blitzer that he was talking about two kinds of Russian activities: hacking emails to disclose embarrassing documents, and the use of social media. Evanina’s August statement said that Russian social media influence efforts were already underway: “Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television.”
On Wednesday, ABC News reported that in July, the Department of Homeland Security withheld an intelligence bulletin warning of a Russian plot to spread misinformation regarding Biden’s mental health.
Mail voting and fraud
Barr said, “Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion.”
Facts First: This is such an over-generalization, we can call it false: all evidence shows that fraud in mail voting is extremely rare. While a 2020 city council race in New Jersey and a 2018 congressional race in North Carolina were allegedly marred by substantial fraud involving mail ballots, such cases are highly uncommon. Jurisdictions that have long conducted elections primarily by mail, such as the reliably Republican state of Utah, have done so without significant incident.
Foreign countries and interference with mail voting
Blitzer asked Barr what is the basis for his claims that foreign countries could make a large number of fake ballots and send them in without detection, Barr said, “I’m basing that on logic.”
Facts First: Experts on voting say Barr’s “logic” is wrong. They say it would be extraordinarily difficult for a foreign country, or anyone else, to succeed with a counterfeit ballot scheme.
“Mail-in ballots are very hard to duplicate on the fly. Each jurisdiction has their own ballot format, form of paper, and races differ for voters by their respective districts,” Rick Hasen, a University of California professor of law and political science and a prominent expert on election law, wrote on Twitter.
“Ballot envelopes also often contain coding that helps election officials track them. Ballot forms must contain certain information that must be verified, like a signature, identification information, and sometimes witness requirements. These would all have to be faked, and done in a way to escape attention.”
“Of all the ridiculous schemes that have been floated by the President or AG (William) Barr for how mail-in ballot fraud could affect the election, the possibility of a foreign entity swaying election by mailing fraudulent absentee ballots is the most ludicrous,” said Hasen.
. . . .
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You can read about the rest of Barr’s lies, distortions, and evasions at the link.
Let’s see, an unethical, race-baiting, congenital liar, & established Trump toady as the head of the Justice Department! What could go wrong?
Trump has everyone living in a parallel universe where, as Rudy would say, “truth isn’t truth” and “alternative facts” (a/k/a outright lies) rule!
By Elizabeth Méndez Berry and Mónica Ramirez in The NY Times:
Ms. Méndez Berry is a journalist, cultural critic and editor. Ms. Ramírez is the founder of the Latinx House, and the author of the “Dear Sisters” letter that helped inspire the Time’s Up movement.
The story about Latinos in America is an old one. And it isn’t true. Created generations ago by whites to demonize Mexicans and then Puerto Ricans, the racist caricature of Latinos as a menacing foreign monolith persists, even as two-thirds of us were born here and we come from more than 20 different countries.
While we are everywhere in this country, from big cities to small towns, Latinos are largely missing from American media and culture, which makes us vulnerable. President Donald Trump knows this and exploits these fictions for political gain.
Mr. Trump has accomplices. White gatekeepers in media, art and entertainment have long excluded or misrepresented Latinos, particularly Indigenous and Black Latinos, building the cultural scaffolding for the current administration. To defang these old falsehoods, we have to go after their enablers, transform media and cultural power structures and amplify and defend Latino storytellers. We must flex our power as a community.
Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas gave voice to this in a recent column for Variety: “There is a dangerous nexus between the racist political rhetoric and the negative images of Latinos as criminals and invaders that Americans see on their screens.” Mr. Castro added, “Hollywood needs to reckon with its systemic injustice and exclusion of our communities.”
Indeed, all media and culture industries must be held accountable, along with the advertisers, investors and funders who bankroll their behavior.
. . . .
We are the second largest ethnic group in this country. Many of us were here before the ancestors of most people who call themselves Americans. Others came as casualties of U.S. colonial experiments, covert operations and trade deals.
No matter how we got here or when, this country should be grateful for the Latino community: during this pandemic, farmworkers, 80 percent of whom are Latino, have put food on the table for us all and scores of other Latino workers have propped this country up, often at great cost to themselves.
The United States must reckon with the fact that Latinos are essential to its survival and to its splendor, and have been for generations. We Latinos need to know it too.
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Read the full article at the link.
Another place where Hispanics are spectacularly under-represented is among the ranks of U.S. Immigration Judges. It’s largely a bastion of White male, White female power, with a smattering of African Americans and Asian Americans thrown in. Very few judges of Hispanic ancestry.
Worse yet, a number of Immigration Judges appointed or promoted by this regime have notorious records of anti-immigrant, anti-asylum bias. Much of this bias has been directed specifically against Latino asylum seekers from Central America, particularly women refugees fleeing well-documented systematic persecution because of gender.
The Trump regime’s overtly racist attack on Hispanic migrants, particularly women, children, and asylum seekers, obviously has a larger target: Hispanic Americans as a group, the legitimacy of their political power as citizens, and their very humanity. As I say over and over, it’s what “Dred Scottification,” and its acceptance and disgusting furtherance by a majority of our highest Court, is all about!
Hispanics are going to have to fight fortheir fair share of power at the ballot box, no easy task given the GOP’s all-out assault on minority voting rights and the Supremes’ majority’s disgraceful failure to defend the voting rights of Americans of color.
But, it would be in everyone’s interest if we stopped playing the “race game” in America and actually made equal justice and full participation by all in society, regardless of race, the touchstone of a better future for America. Only then, will we rid ourselves of the unnecessary burdens of the past and reach our full potential as a nation of peace, prosperity, productivity, creativity, and humanity!
Don Ayer American Lawyer Former U.S. Deputy Attorney GeneralHonorable Mimi Tsankov U.S. Immigration Judge Eastern Region Vice President National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)Elizabeth Gibson Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
Elizabeth Gibson, New Due Process Army Superstar & Editor Publisher Of The Renowned Weekly “Gibson Report”reports:
Hi Everyone,
I want to flag an upcoming NYCBA webinar series on Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption. Full disclosure, I’m on the taskforce organizing the event, but I highly recommend it. The speaker list is top-notch.
For immigration practitioners in particular, Session 4will feature IJ Tsankov, representing NAIJ, and the session will discuss “deteriorations of voting rights, asylum rights and incarceration policies, the militarization of policing and the disparate treatment of minorities by police and prosecutors, and the use of libel litigation to inflict costs on individuals and media outlets who challenge or criticize officeholders.”
It’s free for NYCBA members, $15 for other lawyers, and free for the general public (including law students and fellows). Please circulate widely.
New York City Bar Association Announces Five-Part Forum on the Rule of Law
Fall Series to Feature Former Officials, Judges, Scholars and More
New York, August 10, 2020 – The New York City Bar Association has announced a five-part Forum on the Rule of Law, to take place this fall beginning on September 15. (Full schedule and speaker list below.)
The “Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption” will feature panels of respected experts from across the political spectrum – including former government officials, judges and scholars – who will identify current challenges and threats to the rule of law in America, discuss why they matter and propose remedies. Participants will include Nicole Austin-Hillery, Donald Ayer, Mitchell Bernard, Preet Bharara, Robert Cusumano, Hon. Mary McGowan Davis, John Feerick, Charles Fried, Daniel Goldman, Harold Hongju Koh, Errol Louis, Margaret Colgate Love, David McCraw, Barbara McQuade, Dennis Parker, Myrna Perez, Hon. Jed Rakoff; Anthony Romero, Cass Sunstein, Hon. Mimi Tsankov,Joyce Vance, and Cecilia Wang. City Bar President Sheila S. Boston will introduce the series, and Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University, author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom, will kick off the opening session with a survey of the “Threats to the Rule of Law in America.”
All sessions will be carried live on Zoom and will be open to the public free of charge ($15 for non-member lawyers):
Session 1: Threats to the Rule of Law in America: A Survey
(Sept 15, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
Session 2: Checks, Balances and Oversight — the Distribution of Governmental Power and Information
(Sept 22, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
Session 3: Interference with Judicial Independence and Local Law Enforcement
(October 8, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.)
Session 4: Threats to Individual and Societal Rights
(Oct 21, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
Session 5: Rebuilding the Rule of Law in America: What Can and Should the Legal Profession, Individual Lawyers and Citizens Do?
(Nov 18, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
“The rule of law is the foundation of our democracy,” said City Bar President Sheila S. Boston. “It’s at the core of our Constitution that sets forth the powers of our government and the rights of our people, and the supremacy of the law in our nation ensures that no one can claim to be above it. The rule of law is what provides for transparency and equity in our society, enables us to confront challenges, foreign or domestic, and protects our security and welfare so that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness exists for us all.”
“While we hope these individual reports have been useful to our members and the public, they illustrate a broader theme – threats to the Rule of Law itself – that we believe has not received sufficient in-depth attention in either the public or the legal profession,” said Stephen L. Kass, Chair of the Task Force. “Our goal is to create an ongoing and thought-provoking discussion among the legal profession, the academic community and the public about what can and should be done to assure that America remains a nation governed by law even in a time of crisis – or especially in a time of crisis – and to identify the actions necessary for our justice system to promote the impartial, equitable and effective enforcement of those laws.”
In addition to the work of the Task Force on the Rule of Law, the City Bar has been speaking out on rule-of-law issues for decades through its committees on Federal Courts, Government Ethics, Immigration and Nationality Law, and its Task Force on National Security and Rule of Law (the predecessor of the Task Force on the Rule of Law).
Full Schedule:
Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption
This session will broadly survey recent developments that implicate, and may signal rejection of, traditional Constitutional roles and customary norms of behavior within the national government and each of its branches. Session 1 will also take an inventory of recent challenges to laws and norms involving the impartial administration of justice by law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts and the Executive, as well as threats to individual and societal rights generally and to marginalized communities in particular. Individual speakers will focus on constitutional checks and balances, politicization of the administration of justice, dramatic changes in how governmental agencies ascertain facts and make decisions, and trends in derogation of individual and societal rights, including voting rights and the promise of impartial justice for all.
Introduction: Sheila S. Boston, President, New York City Bar Association
Keynote Speaker: TimothySnyder, Professor of History, Yale University; author, Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom
Dennis Parker, Director, National Center for Law and Economic Justice
Cass Sunstein, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Joyce Vance, Professor of Law, University of Alabama School of Law; former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama
This session will focus in depth on the rule of law challenges arising out of disruption of traditional “checks and balances” among the branches of the government, the ideas of “independence” and “oversight” among the agencies of government, and the ability of the Congress or Inspectors General and “whistleblowers” to perform their functions in the face of Executive secrecy, limits on Congressional subpoena power, governmental job insecurity and public statements critical of the bureaucratic levers of government.
Keynote Speaker: Donald Ayer, Partner at Jones Day; former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush; former Principal Deputy Solicitor General under Solicitor General Charles Fried.
Moderator: Errol Louis, CNN Political Analyst; Host of NY1’s “Inside City Hall”
Mitchell Bernard, Executive Director, National Resources Defense Council
Preet Bharara, former U .S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Daniel Goldman, Counsel to the House Intelligence Committee
Barbara McQuade, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School; former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan
This session will explore the effects of Executive disruption of several distinct justice systems – civil and criminal courts, the immigration court system and local law enforcement. Speakers will explore the implications of Executive interference with investigations and trials, castigation of individual judges and jurors, the deployment of military and/or federal forces in connection with local law enforcement and the issuance of pardons without traditional due diligence for civilian and military crimes.
Keynote Speaker: Charles Fried,Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; former U.S. Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan
Margaret Colgate Love, Executive Director, Collateral Consequences Resource Center; former U.S. Pardon Attorney
Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School; former Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State
Hon. Jed Rakoff, Senior U.S. District Court Judge, Southern District of New York
This session will survey recent trends that question the role of law and courts in the pursuit of a just and democratic society. Is adherence to the rule of law deteriorating and, if so, is that because of limitations on the ability (or inclination) of citizens and courts to prevent violations of individual rights or, more broadly, the rules governing a functioning democracy? Speakers will discuss the most salient of the deteriorations of voting rights, asylum rights and incarceration policies, the militarization of policing and the disparate treatment of minorities by police and prosecutors, and the use of libel litigation to inflict costs on individuals and media outlets who challenge or criticize officeholders.
Keynote Speaker: Anthony Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
Nicole Austin-Hillary, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch U.S. Program
David McCraw, Senior Vice-President and Deputy General Counsel, New York Times
Myrna Perez, Director, Voting Rights and Elections Program, Brennan Center for Justice
Hon. Mimi Tsankov, Vice President, Eastern Region, National Association of Immigration Judges
Cecilia Wang, Deputy Legal Director and Director of the Center for Democracy, American Civil Liberties Union
This session will explore the role of individual lawyers, professional organizations and citizens in protecting the rule of law as a guiding principle in American public life and in restoring the norms and standards by which we may remain a society governed by transparent rules equitably applied. Speakers will discuss the history of efforts by the organized bar to support and sustain impartial justice, the scope of pro bono work by the private bar and the private sector, the ethical standards guiding government officials and the education of the public about the necessity of acting to protect a fair and equitable rule of law. Speakers will draw on their own experience to offer lessons for members of the bar on building on one’s own background and training to promote the rule of law domestically and abroad.
Keynote Speaker: John Feerick, Fordham Law Dean Emeritus and Norris Professor of Law, Fordham Law School
Robert Cusumano, founder and CEO, Legal Horizons Foundation; former Corporate General Counsel
Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School; former Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State
Hon. Mary McGowan Davis, Former New York Supreme Court Justice; Member, UN Committees of Independent Experts in International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law
The mission of the New York City Bar Association, which was founded in 1870 and has 25,000 members, is to equip and mobilize a diverse legal profession to practice with excellence, promote reform of the law, and uphold the rule of law and access to justice in support of a fair society and the public interest in our community, our nation, and throughout the world.www.nycbar.org
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☠️⚠️‼️DISCLAIMER: Of course, the following are just my views, not the views of anyone on the All-Star cast of speakers at this upcoming event, the NYCBA, or anyone else of any importance whatsoever!
Don is my former partner at Jones Day and a long time colleague going back to our days together at a “Better DOJ.” Mimi and I have been friends and colleagues for years in the NAIJ, the FBA, and on the Immigration Court.
Elizabeth is my former student at Georgetown Law, a former intern at the Arlington Immigration Court, a former Judicial Law Clerk at the NY Immigration Court, and a “charter member” and leader of the “New Due Process Army” (“NDPA”). She’s still early in her career, but already establishing herself as one of the “best legal minds” in the business — in immigration, human rights, Constitutional Law, or any any other field. Elizabeth and others like her are indeed “the future of American law and the nation!”
In nearly five decades as a lawyer in the public, private, and academic sectors, I have never seen such a concerted attack on the rule of law and the institutional underpinnings of American democracy as that being carried our by the Trump regime.
Perhaps most shocking and disappointing to me has been the ineffective “pushback” and often outright complicity or encouragement offered to “the scofflaw destroyers” by our supposedly independent Article III Judiciary.
Let’s cut to the chase! The only real role of the Federal Judiciary is to protect our nation from tyranny and overreach from the the other two branches of Government. That’s it in a nutshell! If they can’t do that, they really have no purpose that couldn’t be fulfilled by the State and Local Courts.
In this role, the Article IIIs have failed — miserably! With a “disappearing Congress,” the Article IIIs, starting with the lousy performance of the Supremes, overall have been unwilling effectively to stand up to Trump’s corrupt, overtly racist, divisive, and illegal White Nationalist agenda. An agenda that is destroying our society and mockingthe Constitutional guarantees of “equal justice for all.”
I call the regime’s strategy “Dred Scottification” or “dehumanization of the other before the law.”It targets people of color, particularly immigrants and asylum seekers.
Outrageously, rather than emphatically rejecting this clearly unconstitutional “throwback to Jim Crow,” a Supremes’ majority has embraced and furthered it:from the “Muslim Bam;” to illegally letting legitimate asylum applicants rot, be abused, and die in Mexico; to allowing a deadly irrational, racist attack on the health and public benefits of the legal immigrant community; to turning their back on refugees who are are potentially being sentenced to death without any recognizable legal process; to allowing GOP politicos to blatantly suppress Black and Hispanic voting rights for corrupt political gain, the “tone-deaf” and spineless Supremes’ majority has misused its life tenure to clearly install itself on the wrong side of history — with racists and human rights abusers of the past!
We see it playing out every day; it will continue to get worse if we don’t get “regime change.” We need a functional Congress, without Mitch McConnell’s poisonous intransigence, and better Federal Judges, at all levels. Judges who actually believe in equal justice for allunder our Constitution and have the guts and intellectual integrity to stand up for it — whether the issue is voting rights, criminal justice, rights of asylum seekers, immigrants’ rights, effective Congressional oversight of the Executive, or putting an end to the “due process parody” going on daily in the “weaponized and politicized” Immigration “Courts” (that are not “courts” at all by any commonly understood meaning of the word).
For example, as American justice implodes, AG Billy Barr and several GOP Supremes have decided that the “real enemy” is “nationwide injunctions” by US District Court Judges. This is nothing short of “legal absurdism” being spouted by folks who are supposed to be functioning as “responsible public officials!”
As those who live in the “real world” of the law, peopled by actual human beings, nationwide injunctions are one of the few effective tools that defenders of our Constitution (many serving pro bono) have to stop life-threatening illegal attacks by the regime on individual rights, particularly in the field of immigration and human rights. Otherwise, the regime’s “violate the law at will and fill the courts with frivolous litigation strategy,” adopted by the DOJ and furthered by the Supremes, would simply bury and overwhelm the defenders of individual rights and the rule of law.
Without nationwide injunctions against illegal Executive actions, by the time the regime’s legal transgressions worked their way to the Supremes, most of the bodies would be dead and buried. ⚰️⚰️Indeed, we see the results of this illegal abrogation of U.S. asylum law and international protections, sans legislation or legitimate rationale, which daily returns legitimate refugees, many women and children, to harm, torture, or death, without any process whatsoever, let alone the “due process” required by the Constitution. ☠️🤮⚰️🏴☠️
You might ask yourself what purpose is served by a Supremes’ majority that has encouraged and facilitated this type of deadly “outlaw behavior” that will stain our nation’s soul and reputation forever in the eyes of history? It’s not “rocket science” — really just Con Law 101, common sense, and human decency, which seem to have fled the scene at our highest Court.
The complete breakdown of professional and ethical standards within the Executive, particularly the DOJ, that used to govern positions taken, arguments made, and evidence submitted to Federal Courts also is shocking to those of us who once served in the DOJ. Likewise, the overall failure of the Federal Courts to enforce even minimal standards of professionalism and the duty of “candor to a tribunal” for Government lawyers is surprising and disheartening.
Yes, Federal Judges sometimes “pan” or “wring their hands” about the bogus positions, disingenuous reasoning, and contemptuous actions of agencies and Government lawyers. But, they seldom, if ever, take meaningful corrective action. For Pete’s sake, both “Wolfman” and “Cooch Cooch” have been held by a Federal Judge to have been illegally appointed to their acting positions!Yet every day, these “illegals” continue to mete out injustice, and racist-driven policies on largely defenseless migrants . What kind of judiciary allows this kind of “in your face nonsense” to continue unabated?
This judicial fecklessness hasn’t been lost on folks like Billy Barr, Chad “Wolfman” Wolf, Stephen Miller, “Cooch Cooch,” Mark Morgan, Noel Francisco, and other Trump sycophants who continue to flood the Federal Courts with false narratives, bogus positions, and what many would characterize as “unadulterated BS” without meaningful consequences, other than to stretch the “battle lines” of the pro bono opposition to the breaking point. Indeed, as many fearless immigration and human rights litigators will confirm, it has become the burden of the private, usually pro bono or “low bono,” bar to “fact check” and disprove the false narratives and incomplete or misleading accounts submitted by the DOJ to the Federal Courts.
How does this “misplacing of the burden” further the interests of justice and encourage representation of the most vulnerable in our society? Clearly, it doesn’t, which is the entire point of the DOJ’s destructive and unprofessional “strategy!” Certainly, these are unmistakable signs of widespread systemic breakdown in our Federal justice system.
I urge everyone to attend and learn more about why the rule of law is “on the ropes” in today’s America, what efforts are being made to save and preserve it, and to ponder the consequences ofwhat another four years of a corrupt, scofflaw, White Nationalist regime and complicit Federal Judges could mean for everyone in America and perhaps the world!
Due Process Forever! If you don’t stand up for it, you’ll find yourself living in the “world’s highest-GNP failed state,” governed by a hereditary kakistocracy enabled by feckless “judges” more interested in their life tenure than in YOUR rights under the law!🤮☠️🏴☠️👎
“Due Process of Law”
As Reenvisioned By Trump & Billy Barr
This is what “Dred Scottification” or the “end of the rule of law” as promoted by Trump, Miller, Barr and their cronies, and enabled by a tone-deaf and “insulated from the human suffering they cause” Supremes’ majority looks like:
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
(1) After an Immigration Judge has set a firm deadline for filing an application for relief, the respondent’s opportunity to file the application may be deemed waived, prior to a scheduled hearing, if the deadline passes without submission of the application and no good cause for noncompliance has been shown.
(2) The respondent failed to meet his burden of establishing that he was deprived of a full and fair hearing where he has not shown that conducting the hearing by video conference interfered with his communication with the Immigration Judge or otherwise prejudiced him as a result of technical problems with the video equipment.
PANEL: MULLANE, KELLY, and GORMAN, Appellate Immigration Judges
OPINION BY: GORMAN, Appellate Immigration Judge
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30 days to file an application for asylum for an unrepresented, detained, non-English speaking applicant appearing by televideo, huh? “Full and fair hearing?” Only in the “Never Never Land” of EOIR in the 5th Circuit,
I can guarantee that this bogus “30-day-filing standard” will be used to railroad lots of hapless and clueless asylum applicants out without due process.
The good news: Outside the “Judicial Wasteland” of the Fifth Circuit, at least some reviewing Circuits likely will “blow the whistle” on this disingenuous nonsense and abdication of Constitutional duties and send the cases back to the meat packing plant (a/k/a EOIR) for redos, thus adding to the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and astronomical backlog.
There is actually a reason why fundamental fairness and competent court management are required by Due Process! In the long run, following the Constitution and the statute, as well as having “judges” with actual expertise, independence, courage, and some “practical common sense,” as opposed to EOIR’s endless “haste makes waste” enforcement gimmicks and one-sided, bias-driven judging, makes for a more efficient justice system for everyone. But, that will require a “full housecleaning” at EOIR.
“POPPYCOCK!” — U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s Characterization Of Trump Regime’s Defense Of Asylum Seeker Abuse By DHS & Barr’s Unethical & Frivolous Arguments!
Jacqueline Thomsen Courts Reporter National Law Journal & Legal Clairvoyant
Due Process “Legal Eagle” Jacqueline Thompsen reports for the National Law Journal’:
. . . .
The federal immigration law requires that officers who conduct the interviews—in which migrants must show they face at least a 10% chance of persecution due to certain factors in order to be eligible for asylum—receive significant training on handling the applications
In responding to the administration’s claims that the border patrol agents received similar training as asylum officers, Leon wrote, “Poppycock! The training requirements cited in the government’s declaration do not come close to being ‘comparable’ to the training requirements of full asylum officers.”
“To make matters worse, the January MOA precludes any individual CBP agent from conducting credible fear interviews for longer than 180 days, meaning that CBP agents cannot gain the experience necessary to appropriately apply the complex asylum laws and regulations,” the judge added. “These procedures plainly violate Congress’s requirements.”
The Trump administration has administered a widespread crackdown on asylum proceedings, adopting a slew of policies that make it more difficult for migrants fleeing persecution in other countries to obtain protections in the United States.
The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by attorneys with Tahirih Justice Center and the Constitutional Accountability Center, on behalf of four mothers and their seven children from Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico seeking asylum in the U.S. All of the migrants failed to pass the credible fear assessment conducted by CBP agents, which were upheld by immigration judges.
Leon also found in Monday’s ruling that it “would certainly seem unlikely” that CBP agent interviews of migrants could be considered to be “nonadversarial proceedings with a neutral decision-maker,” as required under federal regulations and guidelines. He noted that border patrol agents are considered law enforcement, and said federal authorities’ statements on measures they have taken to minimize the possibility of the interviews becoming adversarial “hardly seems sufficient.”
Leon wrote the training requirements for those conducting the credible fear assessments “are essential for a functioning asylum process, which is why Congress required them,” describing the legal framework surrounding U.S. immigration, asylum, and other similar processes as “complex, to say the least.”
“After all, an asylum officer who is not adequately trained in the applicable legal requirements is less likely to ask the right questions of an asylum seeker, or for that matter, to gather the facts necessary to make an accurate determination of whether an asylum seeker has a credible fear of persecution,” he continued. “Indeed, the record here contains several examples of the effects of inadequate training: one CBP agent failed to follow up with questions about an asylum-seeking plaintiff’s sexual abuse, and another failed to inquire into another asylum-seeking plaintiffs husband’s murder investigation.”
Leon also found the immigrants in the case would face irreparable harm, if he did not issue a preliminary injunction to block their removal from the U.S.
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Why isn’t it an ethical and professional problem for “Billy the Bigot’s” DOJ to make nonsense arguments to a Federal Judge in support of unlawful actions? Private members of the bar arguing “poppycock” in a civil case could well find themselves referred for disciplinary action. Why are Cabinet Officials and their attorneys exempt from normal professional and ethical considerations?
If only more judges at all levels could write with such clarity and in plain English!
The rejection at the “credible fear” stage of the bona fide asylum claims described by Judge Leon is beyond appalling! These are essentially totally and intentionally unqualified and biased U.S. Government employees committing “crimes against humanity” and getting away with it! These aren’t “legal errors.” It’s systemic malfeasance, otherwise known as “malicious incompetence” with a heavy dose of racism and misogyny thrown in for a good measure!
If substantiated during the immigration hearing process that should have taken place, all these applicants should have been “slam dunk” grants of asylum, withholding of removal, and/or relief under the Convention Against Torture in a properly functioning justice system. Instead, but for the efforts of pro bono counsel, they would have been illegally returned to harm, torture, and/or death with no legitimate process at all!
No wonder “Billy the Bigot’s” Immigration Courts are out of control and the borders are a deadly mess when individuals who with proper screening and access to competent counsel should have been quickly legally admitted to the U.S. under protection laws are instead being “rejected” by biased and unqualified Border Patrol Agents impersonating Asylum Officers!
Here’s my favorite quote (among many) from Judge Leon’s decision:
Of course, the Government has a strong interest in the “prompt execution of removal orders.” Nken,556 U.S. at 436. However, the Government and public can have little interest in executing removal orders that are based on statutory violations, League of Women Voters of U.S. v. I,{ewby,838 F.3d l,12 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (“There is generally no public interest in the perpetuation of unlawful agency action.”), especially where those statutory violations may compromise the accuracy of such removal orders. R.I.L.-R. v Johnson, 80 F. Supp. 3d 164, 191 (D.D.C. 2015); Grace, 344 F. Supp. 3d at 14144 Indeed, the public has an interest “in preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm.” Nken,556 U.S. at 436. As such, the balance of interests here weighs in favor of preliminary injunctive relief.
The last point, “the public has an interest ‘in preventing aliens from being wrongfully removed, particularly to countries where they are likely to face substantial harm,’” Nken,556 U.S. at 436, has basically been ignored by the Supremes’ majority recently in sending refugees to their death or into harm’s way without any semblance of due process, based on various lies, distortions, and racist schemes by the Trump regime intentionally mischaracterizing “national security” and “national emergency.” As Judge Leon would say: “Poppycock!”
Perversely, the Trump regime and the Supremes’ have made execution of illegal removal orders, resulting from racist White Nationalist schemes, a “national priority.” Truly, this is a system broken from the top down in need of immediate repair and injections of intellectually honesty, moral courage, and ethics — something that seems “out of vogue” in all three branches of our failing democracy these days
I recently had a conversation with Jacqueline in which she basically predicted this decision based on her study of the arguments and trends among U.S. District Judges, regardless of philosophy or appointing party, in DC. Nice going Jacqueline! Congrats on your clairvoyance!
Those with NLJ access (anyone can get “three free” per month by registering) can read the complete article at the link.
Judge Leon’s linear, straightforward, and “no BS” treatment of the regime’s absurdist, unethical, and scofflaw legal “defense” of essentially “crimes against humanity” contrasts sharply with the disingenuous and essentially “brain dead” treatment of similar BS by the “JR Five” on the Supremes. There, the patently unconstitutional and illegal (not to mention immoral) agenda of neo-Nazi racist Stephen Miller and the unethical maneuvers of SG Noel Francisco are often wrongfully rewarded. By contrast, the the Supremes’ majority routinely trashes the legal and constitutional rights of vulnerable people of color, particularly asylum seekers, migrants, and voters beneath an avalanche of bogus “Dred Scottification” jurisprudence.
Additionally, Judge Leon is “onto something” that has been swept under the carpet by the Supremes and the Circuit Courts when he questions “whether CBP agents could ever lawfully be given authority to conduct asylum interviews and adjudicate asylum claims, see Compl. ‘]Tfl 108-09, it would certainly seem unlikely under these circumstances. After all, law enforcement officers typically “function as adversaries” whose role is “to investigate criminal activity, to locate and arrest those who violate our laws, and to facilitate the charging and bringing of such persons to trial.” New Jersey v T.L.O.,469 U.S. 325,349 (1985) (Powell, J., concurring).”
Similarly, many of us have argued that Immigration “Judges” who work for uber-enforcer and Trump shill “Billy the Bigot” and have been “repurposed” and “weaponized” into DHS enforcement support staff can not possibly be the “fair and impartial” quasi-judicial adjudicators required by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment!
Better Justices and better Federal Judges for a better America, particularly for people of color and other minorities. It’s actually quite simple and straightforward. It starts with throwing Trump and the GOP out of every political office this Fall.
Then, we need some real Justices and Federal Judges who will stand against systemic racism and enforce equal justice in America!Not, rocket science! Just knowledge of the Constitution, awareness of human rights and immigrants’ rights, a focus on racial justice, courage to speak truth to power, and a demonstrated commitment to human dignity and human decency.One could easily wonder why those haven’t been the minimal requirements for Federal judicial service in the past.
Past is past, particularly for life-tenured judges. But, America can’t afford any more disastrous judicial appointments, at any level, who lack the guts and human decency to stand up to scofflaw, neo-fascist racists like Trump, Miller, and their cronies.
The top to bottom overall failure of the American judiciary to put an end to unconstitutional and unfair racism and “Dred Scottification” of “the other” in our society is aiding and abetting the dark, lawless forces aligned with the regime destabilizing our country and ripping it apart! No more!
But Democrats all but ignored the Supreme Court in their four-day convention earlier this month, even after the party spent Trump’s first term reckoning with the consequences of Republicans confirming two justices, including a reliably conservative justice who replaced the court’s swing vote.
The contrast worries liberal activists who see it as further evidence that the Democratic Party isn’t paying enough attention to an area where conservatives have made big inroads in recent years: control of the courts.
“The fact that Democrats spent so little to no time discussing the federal bench failed to take into account that their critically important goals for the future will be challenged in the courts,” said Nan Aron, the president of the liberal judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice.
She added: “It’s a major misstep, given the fact that these 200 judges will make it very difficult, if not impossible in many cases, for the Democrats to accomplish their worthy goals going forward.”
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Read the full article at the link,
Thanks, Nan, for speaking out! I’ve always been astounded by the Dems’ failure to recognize the importance of getting demonstrated advocates for due process, fundamental fairness, human rights, equal justice under law, and best practices on the Federal Bench.
Heck, look at the Dems beyond disastrous and just plain incompetent approach to the Immigration Bench in the Obama Administration — an administrative court controlled entirely by the Attorney General. Can’t blame Mitch and the GOP for:
Ridiculously convoluted and entirely unnecessary 2-year hiring process (under former Director Anthony C. Moscato, the Clinton Administration could sometimes do it in a fraction of that time with better, or at least no worse, results);
Eschewing progressive judicial candidates, including well-qualified underrepresented groups, with scholarly credentials and practical expertise in immigration, asylum, human rights, and due process in favor of an endless stream of largely “insider only, don’t rock the boat” picks;
Leaving numerous positions unfilled at the end of the Administration for White Nationalist xenophobe Jeff Sessions to fill;
Ignoring obvious, achievable management reforms like e-filing!
The Trump Administration is teeming with malicious incompetents, particularly in the Immigration-related agencies. Notwithstanding that, they immediately figured out how to expedite Immigration Judge hiring and to load the bench with some of the worst, most unqualified, and biased so-called “judges” in modern American legal history!
In other words, Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr shamelessly and rapidly weaponized the Immigration Courts and made them subservient shills and zealots for DHS enforcement and Stephen Miller’s White Supremacist agenda. And feckless Article III Courts, now also stuffed with Trump judges, have, with a few notable exceptions, looked the other way as the slaughter of Constitutional due process and vulnerable humans (including kids) unfolds. You couldn’t write a worse script for the rule of law and future of humanity!
Democrats pretended that the Immigration Courts existed merely to “go along to get along with the policy flavor of the day.” They did not reinforce due process, fundamental fairness, or view the Immigration Bench as a source of expertise, creativity, progressive legal thinking, or creative legal problem solving. The backlogs grew, morale slid (although admittedly not at the breakneck pace under the Trump regime), and the bodies of those who should have been saved but weren’t started to pile up. Simple reforms — try e-filing, for example — were left unaccomplished!
It wasn’t “malicious incompetence” — just good old fashioned “administrative incompetence.” But the latter paved the way for the former to “go on steroids” during the Trump regime. This isn’t just political malpractice and academic debate! Real people have lost their lives, families, or futures because of the Dems’ diddling approach to justice — including America’s largest and perhaps most significant court system over which they had total control!
It’s actually pretty simple: Better judges (from the Supremes to the Immigration Courts) for a better America! And, time for the immigration/human rights community to wake up, join the NDPA, and demand that the Dems do better next time around!
Due Process Forever! Repeating past mistakes, never!
She was one of the most recognizable activists in Nicaragua, protesting a government that has jailed and killed its opponents. Her photo ran in national newspapers; one called her the “face of the rebellion.” Her video of police firing at student protesters went viral. Her confrontations with the government were cited by the U.S. State Department.
Valeska Alemán, 22, paid a price for that notoriety. She was detained twice. Interrogators pried off her toenails. When she decided to leave the country, the United States seemed a natural destination: The Trump administration has been vocal in its opposition to Nicaragua’s crackdown — and its support of the country’s young protesters.
But by the time Alemán arrived at the U.S. border in July, the administration had launched a pandemic-era policy that sends Nicaraguans directly back to their country without letting them apply for asylum. Seventeen days after crossing into Texas, she was put on a plane back to Managua with more than 100 other Nicaraguans, almost all of them opponents of President Daniel Ortega.
Her backpack was full of documents to show U.S. immigration officials that the government appeared ready to kill her. The officials wouldn’t look at them. When she landed back in Nicaragua, it felt as if she was carrying a ticking bomb, proof that she was trying to flee and accuse the government of abuse.
“I thought, ‘Okay, so they’re going to throw me straight back in jail,’ ” Alemán said. “ ‘I’m going to be tortured all over again.’ ”
Another expelled asylum seeker, Moises Alberto Ortega Valdivia, 38, swallowed five pages of his asylum paperwork, panicked that Nicaraguan police would find it.
Since taking control in 2017, the Trump administration has narrowed the pool of people who qualify for asylum and sent tens of thousands of applicants back to Mexico to await their hearings from squalid tent camps and shelters.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the administration has gone further, effectively shutting the asylum system down. Most Central American applicants are simply escorted back to Mexico. But Nicaraguans — including political protesters to whom the United States has given rhetorical support — are flown back to the country they tried to escape.
The administration is using a public health order known as 42 U.S.C. that cites “the danger to the public health” of migrants to justify the asylum system’s closure. Mexico has agreed to accept Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans. Other nations, such as Cuba and Venezuela, have refused to accept chartered U.S. deportation flights of their own citizens.
In the case of Nicaragua, the United States is sending asylum seekers back to a country the State Department describes as violently repressive.
“Throughout Nicaragua, armed and violent uniformed police or civilians in plain clothes acting as police (‘para-police’) continue to target anyone considered to be in opposition to the rule of President Ortega,” the department says in a travel warning. “The government and its affiliated armed groups have been reported to arbitrarily detain pro-democracy protestors, with credible claims of torture and disappearances.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In a statement, the State Department said it “condemns all forms of political oppression, especially that orchestrated by the corrupt Ortega regime.” But it would not comment on the expulsion of Nicaraguan asylum seekers.
Alemán traveled with a family of Nicaraguan asylum seekers to the Texas border. All were university graduates and students of international affairs. Before they left, they reviewed the asylum laws on a U.S. government website.
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Read the rest of Kevin’s article at the link.
Section 208 of the Immigration & Nationality Act says:
Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.
Very clear. What happened to refugee Valeska Alemán and other asylum seekers at the hands of the Trump regime was totally illegal (not to mention immoral); essentially a “crime against humanity” for which Trump, Miller, Wolfman, and the other “perps” should be held accountable.
But, this is Trump’s America where a majority of the Roberts’ Court favors White Supremacy, racism, and crimes against humanity over the Constitutional, statutory, and human rights of people of color. It’s called “Dred Scottification.”It’s a national and international disgrace that will stain our nation forever!
Think racial justice and equal justice in America will be achieved without a better Executive, throwing the GOP out of legislative power, and better Federal Judges? Guess again!
