"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.
BIA Asylum Panel In Action Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsDan Kowalski Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)
Dan Kowalski reports from LexisNexis Immigration Community:
“Alicia Naranjo Garcia (“Garcia”) is a native and citizen of Mexico. Garcia petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision affirming the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The Knights Templar, a local drug cartel, murdered Garcia’s husband, twice threatened her life, and forcibly took her property in retaliation for helping her son escape recruitment by fleeing to the United States. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252, and we grant the petition in part and remand. … [W]e conclude that the BIA erred in its nexus analysis for both Garcia’s asylum claim and her withholding of removal claim. We remand with instructions for the BIA to reconsider Garcia’s asylum claim, and for the BIA to consider whether Garcia is eligible for withholding of removal under the proper “a reason” standard. We deny the petition as it relates to Garcia’s claim for relief under CAT.”
This insanely nonsensical gibberish put forth by the BIA — and defended by OIL — is an insult to the entire American justice system!Obviously, EOIR and their DOJ “handlers” unethically assume that Article III Circuit Judges will just “take a dive” and defer to illegal and illogical removal orders. Because, after all, it’s only foreign nationals (mostly people of color) whose lives are at stake! Not “real human beings.” That’s exactly what “institutionalized racism” and “Dred Scottification” look like. Nothing worth breaking a sweat about in the “21st Century Jim Crow America!”
The BIA’s anti-asylum bias and massively incompetent adjudication — on life or death matters — continues to be exposed. There likely are many, many other legitimate asylum cases that are wrongfully rejected by the EOIR “denial factory.” That’s one of many reasons why the EOIR/DHS (intentionally) “cooked stats” on the bona fides of asylum seekers arriving at our Southern Border can never be trusted!
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have competent representation and get meaningful review by a Circuit panel not on “autopilot.” This is a corrupt and broken system, the continued existence of which in its current form is a repudiation of our Constitution, the rule of law, and human decency!
The Biden Administration can, and must, put an end to this ongoing national disgrace! “Any reason to deny” is not justice!
Wonder how the Georgia Law Clinic got involved in this 9th Circuit case? I have the answer, thanks to my friend Michelle Mendez, Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations @ CLINIC:
Thanks so much to CLINIC’s BIA Pro Bono Project for identifying and placing this case with the wonderful team at at University of Georgia School of Law!
Michelle Mendez Defending Vulnerable Populations Director Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (“CLINIC”)
The NDPA is everywhere! And, we’ll continue to be there until due process for all is achieved, regardless of the Administration!
As always with ICE, the question is compliance in the field. After four years of essentially random enforcement designed to terrorize communities of color in support of a White Nationalist political agenda, I would expect lots of “line resistance” to establishing a disciplined, focused enforcement program targeting real priorities, not “low hanging fruit.”
Remember that one of the ways ICE Enforcement got their jollies and built up stats during the past regime was to “sack up” long-time residents under final orders who posed no real threat to anyone, but voluntarily reported to periodic check-ins with ICE. It a far cry from picking on those seeking mercy to actually rounding up “bad guys.” Likely to cause the stats to crater for awhile. Which, of course, will set off a storm of bogus protest from the nativist right!
The union of ICE Enforcement agents purported to negotiate a bogus “agreement” with an illegally appointed Trump lackey that would have prevented the Biden Administration from changing enforcement policies. Not surprisingly, Biden officials recently trashed this outrageous piece of White Nationalist nonsense. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-officers-union-agreement-trump-homeland-security/
But, it does illustrate the formidable problems facing Secretary Mayorkas in getting control of this sprawling, rudderless, missionless “rogue agency.”
By contrast, the union representing USCIS Asylum Officers courageously stood up for the legal and constitutional rights of vulnerable refugees. They were, of course, “punished” by illegally being replaced with absurdly unqualified Border Patrol Agents. Perhaps Asylum Officers should be the future leaders at DHS. It’s certainly a mess right now!
It’s also worth noting that agents of Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) earlier tried in vain to separate themselves from ICE’s gonzo, racist “civil enforcement” realizing that the latter was a huge negative to legitimate law enforcement. So, some folks at DHS have some wisdom, sound judgement, and commitment to sane, humane law enforcement. Just not enough!
The White House announced a sweeping immigration bill Thursday that would create an eight-year path to citizenship for millions of immigrants already in the country and provide a faster track for undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.
The legislation faces an uphill climb in a narrowly divided Congress, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just a five-vote margin and Senate Democrats do not have the 60 Democratic votes needed to pass the measure with just their party’s support.
Administration officials argued Wednesday evening that the legislation was an attempt by President Joe Biden to restart a conversation on overhauling the US immigration system and said he remained open to negotiating.
“He was in the Senate for 36 years, and he is the first to tell you the legislative process can look different on the other end than where it starts,” one administration official said in a call with reporters, adding that Biden would be “willing to work with Congress.”
The effort comes as there are multiple standalone bills in Congress aimed at revising smaller pieces of the country’s immigration system. Sens. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, for example, have reintroduced their DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.
Administration officials said the best path forward and plans either to pass one bill or break it into multiple pieces would be up to Congress.
“There’s things that I would deal by itself, but not at the expense of saying, ‘I’m never going to do the other.’ There is a reasonable path to citizenship,” Biden said at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday.
“The President is committed to working with Congress to engage in conversations about the best way forward,” one administration official said.
Officials did not say if they believed that the reconciliation process, a special budget tool that applies only to a specific subset of legislation and allows the Senate to pass bills with a simple majority, would be applicable for an immigration bill. “Too early to speculate about it right now,” one official said.
The Senate is working on passing the President’s coronavirus relief legislation through reconciliation. The expectation is that the administration could also use the process to pass an infrastructure bill.
Biden’s immigration bill will be introduced by Democrats Bob Menendez of New Jersey in the Senate and Linda Sanchez of California in the House.
Read the rest of Priscilla’s & Lauren’s analysis at the link.
The White House “Fact Sheet” on the legislation is also available at the link at the end of the above excerpt.
Here’s what that summary says about the U.S. Immigration Courts:
Improve the immigration courts and protect vulnerable individuals. The bill expands family case management programs, reduces immigration court backlogs, expands training for immigration judges, and improves technology for immigration courts. The bill also restores fairness and balance to our immigration system by providing judges and adjudicators with discretion to review cases and grant relief to deserving individuals. Funding is authorized for legal orientation programs and counsel for children, vulnerable individuals, and others when necessary to ensure the fair and efficient resolution of their claims. The bill also provides funding for school districts educating unaccompanied children, while clarifying sponsor responsibilities for such children.
Support asylum seekers and other vulnerable populations. The bill eliminates the one-year deadline for filing asylum claims and provides funding to reduce asylum application backlogs. It also increases protections for U visa, T visa, and VAWA applicants, including by raising the cap on U visas from 10,000 to 30,000. The bill also expands protections for foreign nationals assisting U.S. troops.
Unfortunately, the bill does not contain the most important legislative solution: An Article I Immigration Court. Nevertheless, a separate Article I bill will be introduced in the House soon. Since the “USCA of 2021” is largely a “talking draft” anyway, there is no reason why Article I couldn’t be combined with the other changes in the bill.
While attention to improving the Immigration Courts is welcome and long overdue, I think this proposal actually misses the major point: What’s needed right now isn’t necessarily more Immigration Judges; it’s better Immigration Judges, starting, but not ending, with a replacement of the current dysfunctional Board of Immigration Appeals. Only with the improvements in the administrative case law, docket management, and “best practices” that better EOIR judges would bring could we really tell whether more judges are actually necessary.
Right now, throwing more bodies into the ungodly mess at EOIR would only create confusion and aggravate existing problems. And, while the proposal correctly spotlights woeful inadequacies in IJ training and professional development, those alone will not be enough to restore due process to a system wracked by decades of bad judicial selection practices that basically have excluded the “best and brightest” immigration experts from the private sector, those with actual experience representing individuals in Immigration Court, from the “21st Century Immigration Judiciary.”
The good news: Judge Garland won’t need legislation to get this system back on track by:
Immediately replacing the current BIA with judges who are renowned experts in immigration, human rights, and due process, with special attention to those with actual experience representing asylum seekers;
Vacating all of the improper Sessions and Barr precedents, and letting the “new BIA” straighten out the law and implement best practices, including holding IJs who are members of the “Asylum Deniers Club” accountable;
Implementing efficient merit-based judicial hiring practices which would involve public input and actively recruit from communities now underrepresented in the Immigration Judiciary;
Eventually re-competing all Immigration Judge jobs under these merit criteria, again with public input on the performance of current judges part of the process;
Replacing all of EOIR’s incompetent upper “management” with competent professional judicial administrators;
Examining the justification and “bang for the buck” in EOIR’s bloated, yet highly ineffective, headquarters operation in Falls Church with an eye toward maximizing support for the local Immigration Courts and minimizing counterproductive and politicized micromanagement and interference with the operation of local courts;
Making peace and working with the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), which is much more “on top of” the real problems in the Immigration Courts than often clueless EOIR “management” in Falls Church;
Instituting e-filing and other long overdue 21st Century judicial administration practices in the Immigration Courts;
Working cooperatively with the private bar, NGOs, ICE, and local IJs to maximize representation and improve docketing and scheduling practices.
Judge Garland has the authority to make all the foregoing changes, which will immediately improve the delivery of justice at the critical “retail level” of our justice system and make the achievement of racial justice and equal justice for all more than just “pipe dreams.” Immigrant justice is essential for racial justice!
The only question is whether Judge Garland will actually do what’s necessary. If not, he can expect some “aggressive pushback” from those of us who are fed up with the “EOIR Clown Show” 🤡🦹🏿♂️☠️ and its daily mockery of American justice!
Will John D. Trasviña Reform ICE OPLA? I Have High Hopes…
In late January 2021 John D. Trasviña was appointed Principal Legal Advisor at ICE.
Here is his ICE bio dated 1-26-21, and here is his Wikipedia entry.
Call it wishful thinking, but I hope he can revamp the ICE legal team from top to bottom and set a new direction, especially regarding who gets put into proceedings and why.
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I share your high hopes, Dan!
I dealt with John on occasion in some of my “prior incarnations,” several decades ago. Always found him thoughtful, fair, reasonable, and helpful. Most of all, he was a guy with some compassion and empathy as well as a firm grasp of the “big picture” of immigration policies and their relationship to labor, jobs, the economy, and social and racial justice. Instilling those same qualities in OPLA and ICE would be a fantastic start!
Elizabeth Gibson Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
COVID-19 & Closures
Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.
EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, March 19, 2021. There is no announced date for reopening NYC non-detained at this time.
DHS: Beginning on February 19, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will begin phase one of a program to restore safe and orderly processing at the southwest border. DHS will begin processing people who had been forced to “remain in Mexico” under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Approximately 25,000 individuals in MPP continue to have active cases.
Spectrum: The Biden administration officially rescinded the “no blanks” policy by updating guidance on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website in late January, a spokesperson confirmed to Spectrum News this week.
NBC: The White House is expected to select Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission as the executive director of the task force to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration, three sources familiar with the decision tell NBC News.
WSJ: Business groups and immigrant advocates say they are worried that a ban imposed last year on most forms of legal immigration in response to the Covid-19 pandemic could stick even as President Biden undoes many of his predecessor’s other immigration policies.
Guardian: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deported at least 72 people to Haiti [last] Monday, including a two-month-old baby and 21 other children, as the Biden administration made clear it would press on with expulsions of newly-arrived migrants, pending a review of immigration policy.
Guardian: At least 11 migrant women were dropped off in Mexican border towns without birth certificates for their days-old US citizen newborns since March of last year, an investigation by the Fuller Project and the Guardian has found.
MJ: Many of the examples of “death while waiting” that Kocher’s question prompted can’t be directly attributed to the immigration system or the United States government. Motorcycle accidents and terminal illnesses are to blame. These fatalities are not accounted for in immigration statistics. But they evoke a concept known in the social studies field as “slow violence,” a kind of structural harm that happens “gradually and out of sight” and is often hard to assign to a specific perpetrator.
TRAC: The latest available case-by-case Immigrant Court records show that immigration cases that were completed in the first four months of FY 2021 took nearly twice as long from beginning to end as cases completed in the first four months of FY 2020. Cases that were completed between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021 took, on average, 859 days compared to 436 days over the same period a year before.
NPR: In an attempt to recruit lawmakers to their cause, FAIR targeted delegations from states that were projected to lose House seats if the apportionment counts were altered to leave out unauthorized immigrants. FAIR emphasized that if successful, the lawsuit would not hurt states’ bottom lines. Unauthorized immigrants would still be counted in the census numbers used to guide the distribution of federal grants to states, just not in the counts for dividing up House seats and electoral votes.
Guardian: That sudden spike is still relatively modest compared to huge figures from fiscal year 2019, when Border Patrol apprehended more than 76,000 unaccompanied children, a trend that reached its zenith that spring.
Law360: Foreign students studying in the United States will be able to return to the U.S. automatically, despite President Joe Biden’s across-the-board travel restrictions, under a set of new exemptions laid out by the U.S. Department of State on Wednesday.
NYT: The border with Mexico extends well beyond the desert. Tighter enforcement on land has driven record numbers of migrants to attempt dangerous crossings by water.
CityLimits: Both Mario and Fernando say that on the vaccination day, the county jail doctor did not give information about the vaccine. “They didn’t inform me of anything. They just gave me a piece of paper [the vaccination card], with my ID number and my name. They didn’t even say what kind of vaccine it was,” says Fernando.
A district court extended for another 14 days the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) enjoining the government from executing a 100-day pause on the removal of individuals already subject to a final Order of Removal, as outlined in the 1/20/21 DHS memo. (State of Texas v. USA, et al., 2/8/21) AILA Doc. No. 21012634
The court issued an order staying the district court’s ruling that had enjoined the government from expelling unaccompanied children (UACs) from the U.S.-Mexico border without a hearing or asylum interview under Title 42’s public health provisions. (P.J.E.S. v. Pekoske, 1/29/21) AILA Doc. No. 21021231
Unpublished BIA decision reopens proceedings sua sponte for DACA recipient who was married to a U.S. citizen and the beneficiary of an approved visa petition. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Sanabria Rosales, 6/17/20) AILA Doc. No. 21021000
Unpublished BIA decision reopens proceedings sua sponte for respondent with TPS to adjust status under Ramirez v. Brown, 852 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2017). Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Rivas, 6/16/20) AILA Doc. No. 21020803
Unpublished BIA decision rescinds in absentia order of deportation because signature on return receipt for Order to Show Cause did not belong to respondent or a responsible person at his address. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Ramirez Flores, 6/16/20) AILA Doc. No. 21020804
Unpublished BIA decision reopens proceedings sua sponte to let respondent adjust status based on approved visa petition filed by U.S. citizen child who is active member of the military. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Oh, 6/23/20) AILA Doc. No. 21021001
Where petitioner had filed a motion to reopen and remand his case to the IJ in light of his placement by USCIS on the U visa waiting list, the court held that the BIA abused its discretion in denying the motion by failing to follow its own precedents. (Granados Benitez v. Wilkinson, 1/28/21) AILA Doc. No. 21021130
Law360: In a first-of-its-kind ruling, the First Circuit found that searches of cellphones and other electronic devices at the U.S. border do not require a warrant or probable cause and can be used to search for contraband.
Granting in part the petition for review, the court found to be unreasonable the BIA’s determination that the petitioner’s proposed particular social group (PSG) of “former Salvadoran MS-13 members” lacked particularity, and thus remanded his withholding claim. (Amaya v. Rosen, 1/25/21) AILA Doc. No. 21021131
The court held that a noncitizen who entered the United States without being “inspected and admitted or paroled” may not have their status adjusted to that of lawful permanent resident (LPR) by virtue of obtaining Temporary Protected Status (TPS). (Solorzano v. Mayorkas, 2/3/21) AILA Doc. No. 21021034
The court held that the petitioner’s conviction for the use of an unauthorized social security number in violation of 42 USC §408(a)(7)(B) was a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT), such that the petitioner was ineligible for cancellation of removal. (Munoz-Rivera v. Wilkinson, 1/27/21) AILA Doc. No. 21021133
The court held that petitioner’s credible testimony about her attempted gang rape in India was sufficient to establish past persecution, and that the BIA erred in imposing evidentiary requirements of ongoing injury or treatment beyond the attempted sexual assault. (Kaur v. Wilkinson, 1/29/21) AILA Doc. No. 21021134
Advance copy of USCIS notice extending Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) and work authorization for eligible Liberians through 6/30/22, pursuant to the memo issued by President Biden on 1/20/21. The notice will be published in the Federal Register on 2/16/21. AILA Doc. No. 21021233
Executive order issued 2/10/21 imposing sanctions on those determined to have contributed to instability in Burma, including, among other things, suspending the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of such persons. (86 FR 9429, 2/12/21) AILA Doc. No. 21021235
A number of the “Top Stories” have been covered separately on Courtside.
One that hasn’t is Michelle Hackman’s article in the WSJ about the predictable stupidity of the Trump regime’s “work visa ban.” Part of the White Nationalist restrictionist agenda, it was rolled out by Stephen Miller on the bogus pretext of “protecting American labor” during the pandemic.
However, as Michelle points out, it did nothing of the sort. What it did do, as many of us had projected, was create hardship for American employers, diminish the economy, create hardship for the potential workers and their families, but all without creating any meaningful job opportunities for American workers.
Just another of the many examples of how bad policies, based on nationalist myths, racism, and xenophobia rather than facts and realities, have many far reaching adverse effects for American and beyond.
I anticipate that at some point, the Biden Administration will resume regular issuance of work visas. When, however, is a different question.
By Julia Ainsley, Jacob Soboroff and Geoff Bennett
WASHINGTON — The White House is expected to select Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission as the executive director of the task force to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration, three sources familiar with the decision tell NBC News.
The selection of Brané, director of migrant rights and justice programs at the Women’s Refugee Commission, is welcome news to the immigration advocate community, as most of the task force is made of government officials.
“If selected, Michelle would be a fantastic choice. She would bring deep expertise on the issues and the perfect mixture of passion and common sense,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
Good news indeed!
Michelle was an Attorney Advisor at the BIA during part of my tenure as Chair, before moving on to a distinguished career in the NGO sector.
She is brilliant, tough, practical, humane, a leader, and a true pro who has been getting the job done for refugees and the most vulnerable among us for years. Michelle is just who America needs to bring expertise, organizational skills, and moral as well as intellectual leadership to a Government that has been missing those essential qualities for far, far too long!
Always satisfying to see the “best and brightest” whom I’ve worked with over my career rise to the leadership positions they deserve where they can use their skills to lead America to a better future!
Ms. McGhee is the author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” from which this essay is adapted.
Over a two-decade career in the white-collar think tank world, I’ve continually wondered: Why can’t we have nice things?
By “we,” I mean America at-large. As for “nice things,” I don’t picture self-driving cars, hovercraft backpacks or laundry that does itself. Instead, I mean the basic aspects of a high-functioning society: well-funded schools, reliable infrastructure, wages that keep workers out of poverty, or a comprehensive public health system equipped to handle pandemics — things that equally developed but less wealthy nations seem to have.
In 2010, eight years into my time as an economic policy wonk at Demos, a progressive policy research group, budget deficits were on the rise. The Great Recession had decimated tax revenue, requiring more public spending to restart the economy.
But both the Tea Party and many in President Barack Obama’s inner circle were calling for a “grand bargain” to shrink the size of government by capping future public outlays and slashing Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Despite the still-fragile recovery and evidence that corporations were already paring back retirement benefits and ratcheting down real wages, the idea gained steam.
On a call with a group of all-white economist colleagues, we discussed how to advise leaders in Washington against this disastrous retrenchment. I cleared my throat and asked: “So where should we make the point that all these programs were created without concern for their cost when the goal was to build a white middle class, and they paid for themselves in economic growth? Now these guys are trying to fundamentally renege on the deal for a future middle class that would be majority people of color?”
Nobody answered. I checked to see if I was muted.
Finally, one of the economists breached the awkward silence. “Well, sure, Heather. We know that — and you know that — but let’s not lead with our chin here,” he said. “We are trying to be persuasive.”
The sad truth is that he was probably right. Soon, the Tea Party movement, harnessing the language of fiscal responsibility and the subtext of white grievance, would shut down the federal government, win across-the-board cuts to public programs and essentially halt the legislative function of the federal government for the next six years. The result: A jobless recovery followed by a slow, unequal economic expansion that hurt Americans of all backgrounds.
The anti-government stinginess of traditional conservatism, along with the fear of losing social status held by many white people, now broadly associated with Trumpism, have long been connected. Both have sapped American society’s strength for generations, causing a majority of white Americans to rally behind the draining of public resources and investments. Those very investments would provide white Americans — the largest group of the impoverished and uninsured — greater security, too: A new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study calculated that in 2019, the country’s output would have been $2.6 trillion greater if the gap between white men and everyone else were closed. And a 2020 report from analysts at Citigroup calculated that if America had adopted policies to close the Black-white economic gap 20 years ago, U.S. G.D.P would be an estimated $16 trillion higher.
. . . .
I’ll never forget Bridget, a white woman I met in Kansas City who had worked in fast food for over a decade. When a co-worker at Wendy’s first approached her about joining a local Fight for $15 group pushing for a livable minimum wage, she was skeptical. “I didn’t think that things in my life would ever change,” she told me. “They weren’t going to give $15 to a fast food worker. That was just insane to me.”
But Bridget attended the first organizing meeting anyway. And when a Latina woman rose and described her life — three children in a two-bedroom apartment with bad plumbing, the feeling of being “trapped in a life where she didn’t have any opportunity to do anything better” — Bridget, also a mother of three, said she was struck by how “I was really able to see myself in her.”
“I had been fed this whole line of, ‘These immigrant workers are coming over here and stealing our jobs — not paying taxes, committing crimes and causing problems,’” Bridget admitted. “You know, us against them.”
Soon after she began organizing, the cross-racial movement had won a convert. “In order for all of us to come up, it’s not a matter of me coming up and them staying down,” she said. “It’s the matter of: In order for me to come up, they have to come up too. Because honestly, as long as we’re divided, we’re conquered.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
Inability to think beyond racist myths and false narratives is holding America back from realizing our full potential.
“Dividing and conquering” is the strategy of the modern GOP. If one could get behind the racist stereotypes and white resentment, rural America probably has far more in common with hard-working undocumented immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos than with elitist GOP politicos and corporate moguls — certainly more than with the notoriously lazy, dull, corrupt grifter Trump! But, the key seems to be to promote minority rule by sowing hate and distrust, thereby preventing the common good of the majority from prevailing.
While much of the “beggar thy neighbor” fear mongering comes right out of the current GOP playbook, Dems, including many in the Obama Administration, have also been guilty, as Heather points out. Just read some the alarmist stuff being put out by former Obama economic honcho Larry Summers.
And, contrary to White Nationalist myths about “job stealing,” much of American economic growth and innovation can be traced directly to immigrants, both documented and undocumented.
While most of official Washington has been focused on the Senate impeachment trial, another part of Washington is preparing the most far-ranging changes in American social policy in a generation.
The Capitol attack film was brutal. That’s why it must be watched | Francine Prose
Congress is moving ahead with Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which expands healthcare and unemployment benefits and contains one of the most ambitious efforts to reduce child poverty since the New Deal. Right behind it is Biden’s plan for infrastructure and jobs.
The juxtaposition of Trump’s impeachment trial and Biden’s ambitious plans is no coincidence.
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Trump has left Republicans badly fractured and on the defensive. The party is imploding. Since the Capitol attack on 6 January, growing numbers of voters have deserted it. State and county committees are becoming wackier by the day. Big business no longer has a home in the crackpot GOP.
This political void is allowing Biden and the Democrats, who control the White House and both houses of Congress, to respond boldly to the largest social and economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Tens of millions are hurting. A record number of American children are impoverished
Importantly, they are now free to disregard conservative canards that have hobbled America’s ability to respond to public needs ever since Ronald Reagan convinced the nation big government was the problem.
The first is the supposed omnipresent danger of inflation and the accompanying worry that public spending can easily overheat the economy.
Rubbish. Inflation hasn’t reared its head in years, not even during the roaring job market of 2018 and 2019. “Overheating” may no longer even be a problem for globalized, high-tech economies whose goods and services are so easily replaceable.
Biden’s ambitious plans are worth the small risk, in any event. If you hadn’t noticed, the American economy is becoming more unequal by the day. Bringing it to a boil may be the only way to lift the wages of the bottom half. The hope is that record low interest rates and vast public spending generate enough demand that employers will need to raise wages to find the workers they need.
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A few Democratic economists who should know better are sounding the false alarm about inflation, but Biden is wisely ignoring them. So should Democrats in Congress.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
Seems like what Democrats need to do here is follow President Biden’s lead and “keep their eyes on the ball.”
The minority of “non-Trumpist” Republicans, on the other hand, are going to have to decide where they fit in a party without values that has effectively “disowned” them in its embrace of racism, violence, insurrection, conspiracy theories, and corruption.
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) on Sunday made history with their appointments to lead two separate Senate subcommittees.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), announced Booker will chair the subcommittee on criminal justice and counterterrorism. He’s the first Black chair of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
The committee also announced Padilla will chair the subcommittee on immigration, citizenship and border safety ― the first Latino to do so. He became the first Latino senator from California last month when he took over Kamala Harris’ seat as she assumed the vice presidency.
In a statement Sunday, Padilla said he’s honored by the historic appointment, noting his roots as the “proud son of immigrants from Mexico.”
“While no state has more at stake in immigration policy than California, the entire nation stands to benefit from thoughtful immigration reform,” Padilla said. “I commit to bringing the urgency to immigration reform that this moment demands and millions of hard working immigrants have earned.”
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
“Urgency” on immigration and human rights is exactly what’s needed and has been sorely missing from Dem leadership in the past. There is nothing more “urgent” than insuring immediate comprehensive Immigration Court reform at the DOJ, eventually leading to the creation of a progressive, independent, Article I Immigration Court.
Without dramatic Immigration Court reforms, most other immigration reforms will prove to be sporadic, inconsistent, and ineffective. Somebody has to insure that the Executive Branch complies with due process and other legal requirements. That’s been totally lacking over the past four years, and has also been problematic in past Dem Administrations!
Without addressing the institutionalized dehumanization inflicted on people of color (“Dred Scottification”) by the immigration system, there will be no real racial justice in America!
Maria Sacchetti Immigration Reporter, Washington Post, Photo: WashPostArelis R. Hernandez Southern Border Reporter Washington Post, Photo: WashPost
By Maria Sacchetti and Arelis R. Hernández in WashPost:
Prominent Black lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to stop expelling migrants to nations such as Haiti that are engulfed in political turmoil, fearing that they could be harmed or killed.
Hundreds of immigrants have been swept out of the United States in recent days, a blow to groups that had been counting on President Biden and Vice President Harris, the daughter of immigrants and the first Black vice president, to halt deportations and overturn the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.
Biden attempted to pause most deportations on Jan. 20, but a federal judge temporarily blocked the move. Immigration officials say the recent removals match Biden’s new enforcement priorities — such as people who recently crossed the border or who were convicted of serious crimes — but advocates say immigrants are being sent to nations where they could face danger.
“The community should not still be in panic across this nation when we have an administration that is willing to do the work of stopping these deportations,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said Friday in a call with reporters. “They have the authority to say no more flights will leave the United States.”
Migrants who cross the border are still being removed under a Trump administration order that allowed the expulsion of recently arrived people under Title 42, Section 265, of the public health law that aims to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Advocates for immigrants tracking the flights say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has expelled approximately 900 Haitians, including dozens of children, in the past two weeks.
Advocates for immigrants say the situation is urgent, as Haiti and nations in Africa are facing varying threats. Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, has seen its democracy plunge into a constitutional crisis with allegations of a coup attempt and conflicting claims to the presidency.
. . . .
ICE deported New York resident Paul Pierrilus to Haiti on Feb. 2, even though he has never been to that country and has lived 35 of his 40 years in the United States.
He had fought deportation since 2004 after a drug conviction. His parents are of Haitian descent, but they are U.S. citizens and Pierrilus was born on the Caribbean island of St. Martin.
Haiti had never recognized him as a citizen, he said, but an immigration judge ordered him deported more than 16 years ago and he lost his appeals.
In an interview, Pierrilus described how he had to be dragged off the airplane. He wore the parka he used to wear in New York into the tropical 85-degree air. He said he is stunned and defeated.
“I’m not a Haitian citizen! I’m not a Haitian citizen!” Pierrilus recalled yelling as local officials pushed him onto a bus. “I felt helpless because it’s a situation out of my control. It’s a situation I can’t do anything about. No one is hearing what I’m saying.”
. . . .
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Read the complete article at the link.
The Pierrilus story is particularly indicative of ICE’s attitude toward people of color: If he’s black send him to Haiti, ask questions later!
Courtside was “on top” of Ed Pilkington’s recent Guardian article on deporting babies and children to total disorder and danger in Haiti.
Remember, creating an atmosphere of fear and terror in ethnic communities throughout the United States was a key priority of the Trump White Nationalist kakistocracy — with a some help from the Supremes’ majority. It has been very successful. In fact, as noted by Vice President Harris, hate crimes directed against Asian Americans are up astronomically.
But, of course, there aren’t any Asian American Justices, are there? So, out of sight out of mind for perhaps Ameria’s “least representative” court (with the possible exception of the EOIR “courts”).
I’ve consistently been making several points that others are finally starting to pick up on and that will be essential for Biden Administration policy makers to keep in mind:
The issues of racial justice and immigrant justice are deeply intertwined — one can’t be solved without addressing the other;
Dehumanization of “the other” (Black, Latino, Asian-American, women, immigrants, asylum seekers, etc.) — “Dred Scottification” — has been promoted over the past four years and essentially endorsed and furthered by a tone-deaf Supremes’ majority;
Racist attitudes and misogyny are deeply ingrained in the current DHS and EOIR (now operating as an adjunct of DHS Enforcement) enforcement mechanisms and in some of the personnel carrying out enforcement policies, including some EOIR judges;
An aura of impunity and unaccountability infects both DHS and DOJ;
Racial justice and equal justice under law will not be achieved without significant personnel and attitude changes at the “retail level” of both DHS and EOIR.
Finally, complaining is a start. But, it won’t result in the necessary systemic changes.
The only way that African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, and female lawmakers are going to get durable change is by prevailing on their colleagues to recognize the humanity of all persons in the United States and to make the necessary statutory changes in the immigration laws, beginning, but not ending, with an independent Article I Immigration Court.
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”BIA Asylum Panel In Action Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons“Justice” Star Chamber StyleKate Voigt Senior Associate Director of Government Relations AILA PHOTO: AILA
In just four years, President Trump implemented radical changes that fundamentally compromised the integrity of the immigration courts. This policy brief explains the most critical and urgent changes President Biden should make to the immigration court system to ensure fairness and impartiality.
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Download the complete policy brief at the link.
Thanks, Kate!
Great report!
I hope you have arranged to have a copy of this delivered to Judge Garland, Vanita Gupta, and Lisa Monaco. As you know better than anyone, every day the current BIA remains empowered to grossly distort and intentionally misapply the law and dish out injustice is another day of outrageous abuse for migrants and psychological harm inflicted on their representatives.
It is also essential that the folks in MPP and others applying at our borders are represented and judged according to a properly fair and generous interpretation of our asylum laws (as you point out, no more “99% denial club” assigned to Central American cases). Along with bogus “no show” rates, artificially inflated asylum denial rates have been used as key parts of the false narrative to smear and dehumanize asylum applicants at our Southern Border.
🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽⚖️👨🏻⚖️👩⚖️Due Process Forever!
Thanks again for all you and your colleagues do, and best wishes,
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday announced plans for tens of thousands of asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico for their next immigration court hearings to be allowed into the United States while their cases proceed.
The first of an estimated 25,000 asylum-seekers in Mexico with active cases will be allowed in the United States on Feb. 19, authorities said. They plan to start slowly with two border crossings each processing up to 300 people a day and a third crossing taking fewer. Administration officials declined to name them out of fear they may encourage a rush of people to those locations.
See photos from Mexico as the US immigration debate continues in a gallery at the end of this story
The move is a major step toward dismantling one of former President Donald Trump’s most consequential policies to deter asylum-seekers from coming to the U.S. About 70,000 asylum-seekers were enrolled in “Remain in Mexico,” officially called “Migrant Protection Protocols,” since it was introduced in January 2019.
On Biden’s first day in office, the Homeland Security Department suspended the policy for new arrivals. Since then, some asylum-seekers picked up at the border have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court.
. . . .
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Read the complete article and view the photo gallery of the “human side” of “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico”) at the link.
Earlier this week, Press Secretary Jen Psaki appeared to say it would take weeks if not months for the Administration to develop a plan to dismantle “Remain in Mexico.”
These are all individuals who have been previously screened and found to have a “credible fear” of persecution by a USCIS Asylum Officer. Many have been waiting for hearings for more than one year and have had their hearings postponed by EOIR time after time.
Additionally, many ofthe Immigration Judges assigned to the “Remain in Mexico” Program have notoriously high asylum denial rates, some approaching 100% denials.
I sure hope that the Pro Bono Bar is working with USCIS and EOIR to insure that all of these individuals are represented. As we know, that’s the key not only to insuring court appearances, but also to increasing the chances for success on the asylum application.
Vigorous representation of asylum seekers will also be the key to dismantling the aggressive anti-asylum, anti-due-process “jurisprudence” that the defeated regime attempted to implement at a “weaponized” EOIR. Where necessary, these cases must be litigated to the Courts of Appeals and used as examples of the pressing need for reform of the broken, unfair, and dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Courts.
For now, it remains unclear what will happen to newly arriving asylum applicants. Will they receive the “credible fear” screening to which they are legally entitled? (It appears that some families applying for asylum have been screened and released to await hearings in the U.S.) Or, will they be arbitrarily returned to harm’s way with no process at all, pursuant to Stephen Miller’s bogus “CDC border closing order” that has yet to be repealed?
Progress! But still lots of confusion at the border as a result of the defeated regime’s extralegal shenanigans!
Still, dismantling the mess Miller left behind shouldn’t be rocket science. Just common sense and using the existing legal tools to solve human problems, rather than intentionally aggravating them. But, it will take different folks (experts) in charge to make it happen!
Supremes Sign Death Warrants For Vulnerable Refugees, Trash Refugee Act of 1980Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras Artist: Monte Wolverton Reproduced under licenseA girl peers out from an encampment at the U.S.-Mexico border where she and several hundred people waited to present themselves to U.S. immigration to seek asylum. / Photo by David Maung
by Adolfo Flores and Hamed Aleaziz in BuzzFeed News:
After days of confusion about changes along the southern border, the Biden administration on Wednesday said immigrants should not try to enter the US because most will still be turned away under a Trump-era policy that has recently come under legal scrutiny.
. . . .
Confusion about who was being allowed into the US in recent days forced the administration to issue a stronger warning. Last week, reports of some families being allowed into the US after being apprehended at the border resulted in speculation that immigrants would no longer be immediately expelled and instead be allowed to fight their immigration cases from within the United States. In the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, immigration advocates have reported seeing about 100 people a day released by Customs and Border Protection. In other parts of Texas, shelters have also seen increasing numbers of immigrant families, but it is not clear why.
Attorneys and advocates who work with immigrants along the border have been bombarded with phone calls and texts about whether they should try their luck at getting into the US. Erika Pinheiro, policy and litigation director with the immigrant advocacy group Al Otro Lado, said it was “incredibly disappointing” that the Biden administration has continued to expel immigrants under the CDC order.
“We know now that the CDC order prohibiting asylum processing at the border did not arise from public health concerns but rather was part of Stephen Miller’s efforts to dismantle the US asylum system and was implemented despite opposition from CDC leadership,” Pinheiro said, referring to one of Trump’s former senior advisers. “US expulsions of asylum-seekers, including infants, constitute plain violations of domestic and international laws meant to protect vulnerable refugees. CBP absolutely has the resources to process asylum-seekers in a safe and humane way.”
The turnbacks, known as expulsions, are legally different from deportations, which would mean an immigrant had actually undergone the immigration process and found to not be legally allowed to stay in the US. Critics say the government is using the public health orders as an excuse to turn back immigrants at the border.
. . . .
“While we recognize that the Biden administration has been saddled with a lot of bad policy and structural problems, it cannot continue the Trump administration practice of turning away people in danger based on illegal policies, such as the notorious and pretextual Title 42 policy,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the ACLU.
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link.
“Go suffer and die somewhere else, out of our sight,” might not be the best message for an Administration trying to re-establish its human rights and humanitarian leadership and credentials.Ever hear of the “St. Louis Incident?” It’s always easy to find a way to “just say no” to refugees — and the consequences are seldom pretty.
Those who won’t learn from history are destined to repeat it. Refugee and forced migration situations happen in the “here and now;” they can’t be “back burnered” — no matter how much policy officials might wish otherwise. In a forced migration situation, “doing nothing” is an action that produces consequences for both the forced migrant and those who ignore their plight.
There are many daily potentially deadly and dehumanizing consequences of continuing to ignore asylum laws and Constitutional due process for asylum seekers at our Southern Border.
One predictable one: Instead of turning themselves in at the border or to the Border Patrol shortly after entry, as had been happening until Miller & co. intervened, those seeking refuge apparently have gotten the message that our legal system is and remains a sham for them. Consequently, increasingly they are simply evading the Border Patrol and disappearing into the interior with no screening whatsoever — health, legal, or background. Also, by intentionally driving people out of the legal system, the Administration is totally blowing a chance to harness and build upon one of the most powerful known facts — represented individuals with asylum hearings scheduled show up for their hearings!
According to an article in today’s Washington Post, the estimated number of so-called “get always” — actually human beings seeking refuge — hit 1,000 on Sunday.
Sure, there are many aspects of this problem. But, it has been “out there” for nearly a year!
Sure seems to me that with the right experts in charge, including folks like Lee Gelernt and Erika Pinhero, this issue could and should have been addressed more constructively and with much more urgency by the Biden Administration by now. Why not harness the expertise and proven problem solving abilities of folks like Lee, Erika, and many other members of the New Due Process Army rather than fighting with and resisting them?
Instead, it looks like time and resources will continue to be wasted on forcing policy changes through litigation. Meanwhile, vulnerable asylum seekers and their families will continue to suffer as illustrated by this recent article from HuffPost about the human consequences for those caught up in the Government’s scofflaw border policies.
NOTE TO PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: Sorry, Jen, but those fleeing for their lives don’t generally respond well to “don’t come right now, we don’t want you” messages, particularly from folks who have never been in that situation themselves. It’s actually pretty insulting to think that folks fleeing to the U.S. 1) aren’t smart enough to know the dangers involved; 2) don’t realize that the the U.S. Government doesn’t want them; and/or 3) have choices about their travel as Jen and her buddies might have when planning a summer vacation.
As one of my esteemed colleagues once told me: “Desperate people do desperate things.” What about people who keep repeating the same policy mistakes over and over while expecting different results and failing to grasp either the absolute urgency or the human side of forced migration issues? It’s sort of like going to the emergency room with a burst appendix and being told, “Why don’t you just sit in the waiting room until we doctors figure out what to do? Get back to you later!”
Somewhere out there, Stephen Miller must be gloating about how he totally outsmarted and outflanked the Biden Team!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Oh, when will they ever learn, when will they learn?
PWS
02-11-21
UPDATE: THE CONTINUING REAL TRAUMA CAUSED BY THE “REMAIN IN MEXICO PROGRAM” (A/K/A “LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO”) WHILE THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “STUDIES” THEIR NEXT MOVE:
Emily Green writes in Vice, as reposted in ImmigrationProf Blog:
From Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom:
I fervently hope that the Court’s intervention will not worsen the Nation’s COVID crisis. But if this decision causes suffering, we will not pay. Our marble halls are now closed to the public, and our life tenure forever insulates us from responsibility for our errors. That would seem good reason to avoid disrupting a State’s pandemic response. But the Court forges ahead regardless, insisting that science-based policy yield to judicial edict.
Justice Elena Kagan Photo: Mike Ball Creative Commons License
Ruth Marcus writes about U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in WashPost:
. . . .
Still, Jackson, named to the district court by Obama in 2013, brings to the bench an intriguing — and for the Democratic Party’s restless progressives, attractive — piece of career diversity as well: experience as a public defender.
No current Supreme Court justice has the perspective of having been a public defender, representing indigent defendants, although several — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor and Brett M. Kavanaugh, in his role as associate independent counsel — have prosecutorial experience.
For Jackson, the daughter of two public school teachers (her father later became a lawyer), the criminal justice system has an unusually personal wrinkle as well: Her uncle was convicted of a low-level drug crime when she was a senior in high school, and was sentenced to life in prison under a draconian three-strikes law. (He had been convicted previously of two minor offenses.) He ended up receiving clemency from Obama after serving three decades.
She also brings the real-world perspective of a working mother. In a remarkably candid speech at the University of Georgia in 2017, Jackson described the challenges she encountered juggling private practice at a major law firm, marriage to a surgeon and motherhood to two young daughters.
“I think it is not possible to overstate the degree of difficulty that many young women, and especially new mothers, face in the law firm context,” she observed. “The hours are long; the workflow is unpredictable; you have little control over your time and schedule; and you start to feel as though the demands of the billable hour are constantly in conflict with the needs of your children and your family responsibilities.” How refreshing to hear from a self-confessed non-Superwoman.
. . . .
But a more obscure ruling, involving William Pierce, a deaf D.C. man who was imprisoned for 51 days after a domestic dispute, may offer more insight into Jackson’s belief in law as a mechanism for achieving justice. Corrections officials did nothing to accommodate Pierce’s disability, as the law requires, ignoring his repeated requests for a sign-language interpreter.
Jackson assailed prison officials’ “willful blindness regarding Pierce’s need for accommodation.” She said it was “astonishing” for D.C. to claim that it had done enough, when “prison employees took no steps whatsoever” to figure out how to help him. And she took the unusual step of ruling for Pierce even before trial.
You can learn a lot about a judge by the way she handles the biggest-profile cases, involving those at the highest levels of government. But perhaps the more revealing test is how she applies the law to help those with the least power and the greatest need for justice.
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Washington D.C. Official Photo Creative Commons License
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Read the full articles at the above links. “Willful blindness” and intentional abuses intended to “dehumanize” are daily occurrences in our warped and broken “immigration justice system” as almost any immigration/human rights/civil rights lawyer could tell you. It just operates below the radar screen, on the border, or in foreign countries (to which vulnerable humans seeking legal refuge are arbitrarily and capriciously “orbited”) where the very human trauma, torture, sickness, desolation, despair, and death are “out of sight, out of mind” to most Federal Judges and Justices.
Yes, eventually journalists and historians will document for posterity the disastrous human rights abuses in which the Federal Judiciary is complicit. But, by then it will be far too late for those who have suffered and died while those in black robes shirked their legal and moral duties!
Judge Jackson understands exactly what’s missing from today’s all too often elitist, non-diverse, non-representative Federal Judiciary (including much of the Immigration Judiciary) who are tone-deaf to, and insulated from, responsibility for the human trauma and injustice caused by their bad decisions.
Additionally, I can assure Justice Kagan that vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers (including children) have died and unnecessarily suffered lifetime trauma from the Supremes’ willful failure to enforce the Constitution against overt Executive tyranny in cases involving the “Remain in Mexico” (“Let ‘Em Die In Mexico”) Program, return of asylum seekers to torture and death with no due process whatsoever, and the “Muslim Ban.”
Indeed, the Supremes’ majority’s abdication of responsibility in the latter case led directly to Trump’s eventual insurrection against the Capitol. He was assured early on by Roberts and others that he was above the Constitution, uncountable, and exempt from normal conventions governing human decency and treatment of the most vulnerable among us in the 21st Century. I/O/W, “Dred Scottification” of the “other”— a 21st Century “Jim Crow Regime” — was A-OK with the GOP Supremes’ majority “forever insulat[ed] . . . from responsibility for [their] errors.”
Today in particular, our nation still struggles with the sense of impunity and unaccountability improperly conferred by a dilatory Supremes’ majority on their party and its leader. Insurrection, violence, attempted overthrow of democracy — it’s all “no problem” to a tone-deaf Supremes’ majority unconcerned with the fate of our democracy.
After all, the Trump’s magamoron rioters weren’t storming their marble halls — just those of the supposedly co-equal branch across the street. But, what might have happened if they had actually stood up against Trump? He might have identified them as “the enemy” and sent his rioters their way! Worth thinking about, Oh Cloistered Ones far removed from the pain and suffering you help cause and countenance!
A better judiciary 🧑🏽⚖️👨🏻⚖️👩⚖️ for a better America! Bring on the “practical scholars” and those with actual experience representing the mostly vulnerable among us (asylum seekers are a prime example) in court.
Elizabeth Gibson Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
COVID-19 & Closures
Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.
EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, February 19, 2021 (There has been no change in two weeks, but news may still come later today). There is no announced date for reopening NYC non-detained at this time.
WaPo: President Biden signed executive actions Tuesday ordering the review and potential reversal of the Trump administration’s deterrent policies along the Mexico border and the barriers they created to legal immigration, calling his predecessor’s actions “very counterproductive to our security.” The directives also create an interagency task force to reunite families separated by former president Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” border crackdown.
WaPo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to issue new guidelines to agents this week that could sharply curb arrests and deportations, as the Biden administration attempts to assert more control over an agency afforded wide latitude under President Donald Trump, according to internal memos and emails obtained by The Washington Post.
U.S. News: Neither ICE nor Customs and Border Protection will conduct immigration enforcement actions at vaccination sites and clinics, the agency said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will work to set up fixed facilities, pop-up locations and temporary vaccination sites, including mobile vaccination clinics, DHS said.
NPR: The Biden administration is ending agreements with the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that the Trump administration said were meant to help drive down the number of migrants seeking asylum at the U.S. border.
CBS: In the order, Mr. Biden called for an expansion of the decades-old U.S. refugee program, which was gutted by former President Trump, who frequently portrayed refugees as economic and security risks. After former President Obama set a 110,000-person ceiling before leaving office, Mr. Trump slashed it every fiscal year, allocating a historically low 15,000 spots in 2020.
Politico: Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed on Tuesday to serve as secretary of Homeland Security, putting him in charge of carrying out the Biden administration’s immigration agenda and tackling national security concerns.
NYT: A State Department official said in federal court last month that, as of Dec. 31, more than 380,000 immigrant visa applicants were awaiting a consular interview. Immigration experts said it would take up to a year under normal circumstances to work through that many applications.
Buzzfeed: Mexico’s foreign ministry said the country continues to accept Central American nationals expelled by US border officers, but that there had been some changes at the local level in the last few days. The department said this was due to the implementation of the child protection law.
USA Today: The number of unaccompanied immigrant minors arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico is on a steep rise, posing an early challenge to ambitious plans by President Joe Biden to loosen immigration rules.
Gothamist: Immigration and Customs Enforcement says its detention center at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey is about 50% over capacity, raising concerns about the spread of the coronavirus as lawyers continue to struggle to get medically-compromised immigrants out of detention.
WaPo: Mexican police participated in a massacre last month that left 19 people dead, including at least 13 who appear to have been Guatemalan migrants on their way to the United States, a state prosecutor said late Tuesday.
ABC: U.S. federal prosecutors have filed motions saying that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández took bribes from drug traffickers and had the country’s armed forces protect a cocaine laboratory and shipments to the United States.
Vox: The Court planned to hear two cases — now known as Mayorkas v. Innovation Law Lab and Biden v. Sierra Club — which questioned the legality of anti-immigration policies put in place during the Trump administration.
But the Biden administration rescinded one of these policies and drastically curtailed the other, and asked the justices to remove arguments in both Innovation Law Lab and Sierra Club from its calendar in light of these policy changes.
NYLAG: In a significant victory for open government advocates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that people can sue to enforce the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requirement that federal agencies post certain documents online so that they are accessible to the public. The decision was issued in New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) v. Board of Immigration Appeals, in which Public Citizen Litigation Group served as lead counsel along with NYLAG as co-counsel.
Unpublished BIA decision reopens proceedings sua sponte for respondent from Haiti to adjust status through U.S. citizen wife following reentry under grant of advance parole. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Pierre, 6/11/20) AILA Doc. No. 21020501
Unpublished BIA decision equitably tolls MTR deadline and terminates proceedings against respondent whose convictions where vacated due to misconduct by a chemist working in the state drug lab. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Santiago, 6/10/20) AILA Doc. No. 21020500
Unpublished BIA decision remands for consideration of request for administrative closure in light of intervening decision in Zuniga Romero v. Barr (4th Cir. 2019), to seek provisional unlawful presence waiver. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Ventura Santizo, 6/9/20) AILA Doc. No. 21020402
Unpublished BIA decision rescinds in absentia order entered by Orlando immigration court where NTA indicated that hearing would be held in Miami. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Marrero Soca, 6/5/20) AILA Doc. No. 21020401
Unpublished BIA decision rescinds in absentia order because NTA was sent to UPS mailbox that respondent was no longer renting. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of Kiss, 6/2/20) AILA Doc. No. 21020400
ASISTA: The 1st Circuit found that the BIA had abused its discretion in failing to follow Matter of Sanchez-Sosa in adjudicating the U visa petitioner’s Motion to Reopen and ordered remand. Click on the links to access the Amicus Brief and the Decision.
President Biden issued an Executive Order revoking certain past presidential actions on refugee admissions and resettlement; directing government agencies to take steps to improve URSAP; to complete a review of SIV programs; and to submit a report on climate change and its impact on migration. AILA Doc. No. 21020530
On 2/2/21, the White House issued an executive order to implement a comprehensive three-part plan for safe, lawful, and orderly migration across the southern border, as well as to review the MPP program. The order also directs a series of actions to restore the asylum system. (86 FR 8267, 2/5/21) AILA Doc. No. 21020237
On 2/2/21, the White House issued an executive order requiring agencies to conduct a review of recent regulations, policies, and guidance that have set up barriers to our legal immigration system, and ordering immediate review of agency actions on public charge inadmissibility. (86 FR 8277, 2/5/21) AILA Doc. No. 21020235
On 2/2/21, the White House issued an executive order establishing a task force to reunite families that remain separated and also revokes the Trump administration’s executive order that sought to justify separating children from their parents (EO 13841). (86 FR 8273, 2/5/21) AILA Doc. No. 21020236
CBP announced that, effective February 2, 2021, it is enforcing the requirement that travelers wear face masks at all air, land, and sea ports of entry. The new requirement applies to all persons older than two years of age, with limited exceptions, and will remain in effect until further notice. AILA Doc. No. 21020432
CUNY Immigration Seminar Series, Spring 2021: Feb 5: Holding Fast, Feb 19: Hyper Education, Mar 5: Citizenship Reimagined, Mar 12: The President and Immigration Law, Mar 26: The Browning of the New South, Apr 9: Reuniting Families, Apr 23: Represented But Unequal, Apr 30: Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era.
