Barr – immigrationcourtside.com

BUSY KNIGHTS & KNIGHTESSES: The Round Table Speaks Out Again For Due Process & Judicial Independence On The Eve Of House Subcommittee Hearing

Statement of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges Submitted to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship
Hearing on “Courts in Crisis: The State of Judicial Independence and Due Process in U.S. Immigration Courts”
January 29, 2020
This statement for the record is submitted by former Immigration Judges and former Appellate Immigration Judges of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Members of our group were appointed to the bench and served under different administrations of both parties over the past four decades. Drawing on our many years of collective experience, we are intimately familiar with the workings, history, and development of the immigration court from the 1980s up to present.
The purpose of the immigration courts is to act as a neutral check on executive overreach in the enforcement of our immigration laws. In their detached and learned interpretation of the laws and regulations, Immigration Judges exist to correct overzealous bureaucrats and policy makers when they overstep the bounds of reasonable interpretation and the requirements of due process.
Unfortunately, no Attorney General has ever created an impartial immigration court system because the immigration courts have always been housed inside the U.S. Department of Justice, subject to the nation’s chief enforcement officer, the Attorney General. Due in large part to the efforts of their union, the National Association of Immigration Judges, (NAIJ), the Immigration Judge corps managed to maintain decision making independence even when faced with increased caseloads and political pressures.
We are extremely disturbed by this administration’s systemic and unprecedented efforts to undermine Immigration Judges’ independence and neutrality. Such efforts have proceeded seamlessly through three different Attorneys General. Even Matthew Whitaker, acting as a caretaker and with no prior immigration law background, managed in his brief time in charge to certify two cases to himself, one of which was a decision of the BIA which had denied asylum and created a difficult standard for those seeking asylum based on their family ties, in order to make such standard even more daunting.
The three Attorneys Generals have together abused their certification power to circumvent the intent of Congress by rewriting our nation’s immigration laws. In
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some of their decisions, the Attorneys General have eliminated precedent decision and then imposed requirements that necessitate much more attorney preparation, longer hearings, and more exacting decisions from the Immigration Judges themselves in order to grant relief where such relief is due. The disingenuous assertion for doing so was that the parties had stipulated to certain facts and findings without evidence, when in fact the parties had done so – as in all judicial settings – because the evidence in support of such facts and findings was overwhelming and there is no need to burden the court system by presenting them in each case. At the same time, the Department of Justice has greatly expedited the hearings of those who are often most vulnerable, while requiring a growing number of asylum-seekers to either wait in Mexico in a state of homelessness, with little access to counsel or ability to be able to gather evidence; or to alternatively be detained in horrific conditions in remote detention facilities, all with little to no access to counsel.1 The administration has increasingly denied observers access to Remain in Mexico hearings.2 In particular, a member of our group was asked to leave a Remain in Mexico hearing where she was observing a case on the spurious claim that her note taking was distracting.3
In addition to cutting off access to the agency’s more controversial classes of hearings, EOIR has also effectively ended the participation of Immigration Judges as speakers in legal conferences and at law schools, including as participants in moot court hearings.4 The judges’ own union, the NAIJ, has served as the sole voice of its members, publicly speaking out against policies that undermine its independence and impartiality, and in advocating for independent Article I court status. In response, the Department of Justice has sought to silence the NAIJ
1 On January 24, 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), a policy also known as “Remain in Mexico,” which requires individuals seeking asylum at our southern border to remain in Mexico while their U.S. removal proceedings are pending.
2 Adolfo Flores, Immigration “Tent Courts” Aren’t Allowing Full Access To The Public, Attorneys Say, (1/13/2020), https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/immigration-tent-courts-arent-allowing-full-public-access.
3 The Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, Letter to Director McHenry and Chief Immigration Judge Santoro, (Dec. 10, 2019), https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/McHenry- letter_letterhead-1.pdf.
4 The Knight First Amendment Institute, Knight Institute Calls on DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review to Suspend Policy Silencing Immigration Judges, (Jan. 6, 2020), https://knightcolumbia.org/content/knight-institute- calls-on-dojs-executive-office-for-immigration-review-to-suspend-policy-silencing-immigration-judges.
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through a present effort to decertify on the same basis that was rejected previously this union that has been certified since 1979.5
The Attorneys General have also issued decisions stripping Immigration Judges of the judicial tools needed to properly execute their duties. Through precedent decisions by certification, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued binding decisions stripping Immigration Judges of their long-standing ability to administratively close6 or terminate7 cases where appropriate or necessary, or even to continue hearings where due process requires.8
The above actions of Attorneys General, as well as the reshuffling of Immigration Judge dockets to assure that cases are heard based on the political priority of the day as opposed to due process concerns, has resulted in unprecedented, sky- rocketing backlogs.9 The backlog has increased exponentially despite the dramatic increase in Immigration Judge appointments, most of which have favored individuals with enforcement backgrounds. Some have wondered if this is an attempt to implode the Immigration Court system, but whether it is intentional or not, this could be the ultimate effect.
EOIR’s director is not a political appointee, yet he has acted as one by promulgating policies that undermine judicial independence. For example, he has created completion quotas that require Immigration Judges to choose between justice for those who appear before them and their own job security. The vast majority of other administrative judges – including Social Security Judges – are exempted from such quotas by statute, and the Immigration Judges were previously exempted by policy. Immigration Judges are told in their training that they are only DOJ attorneys and as employees of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, they owe loyalty to the objectives of those they serve. Such quotas damage the public’s confidence in the immigration court system by creating the perception of bias. Even in the law enforcement context, quotas are seen as harmful. For example, most states outlaw such quotas for traffic tickets issued by
5 Eric Katz, The Justice Department says immigration law judges operate as managers, an argument the Federal Labor Relations Authority rejected in 2000, (Aug. 12, 2019), https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/08/ trump-administration-looks-decertify-vocal-federal-employee-union/159112/.
6 Matter of Castro-Tum, 27 I&N Dec. 271 (A.G. 2018)
7 Matter of S-O-G- & F-D-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 462 (A.G. 2018) 8 Matter of L-A-B-R- et. Al., 27 I&N Dec. 405 (A.G. 2018)
9 According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University the December 2019, backlog was 1,089,696. See, https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/
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police officers. Pressuring Immigration Judges to adhere to the views of the enforcement officer and agency that employ them contradicts the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling to the contrary, in which it held that the BIA must decide cases according to its judges’ “own understanding and conscience,” and not those of the Attorney General.10
EOIR has taken additional actions to undermine the appearance of neutrality so necessary to a court system. The agency posted on its website a press release announcing a “return to the rule of law” based solely on an increase in the number of deportation orders issued by the courts.11 More recently, the agency issued a “Myths vs. Facts” sheet12 falsely claiming that noncitizens as a rule don’t appear for their court hearings (whereas statistics compiled by TRAC indicate an appearance rate over 90%;13 that asylum seekers’ claims lack merit, and that attorneys don’t really impact court outcomes. The members of this honorable committee are asked to try to imagine any other court issuing such a statement concerning those that appear before its judges, and to further imagine what the public response would be. Our Round Table was one of several groups that issued a statement strongly criticizing such action.14
Our group includes a significant number of former Immigration Judges who retired or otherwise left the bench sooner than intended due to the unconscionable policies of the present administration. Two amongst us took the highly unusual step of resigning after only two years on the bench. One of our members made a point of retiring after 28 years on the bench on the day before the oppressive completion quota system went into effect as a statement that he refused to work under such conditions.15
10 Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260 (1954).
11 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/return-rule-law-trump-administration-marked-increase-key-immigration-statistics
12 https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1161001/download 13 See, https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/562/.
14 Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, EOIR “Myth vs. Fact” Memo, (May 13, 2019), https:// www.aila.org/infonet/retired-ijs-and-former-members-of-the-bia-object; See also AILA Policy Brief: Facts About the State of Our Nation’s Immigration Courts, (May 14, 2019), https://www.aila.org/advo-media/aila-policy-briefs/aila- policy-brief-facts-about-the-state-of-our.
15 “Immigration Judges say they’re ;leaving jobs because of Trump policies,” The Hill, Feb. 13, 2019, https:// thehill.com/latino/429940-immigration-judges-say-theyre-leaving-jobs-because-of-trump-policies
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We acknowledge our former colleagues still on the bench who continue to afford due process and fairness in their decisions. Their increasing difficulty in doing so was illustrated by the highly-publicized case in which an Immigration Judge in Philadelphia, upon receiving a case remanded by the Attorney General, continued the hearing of a minor who did not appear for purposes of ensuring that the youth received proper notice of the hearing, as required by law. EOIR management immediately removed the case from the judge’s docket, along with more than 80 other similar cases. The judge was most improperly chastised by his supervisor. Instead of assigning the case to another judge in the Philadelphia court, EOIR management sent one of its own to Philadelphia for the sole purpose of issuing an in absentia removal order against the youth.16 What message did these actions send to the Immigration Judge corps (in particular, to those recently hired who may be removed without cause within two years of their appointments) about exercising independent judgment? We affirm that such action would have been unthinkable under any prior administration during the four decades in which we served.
Immigration Judges also depend on a fair review of their decision on administrative appeal to the BIA. We are sad to report that the Appellate Immigration Judges on the BIA have abdicated the independent understanding and conscience recognized 66 years ago by the Supreme Court. Last month, a judge sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit stated in a concurring opinion of the court: “it is difficult for me to read this record and conclude that the Board was acting as anything other than an agency focused on ensuring Quinteros’ removal rather than as the neutral and fair tribunal it is expected to be. That criticism is harsh and I do not make it lightly.”17 And on January 23, 2020, a three Judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit suggested holding the BIA’s judges in contempt of court, “with all the consequences that possibility entails.”18 What provoked such reaction was the BIA’s decision to completely ignore a binding order of an Article III court because then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a footnote to a certified decision had expressed his disagreement with such decision. The Seventh Circuit stated that the Board’s action “beggar’s belief,” adding that it has “never before encountered defiance of a remand order, and we hope never to see it again.” But as long as the Attorney General holds the power to
16 National Association of Immigration Judges, Judges’ Union Grievance Seeking Redress for the Unwarranted Removal of Cases from IJ, (Aug. 8, 2018), https://www.aila.org/infonet/naij-grievance-redress-removal.
17 Quinteros v. Att’y Gen., No. 18-3750 (3d Cir. Dec. 17, 2019).
18 Baez-Sanchez v. Barr, No. 19-1642 (7th Cir. Jan. 23, 2020). 5

remove them and the Circuit Courts don’t, the BIA will err on the side of job security.
With the BIA acting as the Attorney General’s enforcer, Immigration Judges are increasingly concerned with whether U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) might appeal a grant of relief. One of the requirements specified in the immigration judges’ performance quotas requires that not more than 15 percent of the immigration judges’ decisions can be remanded or reversed on appeal by the BIA.
It is the role of Congress to write the immigration laws and that of the Attorney General to uphold them. This administration has sought to rewrite those laws in defiance of directives of the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeal which demonstrates that it is time for Congress to remove the responsibility for creating a fair immigration court from the Attorney General. The administration has stymied the efforts of immigration judges to faithfully execute their sworn obligations to accord due process to everyone who appears before them and to decide every case on its own merits after a full and fair consideration of the evidence. Instead, EOIR has imposed unrealistic productivity mandates that place speed above all considerations of fairness.
For all of the above reasons, we hope that Congress will take steps towards removing the immigration courts and BIA from the Department of Justice and establishing an independent Article I Immigration Court. In the meantime, we hope that Congress will use the powers at its disposal to limit undue influence on the Immigration Judges; to protect the NAIJ union from decertification; and to call the BIA to account for its recent outrageous behavior.
We appreciate the opportunity to provide this statement for the record and look forward to engaging as Congress considers reforming the immigration court system.
Contact with questions or concerns: Jeffrey S. Chase, jeffchase99@gmail.com. Sincerely,
Hon. Steven Abrams, Immigration Judge, New York, Varick St., and Queens (N.Y.) Wackenhut Immigration Courts, 1997-2013
Hon. Terry A. Bain, Immigration Judge, New York, 1994-2019
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Hon. Sarah Burr, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge and Immigration Judge, New York, 1994-2012
Hon. Esmerelda Cabrera, Immigration Judge, New York, Newark, and Elizabeth, NJ, 1994-2005
Hon. Teofilo Chapa, Immigration Judge, Miami, 1995-2018
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase, Immigration Judge, New York, 1995-2007
Hon. George T. Chew, Immigration Judge, New York, 1995-2017
Hon. Joan Churchill, Immigration Judge, Arlington, VA 1980-2005
Hon. Bruce J. Einhorn, Immigration Judge, Los Angeles, 1990-2007
Hon. Cecelia M. Espenoza, Appellate Immigration Judge, BIA, 2000-2003
Hon. Noel Ferris, Immigration Judge, New York, 1994-2013
Hon. James R. Fujimoto, Immigration Judge, Chicago, 1990-2019
Hon. Jennie L. Giambastiani, Immigration Judge, Chicago, 2002-2019
Hon. John F. Gossart, Jr., Immigration Judge, Baltimore, 1982-2013
Hon. Paul Grussendorf, Immigration Judge, Philadelphia and San Francisco, 1997-2004
Hon. Miriam Hayward, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 1997-2018
Hon. Charles Honeyman, Immigration Judge, Philadelphia and New York, 1995-2020
Hon. Rebecca Jamil, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 2016-2018
Hon. William P. Joyce, Immigration Judge, Boston, 1996-2002
Hon. Carol King, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 1995-2017
Hon. Elizabeth A. Lamb, Immigration Judge, New York, 1995-2018
Hon. Donn L. Livingston, Immigration Judge, Denver and New York, 1995-2018 Hon. Margaret McManus, Immigration Judge, New York, 1991-2018
Hon. Charles Pazar, Immigration Judge, Memphis, 1998-2017
Hon. Laura Ramirez, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 1997-2018
Hon. John W. Richardson, Immigration Judge, Phoenix, 1990-2018
Hon. Lory D. Rosenberg, Appellate Immigration Judge, Board of Immigration Appeals, 1995-2002
Hon. Susan G. Roy, Immigration Judge, Newark, NJ 2008-2010
Hon. Paul W. Schmidt, Chair and Appellate Immigration Judge, Board of Immigration Appeals, and Immigration Judge, Arlington, VA 1995-2016
Hon. Ilyce S. Shugall, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 2017-2019
Hon. Denise Slavin, Immigration Judge, Miami, Krome, and Baltimore, 1995-2019
Hon. Andrea Hawkins Sloan, Immigration Judge, Portland, 2010-2017
Hon. Gustavo D. Villageliu, Appellate Immigration Judge, BIA, 1995-2003
Hon. Robert D. Vinikoor, Immigration Judge, Chicago, 1984-2017
Hon. Polly A. Webber, Immigration Judge, San Francisco, 1995-2016
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Hon. Robert D. Weisel, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, Immigration Judge, New York 1989-2016
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Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog

Thanks to our “Lead Knight,” Hon. Jeffrey Chase, for all of his work on drafting, revising, and coordinating this huge, important project on short notice (all while continuing to save lives in Immigration Court as a “real” trial lawyer).

Yes, there were “knightesses” (female knights) in history. Joan of Arc is a well known one. Today, they are common (perhaps a majority) among the ranks of our Round Table and certainly among the fiercest and most courageous champions of Due Process as well as role models for all aspiring judges!

Knjightess — Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-28-20

COURTS OF INJUSTICE: How Systemic Bias, Bad Precedents, Gross Mismanagement, & Poor Decision-Making Threaten Lives In Immigration Court — What Should Be “Slam Dunk” Grants Of Protection Are Literally “Litigated To Death” Adding To Backlogs While Mocking Justice! — Featuring Quotes From “Roundtable” Leader Hon. Jeffrey Chase!

Beth Fertig
Senior Reporter
Immigration, Courts, Legal
WNYC & The Gothamist

https://gothamist.com/news/they-fled-gang-violence-and-domestic-abuse-nyc-immigration-judge-denied-them-asylum

Beth Fertig reports for WNYC:

They Fled Gang Violence And Domestic Abuse. An NYC Immigration Judge Denied Them Asylum

BY BETH FERTIG, WNYC

SEPT. 26, 2019 5:00 A.M.

Seventeen year-old Josue and his mom, Esperanza, were visibly drained. They had just spent more than four hours at their asylum trial inside an immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, answering questions from their attorney and a government lawyer. We are withholding their full names to protect their identities because they’re afraid.

“It was exhausting,” said Josue, whose angular haircut was neatly combed for the occasion. In Spanish, he told us the judge seemed nice but, “you feel bad if you don’t know if you are going to be allowed to stay or if you have to go.”

The teen and his mother crossed the U.S. border in California in the summer of 2018. At the time, a rising number of families were entering the country, and the Trump administration wanted to send a message to them by swiftly deporting those who don’t qualify for asylum. But immigration judges are so busy, they can take up to four years to rule on a case. In November, judges in New York and nine other cities were ordered to fast track family cases and complete them within a year.

This is how Esperanza and Josue wound up going to trial just 10 months after they arrived in the U.S. and moved to Brooklyn. They were lucky to find attorneys with Central American Legal Assistance, a nonprofit in Williamsburg that’s been representing people fleeing the troubled region since 1985.

Listen to reporter Beth Fertig’s WNYC story on Josue and Esperanza’s cases.

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Winning asylum was never easy. But in 2018, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions made it tougher for people like Josue and Esperanza when he issued his own ruling on an immigration case involving a woman from El Salvador who was a victim of domestic violence. He wrote: “The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes—such as domestic violence or gang violence—or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim.”

Immigration judges were bound to give heavy weight to that ruling. Their courts are run by the Department of Justice, whose boss is the Attorney General. And the AG’s boss, President Trump, frequently asserts that too many migrants lie about being threatened by gangs when they’re just coming for jobs. “It’s a big fat con job, folks,” he said at a Michigan rally this year.

Esperanza and Josue went to court soon after Sessions’ decision. She was fighting for asylum as a victim of domestic abuse; Josue claimed a gang threatened his life. Both would eventually lose their cases.

Josue’s case

Esperanza and Josue are typical of the Central American families seeking asylum these days, who say they’re escaping vicious drug gangs, violence and grinding poverty. The two of them came from a town outside San Pedro Sula, one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

During their trial, Josue testified under oath about how gang members repeatedly approached him outside his high school, asking him to sell drugs to the other students. He tried to ignore them, and gave different excuses for resisting, until one day when they spotted him playing soccer and became more aggressive. That’s when he said the gang leader put a gun in his face.

“He told me that if I didn’t accept what he wanted he was going to kill my whole family, my mother and sister,” he said, through a Spanish interpreter.

“I was in shock,” he said. “I had no other choice to accept and said yes.”

He told his mother and they left Honduras the next day. When Josue’s lawyer, Katherine Madison, asked if he ever reported the threat to the police he said no. “That was practically a suicide,” he said, explaining that the police are tied to the gang, because it has so much power.

Josue said his older sister later moved to Mexico because she was so afraid of the gang.

Winning asylum is a two-step process. You have to prove that you were persecuted, and that this persecution was on account of your race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion. Madison, Josue’s attorney, argued that in Honduras, defying gangs is a risky political statement.

“They function in many ways as the de facto government of the areas where people like Josue lived,” she told WNYC/Gothamist, summing up the arguments she submitted to the judge. “They make rules. They charge basically taxes, they say who can live there and who can’t.”

And they’re known to kill people who don’t obey.

In her ruling, issued in August, Immigration Judge Oshea Spencer found Josue did experience persecution. But she denied his application for asylum. She said much of what he described “were threats and harm that exist as part of the larger criminal enterprise of the gangs in Honduras and not on the basis of any actual or perceived opposition to the gangs.”

Esperanza’s case

Esperanza’s attorney argued that her life was at risk because the gang member threatened Josue’s family. But Spencer didn’t find that specific enough. She wrote that the gang members “were motivated by their efforts to expand their drug trade, not the family relationship.” Among other cases, she referred to a recent decision by the current Attorney General, William Barr, that makes it harder for the relatives of someone who’s been threatened to win asylum.

Esperanza also lost on a separate claim that she deserved asylum because she was repeatedly beaten by Josue’s father. In court, she testified about years of abuse culminating in an incident in which he chased her with a machete. She said she couldn’t get the police to issue a restraining order, and said he kept threatening her after she moved to another town to stay with relatives.

Madison argued that women like Esperanza belong to a persecuted social group: they can’t get help from the authorities in Honduras because they’re viewed as a man’s property. The country is one of the deadliest places to be a woman; police are known to ignore complaints; and it’s extremely hard for women to get justice.

But Spencer ruled that there is no persecuted social group made up of “Honduran women who are viewed as property” for being in a domestic relationship.

Echoing the Sessions’ ruling, the judge said these categories “all lack sufficient particularity,” and called them “amorphous” because they could be made up of a “potentially large and diffuse segment of society.”

She also cited evidence submitted by the government that showed conditions in Honduras are improving for women. This evidence came from a 2018 State Department report on human rights in Honduras. Immigration advocates claim it’s been watered down from the much harsher conditions described in the last report from 2016. It’s also much shorter in length.

Jeffrey Chase, an immigration lawyer and former New York immigration judge, said it’s not surprising that Esperanza and Josue would each lose asylum. Judge Spencer only started last fall and is on probation for her first two years in the job.

“This was decided by a brand new judge who didn’t have any immigration experience prior to becoming an immigration judge,” he said, referring to the fact that Spencer was previously an attorney with the Public Utility Commission of Texas. He said she went through training which, “These days, includes being told that we don’t consider these to be really good cases.”

Sitting judges don’t talk to the media but Chase noted that they must consider the facts of each individual case, meaning the former Attorney General’s ruling doesn’t apply to all cases. He noted that some women who were victims of abuse are still winning asylum. He pointed to a case involving a Guatemalan woman who was raped by her boss. A Texas immigration judge found she did fit into a particular social group as a woman who defied gender norms, by taking a job normally held by a man.

During Josue and Esperanza’s trial, there was a lot of back and forth over their individual claims. A trial attorney from Immigration and Customs Enforcement questioned why Esperanza didn’t contact the police again after moving to another town, where she said her former partner continued to threaten her. Esperanza said it was because her brother chased him away and the police “don’t pay attention to you.”

The ICE attorney also asked Josue if his father was physically violent with anyone besides Esperanza. Josue said he did fight with other men. San Diego immigration lawyer Anna Hysell, who was previously an ICE trial attorney, said that could have hurt Esperanza’s case.

“The government was able to make the arguments that he didn’t target her because of being a woman that was in his relationship,” she explained. “He just was probably a terrible person and targeted many people.”

Hysell added that this was just her analysis and she wasn’t agreeing with the decision.

Attorney Anne Pilsbury said she believes Esperanza would have won her case, prior to the asylum ruling by Sessions, because she suffered years of abuse. But she said Josue would have had a more difficult time because gang cases were always tough. And like a lot of migrants, Josue had no evidence — he was too afraid to go to the cops. Pilsbury said immigration judges are even more skeptical now of gang cases.

“They’re getting so that they won’t even think about them,” she said. “They aren’t wrestling with the facts. They’re hearing gang violence and that’s it.”

She said Judge Spencer does sometimes grant asylum, and isn’t as harsh as other new judges. New York City’s immigration court used to be one of the most favorable places for asylum seekers. In 2016, 84 percent of asylum cases were granted. Today, that figure has fallen to 57 percent, according to TRAC at Syracuse University. Meanwhile, the government is forcing migrants to wait in Mexico for their immigration court cases or seek asylum in other countries before applying in the U.S., as the national backlog of cases exceeds one million.

Pilsbury, who founded Central American Legal Assistance in 1985, said immigration courts are now dealing with the result of a regional crisis south of the border that’s never been properly addressed since the wars of the 1980s.

“The anti-immigrant people feel it’s broken because people get to come here and ask for asylum and we feel it’s broken because people’s asylum applications aren’t seriously considered,” she explained. “We should be doing more to understand what’s going on in those countries and what we can do to help them address the chronic problems.”

Esperanza and Josue’s cases will now be appealed. Madison said she believes the judge ignored some of her evidence about gangs. She’s now turning to the Board of Immigration Appeals. However, it’s also controlled by the Justice Department — meaning the odds of getting a reversal are slim. If they lose again, the family can go to a federal circuit court which may have a broader definition of who’s eligible for asylum.

But Esperanza and Josue won’t be deported as long as their case is being appealed. On a late summer day, they seemed relaxed while sitting in a Brooklyn park. Esperanza talked about how happy she is that Josue is safe at his public high school, and can even ride a bike at night with his friends.

“He goes out and I’m always trusting the Father that just as he goes out, he comes back,” she said.

Even if they knew they would lose their asylum case, both said they still would have come to the U.S. because the risk of staying in Honduras was too great. Josue said the gang would definitely find him if he ever returned because their networks are so deep throughout the country. He’s now taking the long view. He knows there will be a Presidential election next year.

“It’s like a game of chess,” Josue said. “Any mindset can change at any moment. Maybe Trump changes his mind or maybe not. But I would have always made the decision to come.”

With translation assistance from Alexandra Feldhausen, Lidia Hernández-Tapia and Andrés O’Hara.

Beth Fertig is a senior reporter covering immigration, courts and legal affairs at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @bethfertig.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this posting incorrectly identified Beth’s network affiliation. She reports for WNYC.

By clicking on the link at the top and going to Beth’s article on The Gothamist, you will be able to get a link to the original WNYC audio broadcast of this story.

It’s not “rocket science.” Better, fairer outcomes were available that would have fulfilled, rather than mocked, our obligation to provide Due Process and protection under our own laws and international treaties.

Here’s how:

Esperanza’s claim is a clear asylum grant for “Honduran women” which is both a “particular social group” (“PSG”) and a persecuted group in Honduras that the government is unwilling or unable to protect.
- Here’s a much better recent decision along those lines from Judge Howard Hom of the same Immigration Court granting a very similar case based on the PSG of “Guatemanlan women.” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/09/19/the-good-news-gender-based-asylum-claims-continue-to-win-in-the-post-a-b-era-the-bad-news-applicants-subjected-to-let-em-die-in-mexico-compl/
Although the last two Administrations have intentionally twisted the law against Central American asylum seekers, Josue has a clear case for asylum as somebody for whom opposition to gang violence was an “imputed political opinion” that was “at least one central reason” for the persecution. See, e.g, https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/6/3/3rd-generation-gangs-and-political-opinion.
In any event, on this record, Josue clearly showed that he faced a probability of torture by gangs with the acquiescence of the Honduran government, and therefore should have been granted mandatory protection by the Immigration Judge under the Convention against Torture (“CAT”).
The Immigration Judge’s assertion that things are getting better for women in Honduras, one of the world’s most dangerous countries for women where femicide is rampant, not only badly misapplies the legal standard (“fundamentally changed conditions that would eliminate any well founded fear”) but is also totally disingenuous as a factual matter. See, e.g., https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/05/opinion/honduras-women-murders.html.
Additionally, Honduras remains in a state of armed conflict. See, e.g., https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23740973.2019.1603972?needAccess=true. Under an honest Government, granting TPS to Hondurans (as well as Salvadorans and Guatemalans affected by environmental disasters heightened by climate change) would be more than justified.
Under honest Government following the rule of law, well-documented cases like this one could be quickly granted by the USCIS Asylum Officer or granted on stipulation in short hearings in Immigration Court. Many more Central Americans could be granted CAT relief, TPS, or screened and approved for asylum abroad. They could thereby be kept off of Immigraton Court dockets altogether or dealt with promptly on “short dockets” without compromising anybody’s statutory or constitutional rights (compromising individual rights is a “specialty” of all the mostly ineffective “enforcement gimmicks” advanced by the Trump Administration).
Over time, the overwhelming self-inflicted Immigration Court backlogs caused by the Trump Administration’s “maliciously incompetent” administration of immigration laws (e.g., “Aimless Docket Reshuffling”) would be greatly reduced.
- That, in turn, would allow the Immigration Courts to deal with cases on a more realistic timeline that would both aid rational, non-White-Nationalist immigration enforcement and provide real justice for those seeking protection under our legal system.
As I’ve said before, it’s not “rocket science.” All it would take is more honest and enlightened Government committed to Due Process, good court management, and an appropriate legal application of laws relating to refugees and other forms of protection. I doubt that it would cost as much as all of the bogus “enforcement only gimmicks” now being pursued by Trump as part of his racist, anti-migrant, anti-Hispanic agenda.
Poor judicial decision making, as well illustrated by this unfortunate wrongly decided case, not only threatens the lives of deserving applicants for our protection, but also bogs down an already grossly overloaded system with unnecessarily protracted litigation and appeals of cases that should be “clear grants.”
Contrary to the intentionally false “party line” spread by “Big Mac With Lies” and other corrupt Trump sycophants at the DHS and the DOJ, a much, much higher percentage, probably a majority, of asylum applicants from the Northern Triangle who apply at our Southern Border should properly be granted some type of legal protection under our laws if the system operated in the fair and impartial manner that is Constitutionally required. The Trump Administration aided by their sycophants and enablers, all the way up to the feckless Supremes, are literally “getting away with murder” in far, far too many instances.
Consequently, quickly identifying and granting relief to the many deserving applicants would be a more efficient, humane, and lawful alternative to the “Kill ‘Em Before They Get Here” deterrence programs being pursued by Trump, with the complicity of the Supremes, the Ninth Circuit, and some of the other Federal Circuit Courts who have been afraid to put a stop to the extralegal nonsense going on in our Immigraton Courts, detention centers (the “New American Gulag”), our Southern Border, and countries like Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and El Salvador where we are basically encouraging extralegal abuses and gross human right violations against migrants. It will eventually come back to haunt our nation, or whatever is left of our nation after Trump and his gang of White Nationalist thugs, supporters, appeasers, apologists, and enablers, are done looting and destroying it.

PWS

09-30-19

IMMIGRATION JUDGE V. STUART CROUCH SYMBOLIZES AMERICA’S GROSS DISREGARD OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS & WELFARE!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/opinion/child-poverty-democratic-debate.html

Nicholas Kristof writes in The NY Times:

When a 2-year-old Guatemalan boy had trouble staying silent in an immigration courtroom, the judge pointed his finger at him.

“I have a very big dog in my office, and if you don’t be quiet, he will come out and bite you,” the judge, V. Stuart Couch, a former Marine, yelled at the toddler in a 2016 hearing, according to a formal complaint shared by the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy and first reported this week by Mother Jones.

“Do you want him to bite you?” Couch asked.

The boy, his mom and their advocate were all soon sobbing. Couch later acknowledged that he “did not handle the situation properly,” according to the judge who investigated the complaint, Deepali Nadkarni.

Clearly, Couch didn’t have a child’s well-being in mind on that day. But ignoring the welfare of our young is a day-to-day problem in America, where our children are falling behind those in other wealthy countries.

On Thursday, 10 Democratic presidential candidates will debate. It would be a natural opportunity to provoke a national conversation on the subject. But a question about child poverty hasn’t been asked at a presidential debate in 20 years, not since a Republican primary debate in 1999, according to the Children’s Defense Fund.

Presidential candidates have been asked about the World Series, about cursing in movies, even about flag lapel pins more recently than they have been questioned about child poverty. We’ve had 147 presidential debates in a row without a single question on the topic (here’s a petition calling for more questions on the issue). I hope Thursday’s debate won’t be the 148th.

UNICEF says America ranks No. 37 among countries in well-being of children, and Save the Children puts the United States at No. 36. European countries dominate the top places.

American infants at last count were 76 percent more likely to die in their first year than children in other advanced countries, according to an article last year in the journal Health Affairs. We would save the lives of 20,000 American children each year if we could just achieve the same child mortality rates as the rest of the rich world.

. . . .

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Read Kristof’s complete op-ed at the link.

Couch is one of America’s worst judges. One might therefore fairly ask why he recently was “rewarded” for his bias, unprofessionalism, and documented poor performance when Trump Sycophant Barr “elevated” him to the appellate bench? Perhaps, so he can abuse more women and children across the country?

But, as the Supremes and the GOP have decided to endorse and encourage child abuse, the question is whether the Dems can get it together to end the abuse before it’s too late for America and the world.

Child abusers like Trump, Couch, Barr, and the gang over at DHS are used to getting away with it. They are encouraged by a do nothing Congress, complicit Federal Judges, and a Trump base that has declared war on traditional American values and human decency. But, the consequences of their misconduct, and the unwillingness of the US political and legal system to stand up for children, won’t end well in the long run.

In the meantime, remember the names of the abusers and their enablers, some of them serving in our highest court and as GOP Senators and Representatives.

Child abuse is wrong!

PWS

09-12-19

18 YEARS AFTER 09-11, THE “BAD GUYS” ARE WINNING THE BATTLE TO DESTROY AMERICAN JUSTICE & SPLIT THE COUNTRY! — Here’s The Disturbing Proof Of What Passes For “Justice” In America Today!

https://apple.news/ATepJTbYUSAaVGl8T7Cqh6Q

Marina Pitofsky reports in The Hill:

Immigration judge told 2-year-old to be quiet or a dog would ‘bite you’: report

An immigration judge reportedly threatened a Guatemalan child who was making some noise that a “very big dog” would “come out and bite you” if the undocumented immigrant did not quiet down, according to a report by Mother Jones.

The boy was in the courtroom with his mother for an immigration hearing in March 2016 when the threat happened, Mother Jones reported, citing testimony from an independent observer present at the court.

“I have a very big dog in my office, and if you don’t be quiet, he will come out and bite you,” Judge V. Stuart Couch reportedly told the child, according to an affidavit signed by Kathryn Coiner-Collier.

Coiner-Collier was a coordinator for a Charlotte, N.C.-area legal advocacy group that assisted migrants who could not afford attorneys.

“Want me to go get the dog? If you don’t stop talking, I will bring the dog out. Do you want him to bite you?” the judge continued to tell the boy during the hearing, according to Mother Jones.

Couch later asked Coiner-Collier to carry the boy out of the courtroom and sit with him, she told Mother Jones.

The judge reportedly told Coiner-Collier that he had threatened other children but that it appeared not to be working with this particular child.

Coiner-Collier said she immediately wrote the affidavit after the case, and in a message to the mother’s attorney in 2017, she wrote “I have never lost my composure like I did that day. … I was … red in the face sobbing along with [the boy’s mother.]”

Coiner-Collier also accused Couch of turning off the courtroom’s recording device as he threatened the child, whom she described as being 2 years old even though the judge said he was 5.

The child and her mother appeared again in front of Couch in August 2017, but the case was eventually reassigned. The new judge denied their asylum claim, according to Mother Jones. They are appealing the case.

Couch and five other judges were promoted in August to the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals.

The Hill has reached out to the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review for comment.

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https://apple.news/AnmnbegntRTqguvX-bYCn8g

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

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, NBC News/AP Reports:

Rollout of ‘soul crushing’ Trump immigration policy has ‘broken the courts’

On the day she was set to see a U.S. immigration judge in San Diego last month, Katia took every precaution.

After waiting two months in Mexico to press her case for U.S. asylum, the 20-year-old student from Nicaragua arrived at the border near Tijuana three hours before the critical hearing was scheduled to start at 7:30 a.m.

But border agents didn’t even escort her into the U.S. port of entry until after 9 a.m., she said, and then she was left stranded there with a group of more than a dozen other migrants who also missed their hearings.

“We kept asking what was going on, but they wouldn’t tell us anything,” said Katia, who asked to be identified by her first name only for fear of jeopardizing her immigration case.

Bashir Ghazialam, a lawyer paid for by Katia’s aunt in the United States, convinced the judge to reschedule her case because of the transportation snafu. Later, staff at the lawyer’s office learned that at least two families in the group were ordered deported for not showing up to court.

Since it started in January, the rollout of one of the most dramatic changes to U.S. immigration policy under the Trump administration has been marked by unpredictability and created chaos in immigration courts, according to dozens of interviews with judges and attorneys, former federal officials and migrants.

The program – known as the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP) – has forced tens of thousands of people to wait in Mexico for U.S. court dates, swamping the dockets and leading to delays and confusion as judges and staff struggle to handle the influx of cases.

In June, a U.S. immigration official told a group of congressional staffers that the program had “broken the courts,” according to two participants and contemporaneous notes taken by one of them. The official said that the court in El Paso at that point was close to running out of space for paper files, according to the attendees, who requested anonymity because the meeting was confidential.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former Department of Homeland Security official under presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, said the problems are “symptomatic of a system that’s not coordinating well.”

“It’s a volume problem, it’s a planning problem, it’s a systems problem and it’s an operational problem on the ground,” said Brown, now a director at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. “They’re figuring everything out on the fly.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) estimated that 42,000 migrants had been sent to wait in Mexico through early September. That agency and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which runs the nation’s immigration courts, referred questions about the program’s implementation to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which did not respond to requests for comment.

Huge surge, few courts

The disarray is the result of a surge in migrants, most of them Central Americans, at the U.S. southern border, combined with the need for intricate legal and logistical arrangements for MPP proceedings in a limited number of courts – only in San Diego and El Paso, initially. Rather than being released into the United States to coordinate their own transportation and legal appearances, migrants in MPP must come and go across the border strictly under U.S. custody.

Some migrants have turned up in court only to find that their cases are not the system or that the information on them is wrong, several attorneys told Reuters. Others, like Katia, have received conflicting instructions.

According to court documents seen by Reuters, Katia’s notice to appear stated that her hearing was at 7:30 a.m., while another paper she received said she should arrive at the border at 9 a.m., well after her hearing was set to start. She decided to show up at the border before dawn, according to staff in her lawyer’s office. Still, she wasn’t allowed into the border facility until hours later. Ultimately she was never bussed to the San Diego court and was told her case was closed – a fate she was able to avoid only after frantically summoning her lawyer, Ghazialam, to the border.

Most migrants in MPP – including the two families who were deported from her group at the port of entry – do not have lawyers.

In open court, judges have raised concerns that migrants in Mexico – often with no permanent address – cannot be properly notified of their hearings. On many documents, the address listed is simply the city and state in Mexico to which the migrant has been returned.

Lawyers say they fear for the safety of their clients in high-crime border cities.

A Guatemalan father and daughter were being held by kidnappers in Ciudad Juarez at the time of their U.S. hearings in early July but were ordered deported because they didn’t show up to court, according to court documents filed by their lawyer, Bridget Cambria, who said she was able to get their case reopened.

Adding to uncertainty surrounding the program, the legality of MPP is being challenged by migrant advocates. An appellate court ruled here in May that the policy could continue during the legal battle, but if it is found ultimately to be unlawful, the fate of the thousands of migrants waiting in Mexico is unclear. A hearing on the merits of the case is set for next month.

‘Unrealistic’ numbers

When the MPP program was announced on December 20, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said one of its “anticipated benefits” would be cutting backlogs in immigration courts.

In the announcement, the agency said sending migrants to wait in Mexico would dissuade “fraudsters” from seeking asylum since they would no longer be released into the United States “where they often disappear” before their hearing dates.

But the immediate impact has been to further strain the immigration courts.

A Reuters analysis of immigration court data through Aug. 1 found judges hearing MPP cases in El Paso and San Diego were scheduled for an average of 32 cases per day between January and July this year. One judge was booked for 174 cases in one day.

“These numbers are unrealistic, and they are not sustainable on a long-term basis,” said Ashley Tabaddor, head of the national immigration judge’s union.

To reduce the backlog, DHS estimates the government would need to reassign more than 100 immigration judges from around the country to hear MPP cases via video conferencing systems, according to the attendees of the June meeting with congressional staff.

Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for EOIR, said that the rescheduling was necessary to deal with the substantial volume of recent cases.

All told, the courts are now struggling with more than 930,000 pending cases of all types, according to EOIR.

As of August 1, 39% of the backlog in the San Diego court and 44% of the backlog in the El Paso court was due to MPP case loads, Reuters analysis of immigration court data showed.

Despite concerns over the system’s capacity, the government is doubling down on the program.

In a July 26 notification to Congress, DHS said it would shift $155 million from disaster relief to expand facilities for MPP hearings, and would need $4.8 million more for transportation costs. DHS said that without the funding “MPP court docket backlogs will continue to grow.”

Tent courts are set to open this month in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, and so far more than 4,600 cases have been scheduled there to be heard by 20 judges, according to court data.

In Laredo, 20 to 27 tent courtrooms will provide video conferencing equipment so judges not based at the border can hear cases remotely, said city spokesman Rafael Benavides.

Brownsville’s mayor Trey Mendez said last month that about 60 such courtrooms were likely to be opened, though he had few details. City manager Noel Bernal told Reuters that communication with the federal government about the plans has been “less than ideal.”

‘Desperate people’

At her next hearing in San Diego in mid-September, Katia hopes to tell a judge how her participation in student demonstrations made her a target of government supporters.

Meanwhile, she said, she is living with her parents and 10-year-old brother in a fly-infested apartment with broken plumbing outside Tijuana.

The whole group is seeking asylum because of their support for the protests, according to Katia, her mother Simona, her lawyers, as well as court documents.

Recently, family members said they witnessed a shootout on their corner and Katia’s brother is now waking up with night terrors.

“They are playing games with the needs of desperate people,” said Simona, 46, who like Katia requested the family’s last names be withheld to avoid harming their case. “It’s soul crushing.”

Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

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Of course, Judge Couch is already well-known for his bias and hostility toward asylum seekers, particularly abused women. Why else would he have been “promoted” to the position of “Appellate Immigration Judge” by “Billy the Sycophant” Barr? Obviously, the idea is to promote bias and “worst practices” as the “nationwide norm.”

And we never should forget the spineless ineptness and complicity of Congress and the Article III Courts who are watching this travesty unfold every day while essentially looking the other way. Guess that as long as it’s somebody else “in the woodshed” these dudes can “tune out” the screams of the dehumanized. But, chances are when it’s finally their rights (or the rights of someone they “care about”) at stake, there will be nothing left of our legal and Constitutional system to protect them.

Indeed, the lawless and unconstitutional “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico Program” described here is largely the responsibility of the “above the fray” Judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who have permitted this intentionally abusive and dehumanizing program to torment refugees and their representatives with impunity.

Disgustingly, these life-tenured judges and elected representatives are lining themselves up squarely with the forces of White Nationalism and overt racism, folks like Neo-Nazi Stephen Miller.

The judicial and Congressional complicity in the abuse and torment of the most vulnerable among us and their wanton disregard for the Constitution they swore to uphold will not go unnoticed by history. This, indeed, is how democracies die and the “bad guys of the world” win.

PWS

09-11-19

“DUH” OF THE DAY: Barr Is A Trump Flunky — Leah Litman Reports @ Slate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/obstruction-case-william-barr-doj-donald-trump.html

Photo By: Kimberly April Photography www.kimberlyapril.com

Litman writes:

It took Attorney General William Barr only one week from the release of the Mueller report to bring obstruction of justice charges against two governmental officials for interfering in a federal investigation. But the charges have nothing to do with the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the election or the possible obstruction of that investigation.

Although the obstruction charges DOJ filed are not related to the Mueller report, they underscore just how far the attorney general bent over backward to spin the report in the president’s favor and how partisan the Department of Justice has become. The disparities between the two cases highlight how the Department of Justice, under Barr’s leadership, has become nothing more than a political arm of the Trump administration, particularly in its handling of possible obstruction charges stemming from the Mueller report.

The indictment against Judge Shelley Richmond Joseph, a Massachusetts district court judge, and Officer Wesley MacGregor, a Massachusetts trial court officer, alleges that the officers interfered with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement proceeding by preventing ICE from arresting an individual who was arrested on state charges and attended an arraignment hearing in state court. During the state court proceeding, Joseph asked an ICE officer to wait outside the courtroom while the court conducted the arraignment hearing. Earlier in the day, the judge had requested more information about one of the state charges in the case (a fugitive charge) after the prosecutor said the state would not seek to detain the defendant on the other charge (a drug charge).

After recalling the case, the judge observed that ICE was in the courthouse. The prosecutor then informed the court that the state did not believe the defendant was the fugitive from Pennsylvania for whom there was an arrest warrant and therefore believed that the fugitive charge was an error, which would mean that the defendant would be free to leave. The defense attorney, however, noted that ICE was convinced otherwise and suggested they would likely take the client into custody. The defense attorney then suggested that “the best thing for us to do is to … release him … and hope that he can avoid ICE.”

At that point, the judge noted the other alternative was to recall the proceedings again the next day and asked “ICE is gonna get him?” before directing the clerk to go off the record. The recording was turned off for 52 seconds, and when it resumed, the prosecutor renewed the claim that the defendant was not the person with a Pennsylvania warrant out for his arrest and moved to dismiss the fugitive charge against him. Because the state had already stated it would not seek to detain the defendant on the drug charges, the defendant was released, and the trial court officer escorted him through the back door.

This evidence provided the basis for Barr’s Department of Justice to indict the state judge and state officer for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Yet all of the reasons Barr has previously cited for opposing an obstruction investigation against the president suggest the Department of Justice should not have brought obstruction charges against Joseph and MacGregor either.

For example, in June, Barr wrote a memo as a private citizen arguing that obstruction laws should not “reach facially-lawful actions taken by the President in exercising the discretion vested in him by the Constitution.” Yet that is exactly what the obstruction-of-justice charges against Joseph and MacGregor cover. State judges do not persist with criminal charges that the district attorney has dropped, and state law does not require judges to detain individuals on the drug charges that remained. It was therefore “facially legitimate” and within the “discretion” of the judge not to detain the individual based on the drug charge. The judge also has total control of her courtroom and can decide through which doors to instruct people to come and go. And the state judge’s motive shouldn’t matter to the analysis because under Barr’s theory of obstruction, government officials can’t be charged with obstruction “based solely on his subjective state of mind” for “simply exercising his discretion in a facially lawful way.”

Or take Barr’s statement—given at a bizarre press conference just prior to the release of the Mueller report last week—that the president did not corruptly intend to obstruct the investigation because the president “was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” A similar exculpatory argument could be made on behalf of Joseph and MacGregor. They, too, may have been “frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that” ICE’s investigations and presence in state courthouses undermined the integrity of state court proceedings. Or perhaps they were frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that ICE’s enforcement efforts were the result of the president’s apparent bias and animosity toward the Latino community.

Ultimately, the Justice Department’s indictment of Joseph and MacGregor is a reminder about how aggressively the federal government often reads the federal obstruction statute. For example, the indictment confirms that obstruction does not have to be particularly sophisticated or successful in order to constitute a crime—the trial court officer merely let the defendant out the back door, and the defendant was subsequently apprehended and now faces deportation.

It also demonstrates a contrast in the kind of evidence that often suffices to establish an obstruction-of-justice charge. In the case of Joseph and MacGregor, DOJ has some snippets of a courtroom conversation that indicated the judge wanted to do something she did not want publicly recorded and less than a minute without a recording. In the case of President Donald Trump and his associates, special counsel Robert Mueller compiled dozens of witnesses, contemporaneous notes, 10 separate incidents, 182 pages of a report, multiple instances of officials lying to investigators or not being forthcoming with them, and several damning instances of the president lying in an apparent effort to cover his tracks. All of this led Barr to his four-page summary conclusion that Trump had not committed a crime—a conclusion that flew in the face of Mueller’s findings.

The stark difference between the attorney general’s treatment of the obstruction case against Joseph and MacGregor and the obstruction cases at the heart of the Mueller report serves as a pointed reminder that Barr’s response to the obstruction issues raised by the Mueller report was partisan and unprincipled.

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

Golly gee, who woulda thought that a guy who “auditioned” for his job by promising to turn the DOJ into “Trump’s personal law firm” to be used against the United States of America and its people while being paid by same USA would turn out to be exactly the type of unethical hack that he promised to be? I mean we expect Trump sycophants to lie about everything. But, Barr only lies about the law when it suits Trump’s purposes — he’s made good on his promise to help Trump degrade and destroy American democracy.

PWS0

04-27-19

Due Process Forever!

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Jeffrey Chase, an immigration lawyer and former New York immigration judge, said it’s not surprising that Esperanza and Josue would each lose asylum. Judge Spencer only started last fall and is on probation for her first two years in the job.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this posting incorrectly identified Beth’s network affiliation. She reports for WNYC.

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