Tag: Biden Southern Border Strategy

🗽“RAPID PROCESSING” BY DHS WORKING FOR WHITE REFUGEES @ SOUTHERN BORDER! — WHY NOT ALSO FOR REFUGEES OF COLOR WHO HAVE WAITED MONTHS OR YEARS FOR JUSTICE?⚖️

 

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/story/2022-04-06/cbp-ukrainians-pedwest

Roughly 2,300 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion are currently waiting in Tijuana, according to the mayor’s office

BY KATE MORRISSEY, ALEXANDRA MENDOZA

Kate Morrissey
Kate Morrissey
Immigration & Human Rights Reporter
San Diego Union Tribune

APRIL 6, 2022 1:33 PM PT

Customs and Border Protection officials are now processing Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion of their country at the San Diego-Tijuana border through a pedestrian crossing that remains closed to the general public.

The move, according to volunteers helping the Ukrainians and the Tijuana mayor’s office, is to speed up how many Ukrainians border officials can process in a day. PedWest, the pedestrian crossing at the western end of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, has been closed to general traffic for the past two years.

At around 6 a.m. Wednesday morning, a busload of Ukrainians arrived at El Chaparral plaza on the south side of the crossing. That is where a camp of hundreds of mostly Central American and Mexican asylum seekers were camped for months, waiting for the Biden administration to open processing for refugee screenings. Mexican authorities bulldozed the camp in February, and the Biden administration has said that asylum processing won’t resume until May 23, with the exception of the Ukrainians.

. . . .

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

The rest of the story is at the link.

I’ve been advocating (obviously unsuccessfully) for this type of preferred processing of asylum applicants to be applied to ALL NATIONALITIES, regardless of race or ethnicity, in advance of the May 23 date for the end of the Title 42 charade. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/04/02/%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f-cdc-announces-end-of-covid-bar-but-only-7-weeks-from-now-compare-what-dhs-should-have-said-with-what-they-did-say-with-51/

DHS, with the assistance of NGOs, UNHCR, and other volunteers from the human rights community can screen those waiting over the next six weeks to insure that applicants with the strongest claims are moved to the front of the line in advance or even admitted under an “exception” (DHS seems to be able to invent these at their whim) before May 23.

That’s the way to establish an orderly, fair, and humane transition back to the rule of law at all border ports of entry!  

Additionally, because Garland has basically abdicated his duty to restructure and restaff the Immigration Courts to provide fair, positive interpretations of what asylum cases should be granted and to establish practical evidentiary and proof standards, the Asylum Office can work with the UNHCR and asylum experts to fill the gap. 

While the BIA might be intentionally short on positive asylum guidance, there are plenty of decent Circuit decisions and some unpublished IJ decisions out there that point the way toward a fair, generous, functional legal asylum system that will actually fulfill the humanitarian promise of older precedents. Cases such as the Supreme’s decision in Cardoza Fonseca; the BIA’s complimentary positive guidance in cases like Matter of Mogharrabi, Matter of Kasinga, Matter of O-Z- & I-Z-, and Matter of A-R-C-G-; and the regulations establishing a “presumption of future persecution” based on past persecution all point the way toward a much more generous, practical, and humane interpretation and application of U.S. asylum law. 

Honest interpretations of asylum law disgracefully fell into disuse as the Trump regime improperly “weaponized” the Immigration Courts against asylum seekers and attempted to replace qualified Asylum Officers with patently unqualified Border Patrol Agents. But, despite a lackadaisical performance to date, the Biden Administration still has a golden opportunity to reverse the mistakes of the past and to lead the way to a better future. Whether they will take that opportunity remains to be seen! 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-07-22

Related posts:

  1. 👍🏼🗽⚖️🙂🇺🇸BREAKING: IN A STUNNING REVERSAL, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL BEGIN DISMANTLING “REMAIN IN MEXICO” PROGRAM BY SCREENING & ADMITTING THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN AWAITING ASYLUM HEARINGS! — Processing To Begin On Feb. 19!
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. ☹️”TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE” — Asylum Seekers Stranded In Mexico See Promise To Lift Title 42 Blockade With Mixture Of Hope, Skepticism, & Confusion! — Under Trump, & Now Biden, U.S. Human Rights Laws & Our Constitution Have Become “Game Of Whack A Mole!” — Human Lives & The Rule Of Law A “Joke” To Border Patrol Agents!
  4. 😰NO HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR FAMILIES IN “THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG”☠️⚰️ — As Kakistocracy Of War Criminals 🤮🏴‍☠️ Departs, Will President Biden Have The Wisdom & Guts To Move Beyond “The Dem Border Alarmists” & Get The Progressive Leaders 🦸🏽‍♂️⚖️ From The NDPA In Place To Bring Due Process & Order To The Border?🗽🇺🇸

☹️”TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE” — Asylum Seekers Stranded In Mexico See Promise To Lift Title 42 Blockade With Mixture Of Hope, Skepticism, & Confusion! — Under Trump, & Now Biden, U.S. Human Rights Laws & Our Constitution Have Become “Game Of Whack A Mole!” — Human Lives & The Rule Of Law A “Joke” To Border Patrol Agents!

Whack-A-Mole
The Biden Administration’s vision for asylum seekers is a game of chance with the odds rigged heavily against them.
Circus Circus Reno – 2021-11-14 – Sarah Stierch 05.jpg
Creative Commons License
Emily Green
Emily Green
Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist
PHOTO: Twitter

 

Emily Green reports for Vice News:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3abwb9/title-42-mexico-migrants-stuck

REYNOSA, Mexico — A 2-1/2 year old boy dragged an oversized suitcase along the sidewalk excitedly, on the edge of a cramped migrant encampment straddling the U.S.-Mexico border. Every few seconds, he looked behind him to make sure his parents were still there. But the boy wasn’t going anywhere, and the suitcase was empty, much like the yearned-for promise of being finally allowed to enter the United States. The boy, born in Brazil, and his parents, from Haiti, have spent five months living in a tent just feet from the U.S. border.

“We will stay here until we can go to the other side,” the boy’s father said.

On April 1, the Biden administration announced that on May 23, it will rescind Title 42, the pandemic-era, public-health policy that allowed for the automatic expulsion of more than a million migrants to Mexico and other countries. The policy is why the little boy and his parents hadn’t sought asylum. They’re scared that if they crossed into the U.S. and asked for protection, they’ll be deported to Haiti. They instead opted to wait in Reynosa, despite its reputation as one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.

World News

The US Admitted a Group of Russians at the Border Under Secret Deal With Mexico

DAVID NORIEGA, DAVID MORA

03.28.22

The repeal of the Trump-era rule is expected to trigger an influx of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border. Already, around 2,500 people are living in the public plaza here at the edge of the border, their tents packed together so tightly there’s barely room to walk. While the policy change won’t take effect for a month and a half, the response on both sides of the international line couldn’t be more different.

In the U.S., officials are busy expanding border facilities and sending more personnel to staff emergency operations. In Mexico meanwhile, most of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who’ve been waiting for months to cross legally at a port of entry have received no information from authorities and seem completely in the dark about what’s to come. There are no guidelines for who gets to enter first, nor instructions about when and where to cross, or even a line to sign up for.

Compounding the confusion, many of the migrants have no idea why they were denied entry to the U.S to request asylum in the first place. They have only the vaguest notion of Title 42, and what its repeal could mean for them. The information they have largely comes via word of mouth, which human smugglers frequently spin to sell their services.

But migrants may be headed towards disappointment as Title 42 winds down and another restrictive immigration policy is likely ramped up.

World News

The US Admitted a Group of Russians at the Border Under Secret Deal With Mexico

DAVID NORIEGA, DAVID MORA

03.28.22

Jacki, a Honduran woman who has spent six months in the encampment with her four-year-old daughter, learned of Title 42’s end through a reporter (not this one). Jacki and the other migrants interviewed for this story declined to provide their last names. “We are all excited… but… I don’t know,” Jacki said. “It’s too good to be true.”

She may be right. Department of Homeland Security officials said that in the wake of winding down Title 42, it will increase its use of the policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols, or “Remain in Mexico,” which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are decided. It’s possible that asylum seekers stranded in some of Mexico’s most dangerous border cities by Title 42 could finally enter the U.S. and ask for protection, only to be returned to Mexico under Remain in Mexico.

The Biden administration has also expanded “Remain in Mexico” to include Haitians, who make up the fastest-growing group of migrants in Reynosa. Even with Title 42 gone, gaining legal entry into the U.S. is uncertain at best.

For migrants, U.S. immigration policy can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. From Feb. 2021 to Dec. 2021, during Biden’s first year in office, immigration agents allowed roughly 29 percent of migrants encountered at the southern border to enter the U.S. and plead their case before an immigration judge, according to the American Immigration Council, which advocates on behalf of migrants. The rest were summarily expelled under Title 42 to Mexico or another country, or sent to ICE detention.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Emily’s article at the link.

The way to start breaking backlogs and restoring confidence in the rule of law is to identify and prioritize asylum grants! 

That’s precisely the opposite of the misguided border policies that Administrations of both parties have followed for the past two decades: Move unrepresented individuals to the front of the line and issue lots of bogus in absentias and hasty denials in a perverted, and highly ineffective, attempt to use our legal system as a “deterrent” and to “send don’t come messages.”

The Biden Administration should have a team of trained Refugee Officers and Asylum Officers in Mexico, now, working with pro bono advocates and NGOs to identify and “pre-process/pre-approve” asylum cases that can be granted on May 23 or shortly thereafter. That would start clearing out the camps in Mexico, reducing processing backlogs, and lessening pressure on the Immigration Courts. Incidentally, it would also provide needed potential legal workers for the U.S. economy.

It would also establish the credibility of the asylum processing program (something now in tatters) at legal ports of entry. That, in turn, would incentivize individuals to use orderly asylum processing rather than being lured by smugglers into attempting dangerous irregular entries. 

A major overlooked fact in the restrictionist babble (disgustingly repeated even by some Administration officials and Dem politicos) about “illegal border crossings” is that the U.S. has had no transparent legal asylum system at ports of entry for years. Our Government’s failure, has empowered smugglers, encouraged irregular entry, and endangered asylum seekers. Amazingly, despite years of bad faith, dishonesty, and insulting “die elsewhere” racist messages, tens of thousands of individuals have waited patiently on the Mexican side of the Southern Border, in horrid and life-threatening conditions, for appointments, hearings, and adjudications that have never happened and that are often biased and unfair on those occasions when they did take place.  

The Biden Administration should also be working in Mexico with NGOs to provide accurate information (NOT “stay home and die” propaganda) about the U.S. Asylum program, the legal documentation requirements, opportunities for representation and counseling, and what will happen after May 23. Given the lack of honesty, transparency, accuracy, and humanity in many “official” USG pronouncements, it’s no wonder desperate folks seek information and guidance elsewhere.

An essential part of the foregoing is to establish officially-maintained prioritized processing lists for ports of entry. As noted in Emily’s article, informal “do it yourself” lists are being maintained by unofficial and unregulated “gatekeepers.” This has been a key reason why the U.S. system lacks credibility and orderliness.

It’s not “rocket science.” 🚀 But, as usual, when it comes to immigration, human rights, and equal justice, the Biden Administration lacks dynamic expert leadership, a positive vision of immigration, and the ability to “pick off the low hanging fruit.”  

As I have pointed out before, in the absence of a plan, the best hope for an orderly transition to a restored legal asylum program might well be NGOs and volunteers who could step in where the Administration is failing! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/04/02/%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f-cdc-announces-end-of-covid-bar-but-only-7-weeks-from-now-compare-what-dhs-should-have-said-with-what-they-did-say-with-51/

🗽🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-06-22

Related posts:

  1. 👍🏼🗽⚖️🙂🇺🇸BREAKING: IN A STUNNING REVERSAL, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL BEGIN DISMANTLING “REMAIN IN MEXICO” PROGRAM BY SCREENING & ADMITTING THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN AWAITING ASYLUM HEARINGS! — Processing To Begin On Feb. 19!
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  4. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies

🗽⚖️ CDC ANNOUNCES END OF “COVID BAR” — BUT ONLY 7 WEEKS FROM NOW — COMPARE WHAT DHS SHOULD HAVE SAID WITH WHAT THEY DID SAY — WITH 51 DAYS TO GO & COUNTING, CAN ADVOCATES & NGOs SAVE THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FROM ITSELF?

The CDC Announcement:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cdcresponse/Final-CDC-Order-Prohibiting-Introduction-of-Persons.pdf

What DHS SHOULD have said about reinstitution of our legal asylum system at the border:

“The Department of Homeland Security works to secure and manage our borders while building, maintaining, and improving a fair and orderly immigration system. That includes a fair and timely system for granting asylum or other forms of refuge from persecution or torture to qualified applicants. Insuring legal protection for refugees is a critical part of DHS’s mission of administering and enforcing the laws.

Violence, political upheaval, war, genocide, religious intolerance, racism, food insecurity, poverty, femicide, child abuse, environmental disasters, rampant corruption, and prospects of starvation in several areas around the world are driving unprecedented levels of migration to our Southwest Border. The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved the temporary suspension of our system for legal immigration, including admission of asylees and other refugees, has only exacerbated these challenges. A number of sources, including human smuggling organizations, peddle misinformation about entering the United States or coming to our borders.

With the restoration of our legal immigration system on the horizon, only two groups of foreign nationals will generally qualify for admission at our borders: first, those in possession of visas or equivalent documents usually issued by U.S. consular officers abroad; and second, those who can establish that they qualify for asylum or other forms of legal protection from return to persecution and/or torture.

Under our laws, asylum can only be granted to those reasonably fearing harm because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Other foreign nationals facing harm not amounting to “torture” in their home countries will not be eligible for admission under our laws. Those who apply or are apprehended at or near the border and cannot show a “credible fear” of harm because of one of the foregoing grounds will be summarily removed from our country.

In short, if you do not have a valid visa or a bona fide claim for asylum or other legal protection, you should not make the journey to the U.S. border. You will be apprehended and summarily returned to your home country in accordance with our laws.

DHS is implementing a comprehensive strategy to address a potential increase in the number of border encounters. That strategy includes:

  1. Acquiring and deploying many more trained Asylum Officers to legal ports of entry to promptly decide “credible fear” cases for asylum seekers;
  2. Delivering a more efficient, fair, and timely asylum process by allowing Asylum Officers to grant credible, well-documented claims at the border;
  3. Working with NGOs, legal aid groups, and local governments to provide legal counseling and representation to those seeking asylum;
  4. Working with NGOs, religious organizations, and other social services entities in the U.S. to assist in orderly resettlement of those granted asylum or whose cases cannot be timely processed at the border;
  5. Processing and removing those who do not have valid claims; and
  6. Working with the UNHCR, NGOs, and other countries globally to manage migration and address root causes.

With the restoration of a fair and timely asylum and protection processing system at our legal ports of entry, all asylum applicants should apply in an orderly fashion only at those ports. That will be the safest, most efficient way of applying, offer the greatest opportunities for legal representation, and increase the chances of timely, legal admission into the United States for those who are qualified.

Those who attempt to avoid legal processing at ports of entry by unauthorized entry may well find their lives endangered by unscrupulous smugglers. Additionally, those who attempt to avoid the legal process available at ports of entry might subject themselves to detention, additional grounds for removal, bars on future reentry, and criminal prosecution. With the return of full legal immigration and improved asylum processing to ports of entry, DHS will be able to devote more enforcement resources to locating and apprehending those attempting irregular entry into the U.S. DHS will also target human smuggling operations.

There is broad agreement that our immigration system is fundamentally broken. The Biden-Harris Administration continues to call on Congress to pass legislation that holistically addresses the root causes of migration, fixes the immigration system, and strengthens legal pathways.”

Compare the above with what DHS ACTUALLY said:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/03/30/fact-sheet-dhs-preparations-potential-increase-migration

FACT SHEET: DHS Preparations for a Potential Increase in Migration

Release Date: March 30, 2022

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works to secure and manage our borders while building a fair and orderly immigration system. The CDC has announced that, on May 23, 2022, its Title 42 public health Order will be terminated. As a result, beginning on May 23, 2022, DHS will no longer process families and single adults for expulsion pursuant to Title 42. Instead, DHS will process them for removal under Title 8. Until May 23, 2022, the CDC’s Title 42 Order remains in place, and DHS will continue to process families and single adults pursuant to the Order.

Under Title 8, those who attempt to enter the United States without authorization, and who are unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States (such as a valid asylum claim), are subject to additional long-term consequences beyond removal from the United States, including bars to future immigration benefits.

DHS is implementing a comprehensive strategy to address a potential increase in the number of border encounters.

The strategy includes: 1) Acquiring and deploying resources to address increased volumes; 2) Delivering a more efficient and fair immigration process; 3) Processing and removing those who do not have valid claims; and 4) Working with other countries in the Western Hemisphere to manage migration and address root causes.

Violence, food insecurity, poverty, and lack of economic opportunity in several countries in the Western Hemisphere are driving unprecedented levels of migration to our Southwest Border. The devastating economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the region has only exacerbated these challenges. Human smuggling organizations peddle misinformation that the border is open. DHS is implementing a comprehensive strategy to address a potential increase in the number of border encounters.

There is broad agreement that our immigration system is fundamentally broken. The Biden-Harris Administration continues to call on Congress to pass legislation that holistically addresses the root causes of migration, fixes the immigration system, and strengthens legal pathways.
1. Acquiring and deploying resources to address increased volumes.

Developed an integrated and scalable plan to activate and mobilize resources.
DHS initiated a Southwest Border contingency planning effort last fall. Last month, the Secretary designated a Senior Coordinating Official and established the Southwest Border Coordination Center (SBCC) to coordinate planning, operations, engagement, and interagency support.

Ready to surge personnel and resources to the Southwest Border.
DHS has moved officers, agents, and DHS Volunteer Force personnel to rapidly decompress points along the border and more efficiently process migrants.

Increasing CBP temporary holding capacity to process high volumes of individuals in a humane manner.
CBP has mobilized resources to rapidly stand up, expand, and/or reinforce Central Processing Centers in order to provide more efficient end-to-end processing for migrants encountered at the Southwest Border. Additionally, more ICE staff will be deployed to the border to facilitate processing.

Utilized appropriated resources to improve border processing
In its FY22 appropriations bill, Congress provided an additional $1.45 billion for a potential Southwest Border surge, including $1.06 billion for CBP soft-sided facilities, medical care, transportation, and personnel costs; $239.7 million for ICE for processing capacity, transportation, and personnel costs; and $150 million for FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program at the Southwest Border. Earlier this week, President Biden submitted to Congress its FY23 Budget, which would fund the hiring of 300 new Border Patrol Agents and 300 new Border Patrol Processing Coordinators.

While the 2022 appropriation exceeded the request and represents a historic funding level for DHS, the appropriation would not be sufficient to fund the potential resource requirements associated with the current increase in migrant flows. DHS will fund operational requirements by prudently executing its appropriations; reprioritizing and reallocating existing funding through reprogrammings and transfers; requesting support from other Federal agencies; and finally, by engaging with Congress on any potential need for supplemental appropriations, as necessary.

Implementing COVID mitigation measures
The health and safety of the DHS workforce, communities, and migrants themselves is a top priority. CBP provides PPE to migrants who cannot be expelled under the CDC’s Title 42 order or are awaiting processing from the moment they are taken into custody, and migrants are required to keep masks on at all times. CBP also works with appropriate agencies that facilitate testing, isolation, and quarantine of migrants.

DHS has also been providing the COVID-19 vaccines to noncitizens in ICE custody since summer 2021. Beginning March 28, 2022, DHS expanded those efforts to cover migrants in CBP custody, so as to further safeguard public health and ensure the safety of border communities, the workforce, and migrants. These efforts will be ramped up over the next two months, to cover the majority of noncitizens taken into CBP custody.

In addition, DHS is putting in place decompression plans to protect against the kind of overcrowding that facilitates the spread of COVID-19.

2. Delivering a more efficient and fair immigration process.

Issued rule to expedite asylum claims.
On March 24, 2022, DHS and the Department of Justice issued a rule to improve and expedite processing of asylum claims made by recently arriving noncitizens, which provides for the expeditious granting of relief to those who have valid claims for asylum and prompt removal of those whose claims are denied. Once implemented at scale in the coming months, the rule will transform how cases are processed at the border. In President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 Budget to Congress, he makes good on the promise of this rule by investing $375 million to hire the personnel needed to quickly process asylum claims.

A Dedicated Docket process for more efficient immigration hearings.
In partnership with the Department of Justice, DHS established a new, more efficient process called the Dedicated Docket to conduct speedier and fair immigration proceedings for families who arrive between ports of entry at the Southwest Border. As a result, the length of time it takes for many of these cases to reach a final disposition has decreased from years to months.

Increased efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations that exploit vulnerable migrants
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the U.S. Department of State, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration of the U.S. Department of Justice launched a counter-network targeting operation focused on transnational criminal organizations affiliated with the smuggling of migrants.

This Operation targets criminal networks that profit from a broad range of illicit activities, such as human smuggling, by using targeted enforcement actions against them, including by denying access to travel and freezing bank accounts.

3. Processing and removing those who do not have valid claims.

Continuing to process migrants in accordance with the laws of the United States, including expeditiously removing those who do not have valid claims to remain in the United States.
Individuals who cross the border without legal authorization will be placed into removal proceedings and, if unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States, expeditiously removed. Those who attempt to enter the United States without authorization, and without a valid asylum claim, are subject to additional long-term consequences beyond removal from the United States, including bars to future immigration benefits.

Bringing targeted prosecutions of smugglers, repeat offenders, and those who seek to evade law enforcement.
In close coordination with the Department of Justice, DHS will refer border-related criminal activity to DOJ for prosecution where warranted, including that of smugglers, repeat offenders, and migrants who seek to evade U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. Customs and Border Protection also continues to enforce its Repeat Offender initiative to target recidivism. Any single adult apprehended along the Southwest Border a second time, after having previously been apprehended and removed under Title 8, is referred for criminal prosecution. This initiative has improved DHS’s ability to escalate consequences and conserve processing resources.

4. Working with other countries in the Western Hemisphere to manage migration and address root causes.

Working closely with source and transit countries in the region to deter migration.
The Administration is working with source and transit countries in the region to facilitate the quick return of individuals who previously resided in those countries, as well as stem migration at its source. DHS, in coordination with the Department of State, has regular discussions with partner countries in the Hemisphere on migration related matters and continues to engage with foreign governments to improve cooperation with countries that systematically refuse or delay the repatriation of their nationals.

Signed Migration Arrangement with Costa Rica to address irregular migration.
On March 15, 2022, Secretary Mayorkas traveled to Costa Rica where he joined President Alvarado in announcing a bilateral Migration Arrangement, outlining our shared commitment to both manage migrant flows as well as to promote economic growth in the region. DHS and the Department of State are currently engaged with other countries in the region to advance similar objectives.

Continuing close partnership with the Government of Mexico on migration-related issues.
The Biden-Harris Administration continues to maintain a close partnership between with the Government of Mexico to stem irregular migration, creating viable legal pathways, fostering legitimate trade and travel, and combating the shared dangers of transnational crime. In March, Secretary Mayorkas made his fourth official visit to Mexico City where he and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador committed to the promotion of lawful trade and travel and a regional approach to migration management.

 

What if?

As a sometimes law professor, “What if” is a question I can’t avoid!

The DHS “Fact Sheet” reads like an unprepared agency, planning to be overwhelmed by forces allegedly beyond their control, and looking for ways to shift the anticipated political fallout by blaming others: Congress, smugglers, foreign countries, COVID-19, the Trump Administration, and, in a particularly “low blow” the victims themselves — asylum seekers and other desperate migrants.

Let’s keep in mind that legitimate “refugees” have been largely “shut out” of our legal system for the past several years. Thus, many were left with little or no choice but to seek “do it yourself” refugee within our large “extralegal immigration subsystem.” Often they resort to smugglers and put themselves at increased risk after finding our borders closed to those orderly seeking protection under our laws. We have watched it unfold, and largely ignored the unsavory consequences of our own actions.

I’m certainly not the only one to see “planned disaster” for the Biden Administration on the horizon. Check out today’s WashPost lead editorial:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/01/migrant-surge-is-coming-border-biden-is-not-ready/

However, what if, with 51 days to go, advocates and NGOs could “flip the script” on “programmed failure” and make the asylum system at our border function fairly and efficiently, in spite of itself? 

What if the “anticipated narrative” of an out of control border never came to pass? What if the U.S. could actually make the rule of law a reality at the border? What if reopening legal ports of entry for asylum seekers, thereby eliminating the pressure for “do it yourself refuge,” actually helped the Border Patrol concentrate on smugglers and those without any legal claim to remain here?

That might involve getting an “army” of volunteers to the border to:

  • Convince asylum seekers to trust the new system and apply in an orderly fashion only at ports of entry;
  • Work with the DHS to insure that any processing lists are established and controlled by legitimate authorities;
  • Leverage the potential for more rapid asylum grants by Asylum Officers by representing applicants and assisting them in documenting and presenting their claims in formats that will facilitate more AO grants;
  • Represent those improperly denied by the AO before the Immigration Courts and use effective, “practical scholarship,” expert advocacy, and compelling documentation to force due process and fundamental fairness into an Immigration Court system and a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals historically biased against asylum seekers at our borders;
  • Counsel those prima facie unqualified for asylum and those rejected after applying on possible alternatives outside the U.S.;
  • Work with authorities, local communities, and NGOs to provide viable resettlement opportunities for those granted asylum and safe, secure, and non-intrusive temporary living conditions on both sides of the border for those awaiting legal processing;
  • Advocate to the DHS for establishment of robust, realistic, generous, credible refugee programs for Latin America, Haiti, and elsewhere to reduce pressure on the border asylum system. A “viable alternative” to appearing at the border for refugees is what’s glaringly missing from both our past and current approaches.

Can change really come from below and outside the struggling DHS and EOIR systems? Frankly, I don’t know. But, we’re going to find out in the next several months! We can’t change history, but, perhaps, we can rewrite the future!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-02-22

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!
  4. 🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”

ICRC: “Migration is not going to stop. If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”

Reuters reports:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/migration-violence-mexico-central-america?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Waves of migration through Mexico and Central America, and people who go missing, will increase in 2022 due to high levels of violence in the region, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

Battle-scarred ghost town bears mute witness to Mexico’s drug wars

“In many countries, violence is wreaking more and more havoc, and that’s why there are more and more migrants,” ICRC representative Jordi Raich told Reuters in an interview Wednesday. “And it’s not a situation that is going to improve or slow down, not even in the years to come.“

Immigration authorities in Mexico detained 307,679 migrants in 2021, a 68% increase compared with 182,940 detentions in 2019, according to government data.

Shelters in Mexico were completely overwhelmed last year, filled with frustrated migrants unable to continue their journey to the United States, Raich said.

Many migrants get “stuck” along Mexico’s southern or northern borders, Raich said, where they face “enormous economic constraints” and are able to find only basic services.

The administration of Joe Biden has faced record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern border and has implored Mexico and Central American countries to do more to stem the wave.

Disappearances in the region have not slowed either, the Red Cross said in a report released Thursday. Mexico recently surpassed 100,000 people reported missing in the country.

In El Salvador, 488 missing person cases remain unsolved, and in Guatemala, the number of missing women rose to six a day, the Red Cross report said.

Raich said it will be difficult to respond to the root causes of migration immediately. A joint effort among countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras is necessary, he added.

“Migration is not going to stop,” Raich said. “If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration on Thursday rolled out a sweeping new regulation that aims to speed up asylum processing and deportations at the US-Mexico border, amid a record number of migrants seeking to enter the US.

The announcement of the new rule came as US officials are debating whether to end a separate Covid-era policy that has blocked most asylum claims at the border. The asylum overhaul could provide a faster way to process border crossers if the Covid order is ended.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

Cruelty, walls, detention, family separation, border militarization, expedited hearings — they aren’t going to stop human migration. We will be able to increase border deaths, expand the scope of “black market migration,” increase our “underground population,” and enrich human smugglers.  Good policy? 

Meanwhile, it’s obvious that the “disingenuous internal debate” on Title 42 has nothing whatsoever to do with public health and everything to do with whether continued illegal and immoral suspension of asylum protections at the border will prove politically advantageous to the Biden Administration. It won’t! It might, however, cost Dems support among progressives.

How dishonest and unethical is the Biden Administration’s discussion of violating the law? (Do we actually have an Attorney General?) According to the WashPost, scofflaw Biden Administration officials actually are considering lifting Title 42 for families, but not for single males! https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/24/border-biden-migrants-influx-pandemic/

There is, of course, no known medical evidence that “single males” present a greater COVID threat than families! Indeed, there is no known medical evidence to suggest that any potential asylum applicant is a threat to the health and safety of the US.

The whole thing is a deadly farce! Why aren’t Hill Dems calling for oversight of Garland’s sitting by and watching while the law and ethics are pulverized around him? Or worse yet, what about his Department’s defense of abrogation of our laws? Believe it or not, we actually have asylum and protection laws on the books, duly enacted by Congress, although you’d never know it from Garland’s feckless performance!

Meanwhile, WashPost and other so-called “mainstream media” continue to hype stories about increased border pressure. So, continuing to violate asylum law is a viable alternative “strategy?” Give me a break! How is violating the law going to stop folks from fleeing deadly conditions in their home countries? It won’t, as the ICRC points out above!

What it will do, as also pointed out above, is kill more asylum seekers, subject them to rape, torture and other harm, enrich smugglers, and increase the extralegal population in the U.S.!

Blaine Bookey
Blaine Bookey
Legal Director
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies @ Hastings Law
Photo: CGRS website

It also will increase those waiting in vain at the Southern Border for the reopening of a legal asylum system that has abandoned them! In the words of one expert:

“The conditions are squalid,” said Blaine Bookey, the legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, who led a team interviewing dozens of families waiting in Tijuana for the federal government to lift Title 42. “There is real lack of access to sanitation, medical care, adequate food, all of the real basic fundamental necessities.”

. . . .

“There have been some exceptions made for Ukrainians, which we’re happy to see, but the policy should be ended for everyone,” Bookey said. “There was never a public health justification, and there certainly isn’t now.” (WashPost, supra).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) babbles nativist nonsense:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said at a committee hearing last week that the influx has “completely derailed” efforts to discuss improving legal immigration to the United States, which he said states such as Texas need to staff hospitals and fill jobs. Border states such as Texas and Arizona are bracing for higher numbers of unauthorized immigrants in coming weeks, he said.

“Rather than deter would-be migrants with weak asylum claims from taking the dangerous journey to the southwest border, the administration has rolled out the welcome mat and created new incentives to illegally immigrate to the United States,” he said at the March 15 hearing before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship and border safety.

To my knowledge, neither Cornyn nor any of his other GOP nativist buddies have ever adjudicated an asylum application. Nor have they represented asylum seekers before the Asylum Office or in our broken Immigration Courts. So, how would that have any idea whether certain asylum claims are “weak” or not? They wouldn‘t!

Moreover, we haven’t had a functioning asylum system at our Southern Border for years. So, how would anyone know how many of the claims are  “weak?” They wouldn’t?

Remarkably, apparently unknown to Cornyn and his scofflaw buddies, we actually have laws to deal with his concerns. When the legal system is “open for business” — which it isn’t now — those claiming asylum at the border are subject to “summary exclusion” by DHS officers. Their claims are then expeditiously reviewed by Asylum Officers for a “credible fear” of asylum. Those who don’t establish credible fear, subject only to cursory review by an Immigration Judge, can be immediately removed by DHS.

Historically, when the system was at least nominally functional, those “passing” credible fear have been turned over to the now dysfunctional Immigration Courts. Under Trump, these “parodies of courts”  were “weaponized” into “asylum killing grounds.”

Sessions and Barr packed their non-independent “captive courts” with “judges” perceived to be “enforcement oriented” and “anti-asylum” — willing to skew the law and facts as necessary to deny and deport. This mess is “led” by an appellate body, the BIA, which contains some of the most notorious members of the “Asylum Deniers’ Club”  — folks who got their appellate jobs under Barr specifically because as Immigraton Judges they denied almost every asylum case that came before them! In other words, even when there was some semblance of a legal asylum system, it was redesigned under Trump to be systemically unfair to asylum seekers, particularly women and applicants of color. For sure, racism and misogyny played into this unseemly scenario.

Remarkably, Garland has chosen to maintain this dysfunctional, biased, and broken system largely in the form it existed and with almost all of the same unqualified or questionably qualified “judges” he inherited from Session and Barr!

While the Administration has announced “new interim regulations” that would allow Asylum Officers to grant meritorious cases without going before Immigration Courts, the system still depends on “guidance,” supervision, and de novo review by the broken, biased, and dysfunctional Immigration Courts running amok under Garland. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/03/24/🏴☠%EF%B8%8Fno-surprise-boston-asylum-office-screws-🔩-maine-refugees-☠%EF%B8%8F-part-of-a-serious-national-anti-asylum-bias-largely/

Our broken asylum system can’t and won’t be fixed without dealing head-on with the overarching problem — systemic anti-asylum bias, poor quality decision-making, grotesque inconsistencies, and beyond incompetent administration of our Immigraton Courts by the DOJ!

Remarkably, Garland’s proposed solution is yet another “designed to fail” gimmick — expedite cases in his broken and biased, anti-asylum system! So the solution to a defective court system, infected with anti-asylum bias and poorly qualified judges turning out defective decisions is to make it “go faster!” The new regulations also fail to deal with the huge due process issue of lack of competent representation in the asylum system, particularly the Immigration Courts. Come on man!

We don’t need over 500 pages of new regulations and sophomoric, alternate universe “time limits” for an agency that can’t even find its files! What we need is for Garland to do the job he was hired to do more than a year ago! That’s  “clean house” at the Immigration Courts, bring in competent, fair judges who have experience in Immigration Court and are legitimate, well-recognized asylum experts — starting with a new BIA (save for their one qualified Appellate Immigration Judge Andrea Saenz, a Garland appointee).

Get expert judges, intellectual leaders, and competent judicial administrators into the broken Immigration Court system to provide coherent, practical asylum legal guidance and work with advocates, the Asylum Office, and DHS to get a functional and fair legal asylum system in place and operating smoothly and efficiently at the border. It should already be in place by now. That it isn’t, is entirely “on Garland!”

Then, with experts who actually are committed to fairly and impartially applying asylum law in place, we’ll see, for the first time, how many of the asylum claims are valid and how many aren’t! And, while we’re at it, we might find that many of the “legal” immigrants Texas and the rest of America needs are right there at our borders — just waiting for our legal system to do justice and admit them. Asylum seekers are seeking legal immigration! It the USG that’s acting “illegally” here!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-26-22

Related posts:

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

FINALLY, LEADING DEMS IN CONGRESS DEMAND END TO BIDEN’S TITLE 42 CHARADE! — NDPA  All-Star 🌟🦸🏻‍♀️ Blaine Bookey Speaks Out For Ukrainians & Other Legal Asylum Seekers Being Abused 🤮  By Biden Administration @ The Southern Border!

 

Maria Sacchetti
Maria Sacchetti
Immigration Reporter, Washington Post

MarIa Sacchetti reports for WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/10/title42-border-asylum-democrats-trump/

Leading Senate Democrats demanded that the Biden administration immediately end a Trump-era policy that blocks asylum-seeking migrants from crossing land borders into the United States, after lawyers said U.S. Customs and Border Protection expelled a single mother of three who had traveled from Ukraine to Mexico seeking refuge.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited the “desperate” Ukrainian family at a news conference Thursday and said he was deeply disappointed that the Biden administration has dragged out the Trump-era policy, which a federal appeals court in D.C. last week called “questionable.” The Trump administration issued the order two years ago under Title 42, which is the public health code. Since then, officials have expelled more than 1.6 million migrants to countries such as Haiti and Mexico.

“The United States is supposed to welcome refugees with open arms, not put them in additional danger by denying them a chance to plead their case and leaving them at the mercy of criminals and smugglers,” Schumer said, joined by advocates for immigrants. “Now’s the time to stop the madness.”

Courts issue new directives to Biden on border expulsions

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added that the policy “has created life-threatening conditions” for migrants. He called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued the order under President Donald Trump and has extended it under President Biden, to rescind it.

. . . .

Sofiia, 34, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she has family sheltering in their basements in Ukraine, said in a telephone interview that her family had enjoyed a good life there. She worked as a Hebrew teacher and lived in her father’s house. They left as bombs grew closer.

“I was seriously afraid for my life and the life of my kids,” she said in English, one of four languages that she speaks.

She said she and her children — ages 6, 12 and 14 — flung suitcases stuffed with clothes and medicines into her old Citroen and drove straight to Moldova, the closest border, and then into Romania, where they traveled to Germany and caught a flight to Mexico. She said that they tried to enter legally twice, once by car and again by foot, and that officials rejected them both times, citing the Title 42 order.

“I was surprised that they don’t even want to listen,” she said. “I was trying to tell them that I have tests and I am vaccinated but they told me, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”

She said she does not speak Spanish and was crying on the bridge in Mexico when lawyer Blaine Bookey spotted her. Bookey, the legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California’s Hastings law school, was there with her students to aid Haitian migrants facing similar troubles.

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Bookey said Customs and Border Protection told her that they would consider admitting the Ukrainian family. They were planning to try again Thursday, she said, adding that shelters in Mexico are filled with other would-be refugees who are not eligible to enter.

“There’s families like this that are showing up at the border from all sorts of countries from similar levels of violence. They deserve process to apply for asylum,” Bookey said. “This case really brings it home for people how just problematic this policy is.”

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

Read Maria’s full article at the link.

  • Rhetoric over action!
  • “Do as I say, not as I do!”

 

  • More cowardly performances from AG Garland and SG Prelogar who continue to “defend the indefensible,” putting politics over their constitutional duty to speak up for due process, human rights, racial justice, adherence to international conventions, and the rule of law.

 

  • The “COVID emergency” appears to be “over” everywhere in the U.S., even in areas with significant infection rates, EXCEPT for asylum seekers at the Southern Border who never were a major threat anyway.

 

  • “Saying no” to desperate Ukrainian mothers and children seeking refuge in the U.S. That’s ”law enforcement?” That’s how your tax dollars are being spent? Do these count as “border apprehensions?”

The Dem leaders are right to speak out. But, they waited far too long to do so. This travesty has been going on since Day 1 of the Biden Administration.

The only “hero” 🌟 here is Blaine Bookey and others like her who have the guts and courage to stand up for equal justice for all when politicos, judges, and public officials “tank!”

Blaine Bookey
Blaine Bookey
Legal Director
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies @ Hastings Law
Photo: CGRS website

Meanwhile, although the opposition to Biden’s scofflaw policy hasn’t restored the rule of law for most asylum seekers, it might have generated at least a modest reaction. CBS News reports that the CDC has revoked the (bogus) Title 42 authority to bar the entry of unaccompanied children seeking asylum.  News: https://apple.news/Anfp9S-UAQFqT5PWRc-8u2A

This appears to be a response to the attack on this group of vulnerable children by Trump-appointed righty anti-immigrant zealot U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman and his motley gang of  GOP state AGs. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/03/05/%f0%9f%a4%aftitle-42-madness-even-as-dc-circuit-bars-returns-to-persecution-or-torture-trump-federal-judge-in-texas-abuses-children%f0%9f%a4%ae%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f-circuit-findings-of-ill/

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-12-22

Related posts:

  1. 🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”
  2. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  3. CORRUPT, CHILD ABUSING, RACIST IMMIGRATION BUREAUCRACY 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻 MUST BE REPLACED WITH PROFESSIONAL WORKFORCE COMMITTED TO DUE PROCESS, RULE OF LAW, HUMAN DIGNITY! — “CRUELTY TO migrant children, a trademark of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, did not cease when officials reversed course in the face of public outrage two years ago and stopped wrenching toddlers, tweens and teens from their parents — with no plan or process to reunite them. It has continued apace under cover of the pandemic . . . .”
  4. CRIME BLOTTER: CHILD ABUSE🤮☠️⚰️🦹🏿‍♀️: DOJ IG REPORT CONFIRMS WHAT COURTSIDE & OTHERS KNEW FROM THE START: Trump, Sessions, Miller, Rosenstein, Hamilton Are Cowards🐓, Lying 🤥 Criminals, Child Abusers🦹🏿‍♀️, Who Belong Behind Bars For Intentionally Abusing Asylum Seeking Families & Kids & Then Having Their Sleazy DOJ Lawyers Lie To Federal Judges! — What Happened To “Due Diligence” As An Ethical Requirement For Government Lawyers?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ @ CNN EXPOSES BIDEN’S SECRET, DUE-PROCESS-FREE, DEPORTATIONS OF VENEZUELANS TO COLOMBIA! ☠️🤮 — Venezuela’s Repressive Left-Wing Dictatorship — So Horrible It’s Not Even Recognized By The US — Has Sent Millions Of Refugees Fleeing — That Hasn’t Stopped Biden From Arbitrarily Rejecting Them!

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

Priscilla’s latest:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/border-venezuela-colombia/index.html

US begins quietly flying Venezuelan migrants to Colombia under controversial border policy

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 12:27 PM ET, Mon January 31, 2022

(CNN)The Biden administration, unable to return an increasing number of Venezuelans arrested at the US-Mexico border to their home country, is now sending those migrants to Colombia if they previously resided there, according to two Homeland Security officials.

White House officials have grown increasingly concerned about the large numbers of single adults continuing to cross the US southern border, particularly from countries that Mexico won’t accept under a controversial Trump-era policy, two sources familiar with discussions said.

The flights of Venezuelans to Colombia, which have not been previously reported, marks another effort by the administration to try to stem the flow of migrants, pushing those who arrive further away from the US-Mexico border including those seeking asylum.

In December, US Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 13,000 single adults from Venezuela on the US southern border, compared with 96 in December 2020, according to agency data.

A humanitarian crisis and political instability have taken hold of Venezuela in recent years. Around 6 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations, usually fleeing to other parts of Latin America which have also struggled during the pandemic.

There’s been bipartisan acknowledgment of the deteriorating situation in Venezuela. Last year, Sens. Marco Rubio, a Republican, and Bob Menendez, a Democrat, introduced a Senate resolution expressing alarm over the situation in the country.

Colombia also granted temporary legal status to Venezuelans who had fled there, allowing them to legally work in the country. But for those who opted to journey to the US-Mexico border to seek protections in the US, expulsion to Colombia now puts them thousands of miles away from the possibility of claiming asylum in the US.

The handling of the US-Mexico border has dogged the Biden administration since the early days of Joe Biden’s presidency as a growing number of migrants journey to the United States, fleeing deteriorating conditions in the western hemisphere. Republicans have recently seized on the releases of migrants — some of whom can’t be expelled because of their nationality — citing it as another example of what they describe as the administration’s poor management of the border.

Under a public health authority, known as Title 42, authorities can swiftly remove migrants encountered at the US southern border, effectively barring those seeking asylum from doing so and marking an unprecedented departure from previous protocol. The authority was invoked at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, despite suspicions among officials that it was politically motivated.

The White House has repeatedly referred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the future of the policy, saying the agency deems it necessary given the Delta and Omicron variants.

Last Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security returned two Venezuelan nationals to Colombia, where they had previously resided, the department told CNN, adding that flights to Colombia are expected to take place “on a regular basis.”

“As part of the United States COVID-19 mitigation efforts, DHS continues to enforce CDC’s Title 42 public health authority with all individuals encountered at the Southwest border. However, DHS’s ability to expel individuals may be limited for several reasons, including Mexico’s ability and capacity to receive individuals of certain nationalities,” DHS said in a statement, adding that the department has removed migrants to third countries in the region where they had lived or had status.

DHS has also acknowledged the precarious situation in Venezuela by granting a form of humanitarian relief for Venezuelans already in the United States.

Still, the Biden administration has continued to rely on the public health authority and recently defended it in court — a move that received criticism from immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers. The latest decision to expel migrants from Venezuela — a country in crisis — to Colombia reveals a further dependence on the public health authority amid a growing number of Venezuelans arriving at the US-Mexico border.

In December, US Customs and Border Protection encountered 24,819 Venezuelans at the US southern border including single adults, families and minors, up from the previous month and continuing an increasing trend. As a point of comparison, in December 2020, CBP encountered only around 200 Venezuelan migrants, according to agency data.

While tens of thousands of migrants have been turned away at the US-Mexico border, some, like South Americans, aren’t accepted by Mexico and therefore those nationals largely can’t be expelled. Under the public health authority, DHS has removed migrants to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Brazil.

Some migrants from Venezuela crossed the border in Yuma, Arizona — often flying to an airport in Mexico and then crossing at a gap along the Colorado River, cutting the journey down to just days. It’s the most viable option for many Venezuelans and Brazilians, for example, who can’t obtain a visa that allows them to work in the US — or can’t afford the years-long wait for the legal immigration process. Mexico recently put new visa restrictions in place for Venezuelans traveling to Mexico.

The US has previously taken measures to try to lower the number of migrants at the US-Mexico border. Last year, the administration started flying migrants apprehended at the southern border and subject to the Trump-era border policy linked to the pandemic to the interior of Mexico.

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

Let’s see. Colombia, a country of approximately 50 million, has taken in about 1.7 million Venezuelans. https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2021/10/31/supporting-colombian-host-communities-and-venezuelan-migrants-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

The US, a far larger and more prosperous country with approximately 7x the population of Colombia, has taken fewer than 350,000. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/09/us-temporary-protection-venezuelans

Forced migration is real, no matter what fictions and myths Administrations of both parties use to deny it. 

Pretending otherwise, and that lawless deportations and “deterrence” will materially change the forces that drive it, is both immoral and ultimately futile.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-03-22

Related posts:

  1. ⚖️🗽MORE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BORDER FROM ONE OF AMERICA’S 🇺🇸 LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS: “Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account For The Situation at US-Mexico Border,” By Donald Kerwin Center For Migration Studies
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS THINKS RULE OF LAW DOESN’T APPLY TO RICH NATION THAT ILLEGALLY TURNS DESPERATE REFUGEES AWAY, SUGGESTS GUATEMALANS SHOULD DIE IN PLACE! — “Deterrence Statement” Won’t Stop Migration, Won’t Appease Nativist-Restrictionists, But Will Cost Her Support From Human Rights Progressives Who Helped Elect Her!  — There Will Be No Workable Solutions At Our Southern Border Without a Functional, Robust Legal Asylum System That Complies With Due Process!
  4. 🏴‍☠️🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻STILL SCOFFLAWS AFTER ALL THESE MONTHS: UNHCR SPEAKS OUT AS BIDEN, HARRIS, GARLAND, MAYORKAS CONTINUE TRUMP-MILLER POLICIES OF ILLEGAL, IMMORAL, UNNECESSARY RETURN OF ASYLUM SEEKERS WITH NO DUE PROCESS UNDER BOGUS TITLE 42 RATIONALE! — Ever Wonder Why Racial & Gender Justice & Equity Are Mirages In Today’s America? — Look No Further Than The “Dred Scottification” Of “The Other” @ DOJ & DHS On Display Every Day!

⚠️🚸🆘☠️☹️THE GIBSON REPORT —10-25-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Posts Show How USG’s Scofflaw Asylum Policies Generate Unnecessary Irregular Entries, Misleading Statistics, More Unnecessary CBP “Apprehensions,” More CBP Abuses, No Accountability For Abusers, & No Plans By Biden Administration To Rectify Situation — Lack Of Principled, Realistic, Legally Compliant Border Policy Undermines Democracy!

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

NEWS

 

9th Circ. nixes order mandating more COVID protections for ICE detainees

Reuters: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling said the preliminary injunction issued last year improperly placed ICE’s entire network of detention facilities under the direction of a single federal judge, an error because the plaintiffs failed to show systemic nationwide shortfalls in detainee health protections.

 

DOJ lifts Trump-era case quotas for immigration judges

ABA: Immigration judges will no longer be required to close 700 cases per year to get a “satisfactory” rating.

 

Border Patrol apprehensions hit a record high. But that’s only part of the story

NPR: The Border Patrol recorded nearly 1.7 million migrant apprehensions at the Southern border over the past year — the highest number ever, eclipsing the record set more than two decades ago. But that doesn’t mean it’s the biggest number of individual migrants who’ve illegally crossed from Mexico into the U.S. in a single year. In fact, it’s probably not even close. See also Tired of waiting for asylum in southern Mexico, thousands of migrants march north.

 

New York Set Aside $2.1 Billion for Undocumented Workers. It Isn’t Enough.

NYT: A demand for aid has depleted the Excluded Workers Fund in New York, and thousands of those who qualify could miss out on payments. See also Immigrant families struggle to access child tax credit payments.

 

A Leaked US Government Report Documents How People With Medical Conditions And Disabilities Were Forced Into The “Remain In Mexico” Program

BuzzFeed: The report offers a rare window into the behind-the-scenes dysfunction and confusion surrounding the so-called Remain in Mexico program, which is set to come back.

 

‘It Should Not Have Happened’: Asylum Officers Detail Migrants’ Accounts of Abuse

NYT: More than 160 reports, obtained by Human Rights Watch, reveal details of mistreatment that asylum seekers described experiencing from border officials and while in U.S. custody.

 

Border agents who made violent, lewd Facebook posts faced flawed disciplinary process at CBP, House investigation finds

WaPo: A U.S. Customs and Border Protection discipline board found that 60 agents “committed misconduct” by sharing violent and obscene posts in secret Facebook groups but fired only two — far fewer than an internal discipline board had recommended, according to a House Oversight and Reform Committee report released Monday.

 

ICE Review Of Immigrant’s Suicide Finds Falsified Documents, Neglect, And Improper Confinement

Intercept: An internal review of Efraín Romero de la Rosa’s death in ICE custody found almost two dozen policy violations during his stint in detention.

 

Biden’s Pick To Lead CBP Supports Two Of Trump’s Most Controversial Border Initiatives

Intercept: In a confirmation hearing, Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus signaled support for Title 42 and border wall construction.

 

Biden’s Embrace Of Border Tech Raises Privacy Concerns

Law360: President Joe Biden hasn’t shied away from using controversial technologies for immigration enforcement, raising concerns that his predecessor’s pet project to build a border wall is being replaced with a “virtual wall” rife with privacy and civil liberties problems.

 

California Hires Border Wall Contractors to Screen, Vaccinate Migrants

Newsweek: SLS was previously assigned to build the border wall under the Donald Trump administration, but now it is expected to work with the health department to also offer migrants prescription services and transportation for “safe onward travel.”

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

Justices Revive Citizenship Suit After Feds Yield Ground

Law360: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated a Third Circuit ruling in a deportation case that barred a Yemeni man from acquiring citizenship through his naturalized but divorced parents, after the Biden administration said the lower court overlooked precedent.

 

Anti-Immigration Group Asks Justices To Nix Bond Hearings

Law360: Advocates of drastically reduced immigration urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn decisions in the Third and Ninth circuits that said migrants who have been detained more than six months should get a bond review hearing.

 

High Court Urged To Reverse ‘Impossible’ Review Standard

Law360: A coalition of conservationists and ranchers has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit ruling that the federal government need not subject immigration policies to environmental review, saying it created an “impossible” standard for challenging immigration programs.

 

1st Circ. Orders BIA To Weigh Honduran Man’s Testimony

Law360: The First Circuit revived a Honduran man’s bid for protection from a deportation order, ruling that immigration authorities saw discrepancies in his testimony that he faced persecution as an HIV-positive gay man where there were none.

 

CA2 Finds Connecticut Convictions for Possession of Narcotics with Intent to Sell Were Aggravated Felony Drug Trafficking Offenses

AILA: The court held that the petitioners’ convictions under Connecticut General Statute §21a-277(a) were controlled substance offenses and aggravated felony drug trafficking crimes, and that the jurisdictional holding of Banegas Gomez v. Barr remained good law. (Chery v. Garland, 10/15/21)

 

CA3 Finds BIA Misapprehended Applicable Law by Not Considering Religious Persecution Against Chinese Petitioner Cumulatively

AILA: Granting the petition for review and remanding, the court held that while the BIA was correct in finding that the petitioner had not suffered political persecution in China, its reasons for rejecting religious persecution were flawed. (Liang v. Att’y Gen., 10/12/21)

 

CA4 Strikes Down Matter of S-O-G- & F-D-B-

AILA: The court abrogated Matter of S-O-G- & F-D-B-, holding that 8 CFR §§1003.10(b) and 1003.1(d)(1)(ii) unambiguously grant IJs and the BIA the general power to terminate removal proceedings. (Chavez Gonzalez v. Garland, 10/20/21)

 

5th Circ. Wants DOJ Input On Full Court Review Of ICE Policy

Law360: The Fifth Circuit on Wednesday asked the federal government to respond to Texas and Louisiana’s petition for the full appellate court to review a panel’s decision allowing the Biden administration’s policy curbing immigration enforcement operations to remain in place.

 

Feds Can’t Put DACA Challenge On Hold For Rulemaking

Law360: The Fifth Circuit refused to freeze the Biden administration’s appeal of a lower court order stopping the federal government from approving new applications under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program while it inks a replacement rule.

 

CA9 (2-1) Reverses Fraihat Preliminary Injunction

LexisNexis: Fraihat v. ICE Maj. – “COVID-19 presents inherent challenges in institutional settings, and it has without question imposed greater risks on persons in custody. But plaintiffs had to demonstrate considerably more than that to warrant the extraordinary, system-wide relief that they sought.

 

District Court Orders Government to Begin Processing 9,905 FY2020 Diversity Visas as Soon as Is Feasible

AILA: The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the defendants to commence processing the 9,905 DV-2020 visas as soon as is feasible, and to conclude such processing no later than the end of FY2022, or September 30, 2022. (Gomez, et al. v. Biden, et al., 10/13/21)

 

Feds Say DC Court Wrong To Narrow Power To Expel Migrants

Law360: The federal government urged the D.C. Circuit to erase a lower court’s injunction blocking its use of a public health law to expel migrant families, arguing that the lower court interpreted its powers under the authority too narrowly.

 

Judge Scolds CBP In Partial Win For Press Freedom Group

Law360: A D.C. federal judge ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Monday to release previously withheld documents related to the government’s 2017 attempt to unmask a Trump administration critic’s Twitter account, while scolding the agency for its “lackluster efforts” to comply with Freedom of Information Act requirements.

 

Mich. Judge Drops DACA Holders’ Travel Permit Suit

Law360: A Michigan federal judge rejected two brothers’ claims that their due process and religious freedom rights were violated when they were denied travel authorization to Mexico for their grandfather’s funeral, saying that they had no recourse against the officials involved.

 

Documents Related to Lawsuit Seeking to Make Unpublished BIA Decisions Publicly Available

AILA: DOJ provided a status update to the court, which states that the BIA and NYLAG are in discussions regarding the possibility of posting certain unpublished BIA decisions online, both prospectively and retrospectively. (NYLAG v. BIA, 10/15/21)

 

DOD Denies Flouting Immigrant Soldier Citizenship Order

Law360: The Pentagon denied foreign-born soldiers’ contention that it was flouting an injunction to process their citizenship requests, telling a Washington, D.C., court that it was complying and close to doubling the number of requests that are processed annually.

 

IJ Finds Respondent Merits Favorable Exercise of Discretion for Fraud Waiver Under INA §237(a)(1)(H)

AILA: In balancing respondent’s desirability as a permanent resident with social and humane considerations, the IJ found that respondent was entitled to a waiver of removability for fraud or misrepresentation under INA §237(a)(1)(H). Courtesy of Christopher Helt. (Matter of Mohammed, 9/13/21)

 

CBP Notification of Continuation of Travel Restrictions from Mexico and Intent to Lift Restrictions for Vaccinated Individuals

AILA: CBP notification of the continuation of travel restrictions limiting non-essential travel from Mexico into the U.S. at land ports of entry through 1/21/22, while also announcing the intent to lift these restrictions for individuals fully vaccinated against COVID-19. (86 FR 58216, 10/21/21)

 

DHS Notice on Implementation of Employment Authorization for Individuals Covered by DED for Hong Kong

AILA: DHS notice establishing procedures for individuals covered by Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Hong Kong to apply for employment authorization through 2/5/23. (86 FR 58296, 10/21/21)

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

Monday, October 25, 2021

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Friday, October 22, 2021

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Monday, October 18, 2021

 

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

Sadly, more than eight months in, the Biden Administration lacks:

  • A coherent vision for the border;
  • A cogent plan to restore the refugee system and the legal asylum system (the poorly conceived “proposed asylum regs” — mostly opposed by our Round Table and other asylum experts — don’t make it);
  • The tough, courageous, well-informed leadership to make the necessary border enforcement and Immigration Court reforms and to stand up to the entirely predictable, well-organized nativist opposition, led by Stephen “Gauleiter” Miller and his accomplices.

Not a “recipe for success,” in my view! 

Another item worthy of note: The pending settlement between NYLAG and EOIR on making unpublished decisions readily accessible to the public could open new avenues for advocates.

For example, the 1st Circuit recently cited an unpublished BIA decision in reversing the BIA on “equitable tolling.” https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-equitable-tolling-remand-james-v-garland#

BIA panel decisions favorable to respondents are almost never published as precedents by an organization where judicial independence and due process have long taken a back seat to “job preservation” within the DOJ. Politicos @ DOJ are normally much more interested in supporting enforcement and “false deterrence” goals than with enhancing due process, enforcing immigrants’ rights, and achieving racial justice when it comes to immigrants.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! 

PWS 

1-26-21

Related posts:

  1. THE GIBSON REPORT— 01-02-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Garland’s Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) Squeezes Refugees On Both Ends Of His Ludicrous Backlog, As Those Patiently Waiting Given Court Dates Nearly A Decade In The Future, While Recent Arrivals Mindlessly Rocketed To The “Front Of The Line” Struggle To Find Lawyers & Prepare Cases — Plus Other New Year News From The Dystopian World Of U.S. Immigration!
  2. 🧑🏽‍⚖️⚖️🗽🇺🇸WHO’S JUDGE IS IT ANYWAY? — The Crisis Of Independence In Our Immigration Courts! — Coming April 7, 2021! — Sponsored By The HNBA! — Don’t Miss It!
  3. 🗽⚖️🇺🇸LEE GELERNT @ ACLU SAYS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “cannot farm out the asylum system.” Yet, That Appears To Be Largely What They Are Doing Under New, Previously Unpublicized Program!
  4. ⚖️🌟🗽NDPA SUPERSTARS, PRACTICAL EXPERT PROFESSORS LINDSAY M. HARRIS AND SARAH R. SHERMAN-STOKES SCORE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S CONTINUED RELIANCE ON BOGUS 🏴‍☠️ TRUMP-ERA, WHITE NATIONALIST COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS TO RETURN REFUGEES TO DANGER & DEATH @ SOUTHERN BORDER!☠️🤮⚰️

THE GIBSON REPORT — 10-04-21 — Compiled by Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Biden Administration’s Failure To Heed Warnings, Re-Establish Asylum System @ Border, Bring In Progressive Experts, Leads To Cruelty, Chaos!

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

NEWS

 

New Enforcement Priorities Show Some Improvement, Maintain Old Framework

AIC: On September 30, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued the long-awaited new set of enforcement priorities, entitled “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Laws”. The guidelines, which will go into effect on November 29, 2021, will replace the February 18 interim enforcement priorities memo issued to U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as Initial interim guidelines issued on January 20, 2021. See also IDP Statement: DHS’s Deportation Memo Reinforces Flawed Policies of the Past.

 

Federal appeals court preserves administration’s ability to use Title 42 to expel migrant families

Politico: A federal court has moved to preserve the Biden administration’s ability to use a Trump-era public health order to expel migrant families arriving at the southern border.

 

U.S. DHS plans to issue new memo ending Trump-era immigration policy

Reuters: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday it intends to issue a new memo in the coming weeks ending the “remain in Mexico” immigration program.

 

U.S. Border Authorities Failed to Prepare for Influx of Haitian Migrants Despite Weeks of Warnings

Intercept: [T]he arrival of Haitians was anticipated, and much of the chaos that ensued seemed preventable with basic planning and logistics. But in the scramble to contain the media crisis, the U.S. employed tactics that set off a cascade of repression and violence on both sides of the border. By allowing the situation to reach critical levels, federal officials created conditions that made a militarized crackdown seem inevitable, making criminals out of people asserting their right to seek asylum. See also Most of the migrants in Del Rio, Tex., camp have been sent to Haiti or turned back to Mexico, DHS figures show.

 

Migrants arrested by Texas in border crackdown are being imprisoned for weeks without legal help or formal charges

Texas Tribune: Defense attorneys have started asking courts to set migrants free because local justice systems, overwhelmed by arrests under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security push, are routinely violating state law and constitutional due process rights.

 

Forming a new group, N.J.’s immigrant advocates fight for release of migrant detainees

NJ Monitor: Now the coalition of faith leaders, advocates, formerly incarcerated people, and their family members have formed the Interfaith Campaign for Just Closures. The group aims to push New Jersey’s congressional delegation to support HR 536, which would revamp the immigration detention system.

 

Greyhound Agrees to Pay $2.2 Million Over Immigration Sweeps on Buses

NYT: The settlement will provide restitution to passengers who were detained, arrested or deported after immigration agents conducted warrantless searches on buses, Washington State’s attorney general said.

 

The Biden Administration Is Providing Legal Representation For Certain Immigrant Children In Eight US Cities

BuzzFeed: The new initiative will provide government-funded legal representation to certain children in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the nation’s immigration courts, is also updating training for attorneys who want to handle immigration cases.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

Immigration Cases in the Supreme Court: The 2021 Term

Immprof: The Court currently has three new immigration cases on the docket for the 2021 Term.

 

BIA Clarifies When a NTA Constitutes a “Charging Document”

AILA: The BIA dismissed the respondent’s appeal after finding that a Notice to Appear that lacks the time and place of an initial removal hearing constitutes a “charging document.” Matter of Arambula-Bravo, 28 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2021)

 

CA3 Reverses Denial of Asylum to Petitioner Who Fled Yemen to Avoid Persecution on Account of Political Opinion

AILA: Where the Yemeni petitioner had been kidnapped and tortured before being convicted and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for political opposition to the Houthi regime, the court concluded that the BIA erred in determining that he was ineligible for asylum. (Ghanem v. Att’y Gen., 9/22/21)

 

3rd Circ. Says Simple Assault Is Grounds For Deportation

Law360: The Third Circuit refused to undo deportation orders against a Peruvian national who had a simple assault conviction, ruling that the offense amounted to a removable crime of violence.

 

CA5 Finds BIA Abused Its Discretion by Entirely Failing to Address Libyan Petitioner’s CAT Claim

AILA: The court held that the BIA abused its discretion by entirely failing to address the Libyan petitioner’s Convention Against Torture (CAT) claim, where the petitioner had raised his CAT claim several times in his briefing before the BIA. (Abushagif v. Garland, 9/24/21)

 

CA8 Upholds Denial of Asylum to Guatemalan Petitioner Whose Family Refused to Give Money to Gangs

AILA: The court upheld BIA’s denial of asylum, finding petitioner’s proposed particular social group of “family unaffiliated with any gangs who refuse to provide any support to transnational criminal gangs in Guatemala” lacked particularity and social distinction. (Osorio Tino v. Garland, 9/20/21)

 

CA9 Says BIA Did Not Abuse Its Discretion in Finding Petitioner’s 2016 Motion Was Untimely or in Declining to Sua Sponte Reopen

AILA: The court concluded that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in determining that the petitioner’s 2016 motion to reopen was untimely, nor did it commit legal error in declining to sua sponte reopen her case. (Cui v. Garland, 9/23/21)

 

CA9 Finds Inconsistencies in Petitioner’s Asylum and Visa Applications Were Sufficient to Support Adverse Credibility Determination

AILA: Where the petitioner claimed she was persecuted because of her membership in a house church that was not registered with the Chinese government, the court held that the BIA appropriately relied on two inconsistencies in making its adverse credibility determination. (Li v. Garland, 9/21/21)

 

CA9 Finds Convictions in Washington for Robbery and Attempted Robbery in the Second Degree Are Not Aggravated Felonies

AILA: Granting the petition for review, the court held that the petitioner’s convictions in Washington for robbery in the second degree and attempted robbery in the second degree did not qualify as aggravated felony theft offenses under INA §101(a)(43)(G), (U). (Alfred v. Garland, 9/22/21)

 

CA10 Holds That BIA Erred in Declining to Reopen Sua Sponte Based on Incorrect Legal Premise

AILA: Granting the petition for review and remanding, the court found that the BIA at least partly relied on a legally erroneous—and thus invalid—rationale for declining to exercise its sua sponte reopening authority. (Berdiev v. Garland, 9/21/21)

 

DC Circ. Lets Biden Proceed With Title 42 Migrant Expulsions

Law360: The D.C. Circuit on Thursday granted the Biden administration’s bid to stay a district court order that blocked the administration from expelling migrant families, providing it time to pursue an appeal of the ruling, which was slated to go into effect on Friday at midnight.

 

US Marshals Ordered To Stop Immigration Arrests

Law360: A D.C. federal judge banned U.S. Marshals in the nation’s capital from detaining criminal defendants based on suspicion related to their immigration status Thursday, ending a class action over the agency’s practice of holding individuals despite release orders.

 

District Court Finds TPS Parolee Is Eligible to Apply to USCIS for Adjustment of Status

AILA: Where USCIS had refused to adjudicate the adjustment of status application of the plaintiff, a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipient with advance parole, the court held that the plaintiff was an “arriving alien” who had executed his deportation order. (C-E-M- v. Wolf, et al., 9/29/21)

 

District Court Orders USCIS to Approve Plaintiffs’ Adjustment of Status Applications from Employment-Based Visa Allocations for FY2021

AILA: A federal district court in Mississippi held that plaintiffs had established unreasonable delay by USCIS in the adjudication of their adjustment of status applications, and ordered USCIS to adjudicate their applications before the end of FY2021. (Parcharne, et al. v. DHS, et al., 9/30/21)

 

District Court Reserves 6,914 DVs for Goodluck-Related Plaintiffs and 481 DVs for Goh Plaintiffs

AILA: The federal district court in D.C. ordered DOS to reserve 6,914 diversity visas (DVs) for adjudication pending final judgment for Goodluck-related plaintiffs, and to reserve 481 DVs for Goh plaintiffs to be issued by the end of FY2022. (Goh, et al. v. DOS, et al., 9/30/21)

 

Texas Migrant Detention Program Sees Courtroom Setbacks

Law260: A border-focused law enforcement initiative launched by Texas earlier this year suffered setbacks in a state court on Tuesday, with prosecutors agreeing to release dozens of immigrants being held in state custody and to completely drop charges against two of them.

 

Feds To Pay $1.2M Atty Fees After Migrant Kids Release Order

Law360: The Biden administration agreed to pay $1.15 million to attorneys who successfully advocated for the safe custody of migrant children held in border detention facilities, while the attorneys continued to push for additional fees for an appeal the administration abandoned.

 

EOIR Launches “Access EOIR” Initiative

AILA: EOIR announced its “Access EOIR” initiative, which attempts to raise representation for individuals appearing before immigration courts. New trainings under the Model Hearing Program are available, and recent EOIR efforts include the development of the Counsel for Children Initiative.

 

DHS Issues Updated Guidance on the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law

AILA: DHS issued updated guidance on the enforcement of civil immigration law. Guidance is effective on 11/29/21 and will rescind prior civil immigration guidance.

 

DHS Announces Intention to Issue New Memo Terminating MPP

AILA: DHS issued a statement announcing that it “intends to issue in the coming weeks a new memorandum terminating the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).” However, DHS is moving forward with plans to restart the program pursuant to a district court order.

 

USCIS Provides Additional Guidance on Afghan Special Immigrant Conditional Permanent Residents and Non-SI Parolees

AILA: SAVE announced that DHS will admit Afghans as special immigrant (SI) conditional permanent resident status and CBP will admit Afghans as non-SI parolees. The memo describes both categories, the qualifications for either, the ways their status will be documented, and more.

 

DHS Automatically Extends TPS for Certain Syria EADs Through March 2022

AILA: DHS automatically extended the validity of certain EADs with a category code of A12 or C19 issued under TPS for Syria through 3/28/22. For Form I-9, TPS Syria beneficiaries may present qualifying EADs along with an individual notice issued by USCIS that indicates extension of EAD.

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

Monday, October 4, 2021

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Saturday, October 2, 2021

Friday, October 1, 2021

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Monday, September 27, 2021

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

Thanks, Elizabeth! 

I’d go even further than the article in The Intercept. The Biden Administration was told by experts during the early Transition Period to make restoring order and the rule of law to the asylum system at our borders one of their highest priorities. That included reviving and expanding the USCIS Asylum Office, reopening legal ports of entry, replacing the BIA with qualified progressive expert Appellate Judges who understood asylum law and would establish practical humane precedents, bringing in progressive, dynamic progressive asylum leadership at both the DHS and DOJ, reopening legal border ports of entry, and instituting a robust refugee programs for the Northern Triangle and the rest of the Americas. 

With a 10 week “head start,” these were neither rocket science nor unachievable. Instead the Administration dawdled and fumbled, treating asylum reform as an issue that would “just go away.” Once in office, Mayorkas, Garland, and Harris aggravated the problem by not making the obvious progressive personnel and structural changes necessary to restore the asylum and refugee systems.

Now, we have the worst of all worlds! Disorder at the border, cruelty and abuse of migrants, and folks like Harold Koh, who have the expertise, backbone, and creative solutions that Mayorkas and Garland so stunningly lack fleeing the Administration and speaking out against its inane and inhumane policies.

All so stupid! All so unnecessary! All so damaging to America and humanity!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-06-21

 

 

Related posts:

  1. 🏴‍☠️THE PROBLEM @ THE BORDER ISN’T THAT BIDEN HAS  SOFTENED TRUMP’S RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW RHETORIC! — IT’S THAT BIDEN, GARLAND, & MAYORKAS HAVE FAILED TO RESTORE A ROBUST ASYLUM SYSTEM AT LEGAL PORTS OF ENTRY, STAFFED WITH EXPERT ASYLUM OFFICERS & QUALIFIED IMMIGRATION JUDGES WHO WILL GRANT ASYLUM TO THOSE QUALIFIED, END IDIOTIC TRUMP-ERA MISINTERPRETATIONS & MIS-APPLICATIONS OF ASYLUM LAW, AND ARE DEDICATED TO DUE PROCESS FOR ALL! — Administration’s  Misguided “Trump Lite” Approach Continues To Create Human Misery,☠️⚰️ Trash The Law, 🤮 Without Addressing The Real Problems Generated By Years Of “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡🆘 In U.S. Asylum & Refugee Policies!  — Jack Herrera Reports From The Border For Politico!
  2. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  3. 🗽⚖️🇺🇸LEE GELERNT @ ACLU SAYS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “cannot farm out the asylum system.” Yet, That Appears To Be Largely What They Are Doing Under New, Previously Unpublicized Program!
  4. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯

SCHUMER RIPS BIDEN’S XENOPHOBIC ASYLUM POLICIES, 🤮 ILLEGAL EXPULSIONS OF HAITIANS TO DANGER ZONES!☠️

Border Patrol on Horses
The Biden Administration’s treatment of Black folks trying to apply for asylum has a certain “Jim Crow” appearance!
PHOTO: times of Israel.com

Igor Bobic reports for HuffPost:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/haiti-migrants-biden-chuck-schumer_n_6149f781e4b077b735eb78f3

. . . .

“We cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. “We must allow asylum-seekers to present their claims at our ports of entry and be afforded due process.”

. . . .

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

Exactly what I’ve been saying at Courtside!

Fact is, nobody appears to know what’s really happening at the border and what policies and criteria are applied. One moment, the Biden Administration brags that Haitians are being rapidly and arbitrarily excluded with no due process. A little later, they claim that many Haitians are being allowed to come into the U.S. for “processing.” https://madison.com/news/national/many-haitian-migrants-released-in-us-trump-sues-niece-ny-times-biden-doubles-vaccine-purchase/article_89244157-a530-500b-9095-ba676e4a2307.html

Who knows what “processing” is? Meat processing? Removal processing? Asylum processing? Who’s making these life or death decisions? What criteria are they using?

I see little evidence that the key decisions are being made by trained Asylum Officers. Rather, the Haitians appear to be at the whim and the mercy of the Border Patrol Agents who encounter them! “Apprehend” seems like a very misleading term for those mostly seeking just to turn themselves in and apply for asylum in the absence of a functioning legal screening system at ports of entry.

One thing we know for sure: Myorkas’s claim that it is “safe” to indiscriminately return individuals to Haiti, a nation every true expert agrees is in total physical and political crisis, is pure BS! The kind of thing that Gauleiter Miller and his toadies would say!

Almost all experts, and Courtside, emphasized the need for the Biden Administration to use the time between the election and the inauguration to “hit the ground running” to have a comprehensive plan ready to deal with asylum cases at ports of entry. This included reopening the ports, getting trained and well-qualified Asylum Officers in place, and fixing the dysfunctional mess at EOIR on at least a temporary basis with real experts on asylum law replacing the BIA and some of the other Immigration Judges unqualified to fairly decide asylum cases.

Instead, they dawdled and did same old old, same old. EOIR remains a dysfunctional mess with a total lack of guidance and a shortage of Immigration Judges skilled in fair adjudication of asylum claims.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09–22-21

Related posts:

  1. NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! 🚀 “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum . . . .” INA section 208(a). Black Organizations File Complaint About Biden Administration’s Scofflaw Actions Targeting Black Haitians & Other Asylum Seekers Of Color!
  2. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”
  3. 🇺🇸🗽⚖️GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE REPORT: GENDER VIOLENCE ☠️⚰️DRIVES CONTINUING REFUGEE FLOW TO U.S. — Dishonesty Of Sessions’s Misogynistic Attack In Matter Of A-B- 🤮 Exposed Again! — Yet, Garland Fails To Take Action To End Misogyny, Anti-Asylum Culture @ EOIR, Even As He Also Fails To Insist On The Restoration Of The Rule Of Law @ Our Borders! —  WHY?🤯
  4. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮PROMISE NOT KEPT: BIDEN’S CRUEL, INHUMANE, ILLEGAL MIGRANT CAMPS MIGHT BE EVEN WORSE THAN TRUMPS! — Molly Hennessy-Fiske @ LA Times Exposes Administration’s Deadly Cosmic Border Failure — It’s Got Nothing To Do With “A Bogus Open Border” & Everything To Do With Not Restoring The Legal Asylum System With Progressive Leadership, Progressive Judges, & Properly-Trained Asylum Officers!

Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Houston Bureau Chief
LA Times

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKEHOUSTON BUREAU CHIEF

SEP. 3, 2021 2:09 PM PT

REYNOSA, Mexico — When Joe Biden was running for president, he promised to close a squalid border tent camp in Mexico where thousands of migrants had been left to await the outcome of their immigration cases by the Trump administration.

Last spring, Biden emptied the camp, allowing most of the migrants to claim asylum and enter the U.S. even as his administration continued enforcing a Trump pandemic policy that effectively barred most other asylum seekers.

Soon after the Matamoros camp was bulldozed last March, a new camp formed about 55 miles west across from the border bridge to the more dangerous, Gulf crime cartel stronghold of Reynosa. Now that camp and another in Tijuana are home to thousands of asylum seekers, many with spouses and children in the U.S. They’re expected to grow after federal courts reinstated Trump’s so-called Remain in Mexico program last week, making it even harder for asylum seekers to enter the U.S. legally.

“We all thought this would get better when Biden got the presidency,” said Brendon Tucker, who works at the camp clinic run by the U.S.-based nonprofit Global Response Management, which also ran a clinic at the Matamoros camp.

Instead, he said, Biden’s pandemic ban on asylum claims, “is creating worse conditions in Mexico.”

About 2,000 migrants were living at the camp in Reynosa, Mexico, last week.(Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)

A White House spokesman declined to comment about the migrant camps, referring questions to the Department of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security said in a statement that, “This administration will continue to work closely with its interagency, foreign, and international organization partners to comply in good faith with the district court’s order [on Remain in Mexico] while continuing our work to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system that upholds our laws and values.”

In Reynosa, where about 2,000 migrants were living last week, conditions are in many ways worse than they were in Matamoros, Tucker said. There’s less potable water, fewer bathrooms, showers and other sanitation that U.S.-based nonprofits spent months installing in Matamoros. Mexican soldiers circle in trucks with guns mounted on top. Migrants face not only cartel extortion and kidnapping, but also COVID-19 outbreaks and pressure to leave from Mexican authorities. Fewer U.S. volunteers, including immigration lawyers, are willing to cross the border to help due to security concerns. Few at the camp understand their rights and U.S. pandemic restrictions, although they say they asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents about them before they were expelled.

“They didn’t tell us anything, they just left us here,” said Salvadoran migrant Emerita Alfaro Palacios, 34, who’s been living at the camp with her 17-year-old daughter Pamela since June, hoping to join her brother in Houston.

Migrants call the camp Plaza Las Americas, the name of the park it occupies. The first to arrive last spring holed up inside the central gazebo. Those who followed pitched tents outside, their warren of droopy tarps and clotheslines expanding daily. Gone were the mariachis who used to congregate in the park, in the shade of a dilapidated casino that still draws throngs on weekends. Last week, only the gazebo’s spindly roof was visible, like the center of an enormous, patched circus tent. Taxis and vendors still circled, selling fruit popsicles, tacos, pupusas and other dishes catering to hungry migrants, mostly Central Americans. Many said they came to the border hoping Biden would allow them to claim asylum. Some had seen reports about how he helped those at the camp in Matamoros.

Many Reynosa residents and officials consider the camp an eyesore.

Standing on the roof of a nearby building overlooking the camp last week, maintenance worker Hector Hernandez Garrido, 33, said it was the responsibility of the U.S. to accept the asylum seekers. He said he feared the camp was contaminated by COVID-19 and other diseases.

Two weeks ago, Reynosa authorities removed cook stoves from the camp kitchen, citing safety risks. They pressured U.S. volunteers to stop cordoning off a section of the camp for migrants who had tested positive for COVID-19, and have threatened to cut the camp’s electricity and water supply.

“They want us out,” said Gina Maricela, a Honduran single mother and nurse at the GRM clinic.

It’s not clear where the migrants would go. Last month, Reynosa officials also launched a legal battle to demolish the city’s primary nonprofit migrant shelter, already home to hundreds, arguing it lies in a floodplain. Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, who has been crossing the border daily to help migrants at the Reynosa camp through her nonprofit Sidewalk School, said they rented a 20-room hotel for those who are COVID-positive to quarantine. They may build a new camp, she said, but that would take weeks and cost tens of thousands of dollars.

“It’s exactly like Matamoros, but with less support,” Rangel-Samponaro said. “Cut what you like, that’s not going to stop the encampment.”

As in Matamoros and other border cities in the surrounding Tamaulipas state, it’s not city officials or even migrants who ultimately control the plaza — it’s the cartel. Migrants who enter or leave the city without paying a smuggler risk getting kidnapped and held for ransom. So do those who leave the camp, even for a few hours to shop or look for work.

Honduran migrant Lesly Pineda, a factory worker, said she and her 11-year-old son Joan were kidnapped with eight other migrants in July and released only after she paid a $2,000 ransom. A single mother, Pineda, 33, then took her son to the border and sent him across the Rio Grande with a smuggler. He remained at a federal shelter in Texas last week, she said. She had left her two oldest children, ages 15 and 14, with her mother in Honduras.

. . . .

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

“Floaters”
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Will U.S. policy makers ever get beyond this jaundiced view of the “proper place” for asylum seekers in modern society? So far, despite Biden’s and Harris’s campaign rhetoric, the “reality on the ground” (or “in the river,” as the case might be) has remained disturbingly unchanged!
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

Read Molly’s full report at the link.

The Trump kakistocracy considered the legal asylum system to be a “loophole” in their White Nationalist agenda. So, they just overtly violated the law. Thanks to an indulgent “Dred Scott” Supremes’ majority, they largely got away with it!

The Biden Administration considers complying with asylum laws, due process, and the rule of law, essentially a “political option” that they are working on (slowly, and incompetently).  

In the meantime, they simply continue the Trump Administration’s illegal policies. Because, hey, it’s not real humans whose rights, lives, and humanity are being stomped upon here. Just “foreign nationals” and mostly “people of color” at that. Let ‘em continue to twist in the wind, while the Administration gets its act together. That’s particularly convenient if it’s happening south of the border where, except for a few courageous folks like Molly and some NGOs and religious workers, the human trauma is largely “out of sight out of mind.” 

If all else fails, we can always blame Trump. Like Trump, Biden has largely ceded control of southern border policies and migration from Latin America to cartels, smugglers, and traffickers. When the legal system fails, the underground and the black market take over. 

I don’t think that there is any doubt that restoring the legal asylum system and actually, for perhaps the first time, administering it fairly, lawfully, generously, and with competent expert Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges (“new blood” required) would result in a substantial number of border arrivals being granted legal asylum or other forms of protection. 

We’d actually be able to screen individuals, know who we have admitted, where they are going, have them in possession of legal work authorization, in a position to pay taxes, and in many cases have them on a path to eventual full integration into our society. And, by all legitimate accounts, after four years of Trump’s legal immigration disaster and a falling birth rate, we certainly can use more legal immigration. 

Instead of looking at asylum seekers as a self-defined “problem,” why not look at saving them and integrating their skills and undoubted courage, energy, and perseverance into our society in a constructive manner as an “opportunity?” Because, that’s exactly what it is!  

Human migration will continue, as it always has been, to be a major force in the 21st Century. “Smart money” is on the countries that best learn how to adapt and take advantage of its realities and embrace its opportunities as the “winners of the future.” 

Given a fair, functional, generous system, many asylum seekers would be motivated to apply in an orderly fashion at ports of entry, or even abroad (if we actually had a robust functioning refugee program for Latin America, which we don’t). With an honest system that treats them fairly, listens carefully, and provides reasoned understandable decisions, even those who don’t qualify would be more likely to accept the result and consider constructive alternatives.

If the U.S. stepped up, fulfilled our legal obligations, and set a good example, other countries in a position to accept refugees and asylum seekers might also be motivated to improve their performance. 

But, what we’re doing right now to those we falsely promised to treat fairly won’t be swept under the carpet forever. Historians are likely to highlight the cowardly abrogation of our legal duties to refugees and asylum seekers, by Administrations of both parties, as a  low point in the American story. 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-04-21

Related posts:

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  2. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  3. WOW, HERE’S A SURPRISE: MANY KIDS FLEEING VIOLENCE IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES — They Are Just Trying To Save Their Lives!
  4. ⚖️🗽🇺🇸😇SISTER NORMA SPEAKS OUT AGAINST “LET ‘EM DIE MEXICO” ⚰️ & THE FALSE DOCTRINE OF “DETERRENCE THROUGH CRUELTY & IMMORALITY!” ☠️🤮 — “It is immoral and abhorrent to deter people who are legally and peacefully seeking safety in the United States by deliberately exposing them to the very perils that they are hoping to escape.”

☹️PROGRESSIVE ADVOCATES SENT TO BACK OF THE BUS 🚌 AGAIN AS BIDEN HUMAN RIGHTS MISTAKES THEY WARNED AGAINST COST LIVES, PROMOTE CHAOS, DIMINISH AMERICA’S REPUTATION!☠️⚰️

Julian Castro
Julian Castro
American Politician

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/refugee-visas-afghanistan-withdrawal_n_61202499e4b029c152b4ff01

Kevin Robillard and Rowaida Abdelaziz report for HuffPost:

. . . .

There are currently more than 17,000 Afghan nationals — as well as an estimated 53,000 of their family members — awaiting visa approval through the Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) program. The U.S. brought over approximately 2,300 Afghans as part of the program from January to July, and another 2,000 over the last week.

The White House says it has cut the time necessary to approve SIV visas in half, and has issued more than 5,500 between April and July. But advocates say it needs to move faster.

“They seem to be afraid. They seem to be operating out of fear that being a bit bolder on issues with refugees, asylees and migrants will somehow cost them politically,” said former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, who made improving the country’s refugee system a central part of his 2020 presidential campaign. “This is an area where there’s growing disappointment and impatience ― and the stirrings of real anger ― towards the administration.”

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link.

Julian Castro should have been given a major role by the Biden Administration on cleaning house and straightening out the human rights disaster and dysfunction left behind by Trump and Miller. But, at this point, would he really want the job?

🇺🇸DPF!

PWS

08-23-21

Related posts:

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  2. 😰NO HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR FAMILIES IN “THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG”☠️⚰️ — As Kakistocracy Of War Criminals 🤮🏴‍☠️ Departs, Will President Biden Have The Wisdom & Guts To Move Beyond “The Dem Border Alarmists” & Get The Progressive Leaders 🦸🏽‍♂️⚖️ From The NDPA In Place To Bring Due Process & Order To The Border?🗽🇺🇸
  3. ☠️⚰️🤮👎🏽BIDEN/GARLAND/MAYORKAS WITH MASSIVE HUMAN RIGHTS FAILURE: 40% Of Asylum Seekers Illegally Returned By Biden Administration Suffered Attacks, Kidnapping Upon Return To Mexico — None Were Given Legal/Human Rights To Apply For Asylum (Under A System Already Biased Against People of Color & Women)! — This & Other News In The Gibson Report, Prepared By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group!
  4. 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️RACE IN AMERICA: CARRIE ROSENBAUM “GETS IT,” EVEN AS MAYORKAS, GARLAND, HARRIS & THE OTHER BIDEN HYPOCRITES PRETEND NOT TO:  “Immigration reform, and a more robust application of the Equal Protection doctrine to all those inside the country, and at our borders, is necessary to move towards meaningfully dismantling systemic racism.”

☠️🤮⚰️DUE PROCESS MOCKED: UNDUE POLITICAL INFLUENCE IN IMMIGRATION COURT LEADS TO IMPROPER DENIAL OF LIFE-SAVING PROTECTION TO KIDS! — “Political influence from the executive branch combined with local environmental pressures can affect how immigration judges rule. Most importantly, these influences can lead to some children not receiving asylum when they might otherwise be entitled to it.”

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

Unaccompanied immigrant minors wait on July 2, 2019 in Los Ebanos, Texas to be transported to a U.S. Border Patrol processing center after entering the U.S. to seek political asylum. John Moore/Getty Images

US immigration judges considering asylum for unaccompanied minors are ‘significantly influenced’ by politics

July 13, 2021 8.30am EDT

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The news over the past months has been saturated with stories about another “surge” of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border of the U.S.

In March 2021, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended in the U.S. reached an all-time monthly high of 18,890. This surpassed the previous monthly high of 11,681 in May 2019.

One question not addressed in many of these stories is: How many of these children actually receive asylum and are allowed to stay in the country?

The people who make those decisions are immigration judges. Their decisions are supposed to be based on whether these children have fears of being persecuted in their home countries and whether these fears are realistic.

But our research examining the period from early October 2013 until the end of September 2017 shows that these judges were influenced by factors outside of the case. Political factors such as ideology, political party of the president who appointed them and who was president at the time they decided the case significantly influenced whether these children were allowed to stay in the country.

Aside from political factors, immigration judges are also influenced by local contexts, such as unemployment levels, the number of uninsured children and size of Latino population in the places where they work.

Unaccompanied minors and asylum

Under U.S. law, an unaccompanied minor is a child under 18 years old who does not have lawful immigration status and no parent or legal guardian in the country who can provide care or custody.

Unaccompanied minors cannot be refused entry or removed from the country without legal process because of the 1993 Supreme Court case Reno v. Flores. In 2008, new legislation allowed asylum officers to grant these children asylum at the U.S. border. If the asylum officer denies asylum to the minor, the minor may request asylum before an immigration judge.

Because immigration judges are not appointed under Article III of the Constitution, as federal judges are, they have less independence than those federal judges. According to current Justice Department rules, immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general and they act as his or her delegates.

Political pressure

In order to learn what factors affect the grant of relief to unaccompanied minors, we obtained data on their asylum applications from Oct. 2, 2013 to Sept. 29, 2017, covering over 10,000 cases from 280 different judges in 46 counties and 27 states.

Only 327 of the unaccompanied minors actually received asylum; 2,867 were deported and 455 chose to voluntarily leave.

An additional 6,645 children were allowed to stay in the country. Of those, 3,589 had their case administratively closed, which allows judges to suspend the case indefinitely without hearing and deciding on it. The remaining 3,056 had their case terminated, which means that the case against the child was dismissed.

The fate of unaccompanied minors entering the US

A review of about 10,000 asylum applications for unaccompanied minors from October 2, 2013 to September 29, 2017 found the majority of the minors were allowed to stay (in green), most because a judge either dismissed or indefinitely suspended the case against them. Only 327 were granted asylum.

Bar charts grouped to show significantly more unaccompanied minors were allowed to stay.

2,000 cases

2,867

455

3,589

3,056

327

Removed

Voluntarily Departed

Administrative Closure

Case dismissed

Received asylum

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

pastedGraphic_3.png

We ran a statistical analysis of political factors that may influence immigration judges’ decision: judicial ideology, political party of the appointing president and whether the decision was made before or during the Trump administration.

Following previous research on immigration judge’s ideology, we determined a judge’s ideology by considering their prior work experiences. Based on this research, we determined that some experiences, such as working for immigration agencies, are associated with more conservative views on immigration and asylum issues.

Conversely, work experiences in an immigration or non-immigration-related nonprofit or academia are associated with more liberal views. Our analysis showed that immigration judges with more liberal judicial ideology were more likely to rule in favor of granting asylum to these children.

Judges’ ideology can influence asylum decisions

Immigration judges who are more liberal tended to allow unaccompanied children to stay in the U.S. more often, compared to more conservative judges. Ideology was determined from each judge’s prior work and ranges from 1-11, most conservative to most liberal.

Area chart showing how children allowed to stay rose with more liberal judges.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

0

50

100%

Likelihood unaccompanied minor is allowed to stay

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

pastedGraphic_3.png

We also found that judges who were appointed by a Democratic attorney general were more likely to rule in favor of the minors.

Political party of attorney general who appointed the judge

Immigration judges appointed by Democrats were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. than those appointed by Republicans.

Bar charts showing judges appointed by Democrats were more like to allow unaccompanied children to stay in the U.S., but GOP-appointed numbers were also above 62%.

Republican

62.9%

Democratic

69.5%

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

pastedGraphic_3.png

Finally, statistical analysis showed that immigration judges were less likely to grant relief during the eight months of the Trump administration compared to the last three years of the Obama administration.

President at the time the case was decided

Immigration judges were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. during the Obama administration than during the Trump administration.

Trump

54%

Obama

67.7%

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

pastedGraphic_3.png

Why did politics and judges’ ideology play into their decisions?

We believe it’s because immigration judges are subject to political pressure from the president, indirectly, because they are appointed by the attorney general, who is also a presidential appointee and carries out the president’s policies and wishes.

Local environment

Pressure from the executive branch was not the only factor we concluded had influenced whether these children got to stay in the U.S. or were turned away. Aside from political and ideological values, judges may also have been influenced by their local contexts.

For example, we found that immigration judges in places with more Latinos were more likely to let these children stay. Conversely, immigration judges in states with lots of poor children were less likely to let these children stay than judges in states with relatively fewer poor kids.

Latino population in the county

In counties with larger Latino populations, judges were more likely to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to stay in the U.S. The horizontal axis shows the percentage of the county’s population that is Latino.

20% Latino

40

60

80

0

20

40

60

80

100% likelihood unaccompanied minor is allowed to stay

Data from 2013-2017

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND Source: Daniel Braaten and Claire Nolasco Braaten Get the data

pastedGraphic_3.png

Asylum decisions can be life-or-death matters. Although immigration judges consider the requirements of asylum law, they are also influenced by nonlegal factors when making decisions.

Political influence from the executive branch combined with local environmental pressures can affect how immigration judges rule. Most importantly, these influences can lead to some children not receiving asylum when they might otherwise be entitled to it.

[The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]

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Republished under Creative Commons license.

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Go to this link for the original article with pictures and graphs:  https://theconversation.com/us-immigration-judges-considering-asylum-for-unaccompanied-minors-are-significantly-influenced-by-politics-160071

This article confirms two things I have said over and over:

  1. Garland’s failure, to date, to replace the BIA with better qualified progressive judges with expertise gained by representing asylum seekers; plus
  2. His “giveaway” of 17 critical Immigration Judge positions to those selected by “Billy the Bigot” Barr under badly flawed procedures;

will unquestionably cost some children and other refugees their lives. Immigration Judge positions are life or death — we need an Attorney General who treats them that way!

Immigration Judge appointments, particularly those at the appellate (BIA level), need to be treated by Democratic Administrations with the same care, seriousness, and strategy as Article III judicial appointments, perhaps more! Few Article III Judges, including the Supremes, affect more lives and have a bigger impact on America’s future than Immigration Judges. 

The last two GOP Administrations “got” the negative power for destruction and dehumanization inherent in a “captive” court system that actively pursues misguided nativist policies and receives only sporadic supervision and attention from the Article IIIs. By contrast, the Obama Administration failed to “mine EOIR’s potential” for progressive due process advancements and building a corps of dynamic, courageous progressive judges.  

So far, while perhaps exceeding the passively inept approach of the Obama Administration, the Biden Administration has also failed to achieve the radical, yet logical and obvious, reforms and decisive personnel actions necessary to undo the damage caused by the White Nationalist xenophobia of the Trump kakistocracy. 

The Immigration Courts have the potential to become “model progressive courts” that could lead the way to better practices and more constitutionally and legally sound jurisprudence throughout the Federal Judiciary. Whether the Biden Administration grasps and acts boldly on that potential, or squanders it as past Democratic Administrations have done, remains to be seen.

But, that question is far from “academic.” The survival of our democratic republic is likely to depend to a great extent on whether the Biden Administration can bring in the progressive experts who finally will “get EOIR right!”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-16-21

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  2. ⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️”MEDLEY OF INJUSTICE” — CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO LOWER HAMMER 🔨 ON BIA: Anti-Asylum Misogyny; Illegal & Incredibly Stupid “Policies;” “Perplexing” Lack Of Legal Knowledge Highlighted In Latest Batch Of Reversals! — “Attempted rape by a gang of men, in broad daylight on a public street, is especially terrorizing because it powerfully demonstrates the perpetrator’s domination, control over the victim and imperviousness to the law. Requiring evidence of additional harms both minimizes the gravity of the sexual assault and demeans the victim.”
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🆘NO JUSTICE @ JUSTICE! — OUTRAGE OF PROGRESSIVE EXPERTS CONTINUES TO GROW AS GARLAND FAILS TO VACATE SESSIONS/BARR RACIST, MISOGYNIST, ANTI-IMMIGRANT, UNETHICAL, BIASED PRECEDENTS — “Garland’s Star Chambers” Careen Further Out Of Control As AG Dithers While Lives Of Vulnerable Refugee Women Hang in Balance & Pro Bono Advocates Are Forced To Exhaust Resources Fighting Trump DOJ’s Misdeeds That Biden Has Failed To Fix, Despite Promises — “Unforced Errors,” Lack Of Competent Progressive Leadership Continue To Plague Flawed Immigration Agenda @ Justice, Offend Dem Supporters! — Expert Professors Karen Musalo & Stephen Legomsky Call For Immediate Vacating Of Repulsive Matter of A-B- Abomination Before More Lives Of Women Of Color Are Lost!
  4. 🆘🤮IS 11TH CIR. GROWING WEARY OF GARLAND’S SCOFFLAW BIA? —Two Trips To The Circuit, & The BIA Still Violates Own Regulations, Ignores Precedent, Spouts Gibberish While OIL’s Defense Of This Nonsense & Malfeasance By EOIR Raises Serious Ethical Questions! — THAMOTAR v. U.S. ATT’Y GEN. — Garland’s Dysfunctional & Systematically Unjust Courts Undermine OUR Democracy☠️ — Demand An IMMEDIATE End To The Scofflaw Nonsense🤡 🧹 At OUR Justice Department! 🏴‍☠️