“Clown Court” 🤡 – Page 2 – immigrationcourtside.com

CLEAR AS MUD: Politicized Immigration “Courts” Continue To Bobble The Message In The Time Of Plague, Endangering Their Own Employees, Attorneys, & The Public! — America’s Clown Courts 🤡☠️ Enter A Deadly New Phase As Feckless Article III Courts Watch The Show Go On! —“I don’t know who’s making the calls, but they’re wrong.” — DUH!

https://apple.news/Af7cWvYFbT5CO7qZKyldm3w

Dara Lind reports for Pro Publica:

Interviews with 10 workers at immigration courts around the country reveal fear, contradictory messages and continuing perils for the employees.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

On Tuesday night — over a day after several Bay Area counties issued shelter-in-place orders barring most people from leaving their homes — the San Francisco immigration court sent an email to staff: Hearings were being postponed nationwide for most immigrants, so the court would be closed starting Wednesday. (The text of the email was provided to ProPublica.)

On Wednesday, however, employees were directed to get onto a conference call, according to two participants. There they were told the Tuesday night email was wrong. The court wasn’t closed. They would have to come into the office — or use their vacation time to stay home. When staff asked about the shelter-in-place orders, the response was that the Department of Justice, which runs immigration courts, took the position that those were local laws and didn’t apply to federal employees.

The Trump administration has reduced immigration court operations in the past week, by postponing hearings for non-detained immigrants and closing a handful of courts to the public. Those actions came after the unions representing immigration prosecutors and judges issued a rare public call for courts to close.

The reduced court operations came after weeks of employees raising concerns privately and, they say, receiving few and unhelpful answers. And because the closures are determined solely by whether a court is hearing cases of detained immigrants, rather than by the level of health peril, employees still feel they’re putting their health at risk every time they come into the office as instructed.

That’s the picture that emerges from interviews with 10 federal employees who work at immigration courts across the country. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity. Many said they had raised concerns internally about their exposure to COVID-19 to their managers or hadn’t been informed of potential exposures.

“When I signed up for this job, I thought it might be morally compromising at times,” one immigration court employee told ProPublica, “but I never thought it would be compromising of my health and safety.”

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the DOJ agency that oversees immigration courts, told ProPublica that agency headquarters was responsible for deciding when courts closed, but it did not confirm or deny specifics of the employees’ allegations, saying, “We do not comment on internal communications or internal personnel operations.”

In Denver, one prosecutor interviewed by ProPublica was alarmed by a judge’s frequent coughs during a hearing last Friday. “Don’t mind my coughing,” the judge said, according to the prosecutor. “I don’t think it’s coronavirus.” The following Tuesday, the prosecutor noticed that the judge was out for the rest of the week and emailed a court staffer in concern: Was it the coronavirus? Should she be taking precautions? The staffer’s reply: For privacy reasons, the prosecutor’s questions couldn’t be answered.

Only after news broke to the public on Tuesday night that a judge at the Denver immigration court had been diagnosed with COVID-19 (the disease caused by the new coronavirus) did court officials follow up with the prosecutor and confirm her suspicions. Other attorneys the judge had been in close contact with were notified the next day. The court remained open through Thursday, when the entire building it was housed in was shut down for deep cleaning by the General Services Administration. (It’s currently set to reopen Monday.)

In New York, legal aid groups sent a letter to immigration court officials saying that two of their attorneys had symptoms of COVID-19 and a third had been exposed to someone who’d tested positive. All three attorneys had appeared in court the past week, and all had hearings scheduled the following day. The courts didn’t say anything to their employees about the letter, according to multiple sources.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has pressured the immigration courts to process as many immigrants as quickly as possible — pressuring judges to hear more cases and complete them within a year, and making it harder for immigrants or attorneys to postpone hearings. Now, they face a public health crisis that requires everyone to reduce person-to-person contact.

Immigration court workers have two concerns. The first is that the courts are often crowded and require close contact with members of the public. The second is that, like most employees of any type, especially those who take public transit, they are exposed every time they leave their homes to work.

Employees remain concerned about their exposure over the past few weeks, while courts were running as usual. Employees in New York and California — the states hardest hit by the pandemic to date — told ProPublica that their requests for “deep cleaning” were rejected by managers, and that they were bringing their own Clorox wipes and disinfectant spray to the office.

Most immigration court business happens in person. Even trying to postpone an immigration hearing (for example, due to illness) requires an attorney to file a paper form with a clerk. And if an immigrant doesn’t show up for a hearing, they’re at risk of getting ordered deported in absentia. In at least one New York court, according to two people who work there, the chief judge told employees Monday to issue absentia deportation orders if immigrants weren’t showing up, even if the coronavirus was the suspected cause.

Policies the Trump administration introduced before the COVID-19 pandemic put considerable pressure on judges and prosecutors not to allow immigrants to postpone their hearings. Judges face a “performance standard” of completing 80% of their cases within a year — a standard over 90% of judges don’t meet, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges. But the more than 150 judges who have been hired in the past two years are still in their probationary period, where they could be fired for failing to meet performance standards.

While many judges have been lenient in granting coronavirus-related postponements, others have not. Last week, according to one California immigration court employee, a judge took a break from a hearing to tell colleagues that the immigrant’s attorney claimed to be sick, but because he wasn’t coughing, the hearing would move forward.

One email sent by the chief prosecutor at the Miami court Tuesday, read to ProPublica, told prosecutors that if an immigrant or her attorney claimed to be sick, any postponement should be counted against the immigrant (preventing them from requesting another postponement). If the immigrant didn’t want to postpone, and the judge wasn’t willing to hold the hearing by phone, the prosecutor was instructed to contact her manager — who would assess the claim of illness himself before deciding what to do. (A call to the chief prosecutor in Miami was not immediately returned.)

Most communication, though, has been oral. In at least two courts, chief judges were asked to put policies in writing and declined.

Employees have been in the dark about who, exactly, is making the decisions about which courts are open and when employees are allowed to work from home or take leave to stay home. “The word is that it’s out of their hands. Everything is out of everybody’s hands,” Fanny Behar-Ostrow, president of the union representing immigration prosecutors, told ProPublica Wednesday. “I don’t know who’s making the calls, but they’re wrong.”

An email obtained by the Miami Herald, written by the assistant chief immigration judge in charge of the Miami immigration court on Wednesday, said that closure decisions were ultimately being made by “the White House” — something that employees at other courts also said their managers had suggested. But chief judges gave conflicting explanations about which decisions were subject to White House approval; one chief judge told employees that the White House had to be involved in decisions about remote work, while other chief judges made those decisions themselves.

It’s not clear who at the White House is involved or how. Immigration officials told the Herald that the ultimate decision was made by the Office of Management and Budget. However, according to the employees ProPublica spoke to, some immigration court officials used “White House” to refer to policies set by the Office of Personnel Management. The assistant chief immigration judge (the judge in charge of a given immigration court location) for one California court told employees on March 12 that they’d had a phone call with staff for Vice President Mike Pence, who’s running the official coronavirus task force.

But to many employees, the specter of “White House” involvement raised concerns that the administration’s immigration policy priorities were getting in the way of its public health obligations.

. . . .

Read Dara’s full article at the link.

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

The confusion engendered by politicized immigration enforcement in support of a White Nationalist agenda doesn’t end with the Immigration Courts. Despite, or perhaps because of, a number of public statements by DHS political hacks, there’s still plenty of uncertainty and angst about DHS’s enforcement and detention policies. Chloe Hadavas over at Slate sets out what happens when politicos take over law enforcement and justice.

Chloe Havadas — Chloe Hadavas
Intern Reporter
Slate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/ice-halts-immigration-enforcement-coronavirus.html

Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced on Wednesday that it will halt most arrests and deportations, focusing only on individuals who are “public safety risks” and who are “subject to mandatory detention based on criminal grounds,” as the coronavirus sweeps across the U.S. and public health officials scramble to limit the virus’ spread.

Undocumented immigrants are often afraid to seek medical care for fear of deportation. And even as state and local officials encouraged anyone who needed medical treatment to seek help, ICE officers continued to make arrests, including in areas hit hard by the virus. But in the temporary change in enforcement, ICE also said that it won’t carry out operations near health care facilities, including hospitals, doctors’ offices, and urgent care facilities, “except in the most extraordinary of circumstances,” the agency said in a statement. “Individuals should not avoid seeking medical care because they fear civil immigration enforcement.”

Immigration experts said ICE’s decision was somewhat unexpected, though they remain cautious about how to interpret it. “I’m always surprised to hear that they’re going to scale back on their efforts,” said Jennifer M. Chacón, a UCLA law professor who focuses on immigration. ICE’s statement marks a distinct shift from the agency’s operations under the Trump administration. Both Chacón and Karla McKanders, a law professor who directs the Immigration Practice Clinic at Vanderbilt University, said that it reminded them of the “felons, not families” immigration policy of the Obama administration. “You read it and it basically looks like the Obama-era enforcement priority statement, and you just wonder why it takes a pandemic to get ICE to think about prioritizing resources and focusing efforts on public safety,” said Chacón.

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You can read the rest of Chloe’s article at the link.

“I don’t know who’s making the calls, but they’re wrong.” Kind of “says it all” about how the regime treats its own employees and the public good.

Meanwhile, Article III Courts, which have had more than ample opportunity to put an end to the constitutional farce taking place in Immigration Court and also to direct the DHS to take overdue steps to release non-dangerous (that is, most) immigration detainees before the epidemic sweeps chronically health-endangering immigration prisons in their New American Gulag (“NAG”), have once again “swallowed the whistle.” The Gulag, where kids are caged and put in “iceboxes,” families separated, and folks sometimes left to die, all for no reason other than “we can do it and nobody’s going to stop us” will haunt not only those corrupt public servants who established and operated it, but also those like legislators, judges, and public health officials who failed in their duties to end the human rights abuses.

Perhaps the Article IIIs are “running scared” because without the ongoing clown show in the U.S. Immigration Courts, the Article IIIs would be in line for the title of “Americas’s Most Dysfunctional Courts.”

Also, I think it’s time for Slate to take “Intern” off Chloe Hadavas’s title and ink this “up and coming talent” to a full time contract covering immigration and justice issues.

Due Process Forever. Dysfunctional Courts That Endanger The Public, Never!

🤡☠️

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

PWS

03-21-20

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UPDATE: Gullible, complicit U.S. Judges in their ivory tower bubbles with plenty of hand sanitizers might be willing to believe DHS’s claims that everything is “hunky dory” in the New American Gulag, but the truth is stark, ugly, and predictable for anyone familiar with the regime’s immigration antics, lies, and cover-ups:

“The cells stink. The toilets don’t flush. There’s never enough soap. They give out soap once a week. One bar of soap a week. How does that make any sense?”

Read the latest from Vice News, as hunger strikes break out in three New Jersey detention facilities:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkew79/immigrants-are-now-on-hunger-strike-in-3-ice-detention-centers–fears

Meanwhile, Courtside has been receiving reports from multiple sources in New Jersey about rapidly deteriorating conditions in Immigration Courts and the Gulag, failure to follow Federal health guidelines, possible positive coronavirus tests among ICE employees, and efforts by the the regime to keep the truth about about the growing health risks for detainees, judges, lawyers, and other personnel forced to deal with this dangerous, broken, and totally dysfunctional system “under wraps.”

I have also received disturbing, yet credible, reports of continuances for “at risk” attorneys being denied by some Immigration Judges, while other judges have received “no assurances” from their management “handlers” that the regime’s due-process-mocking “production quotas” will be waived during the health emergency! ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

PWS

03-21-20

CLOWN COURT REPORT 🤡🤡: AILA Seeks Information On Politically-Biased, Anti-Asylum Hiring @ BIA!

https://www.aila.org/advo-media/press-releases/2020/lawsuit-seeks-to-uncover-problematic-board

Lawsuit Seeks to Uncover Problematic Board of Immigration Appeals’ Hiring Procedures

AILA Doc. No. 20031937 | Dated March 19, 2020

CONTACTS:

Maria Frausto

202-507-7526

mfrausto@immcouncil.org
George Tzamaras

202-507-7649

gtzamaras@aila.org

For Immediate Release

Thursday, March 19, 2020

WASHINGTON, DC — The American Immigration Council (Council) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court to compel the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Information Policy (OIP) to release records about the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s (EOIR) hiring procedures for appellate immigration judges and Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) Members. The lawsuit seeks to understand current hiring procedures for the BIA—the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying immigration laws—after reports came to light of anti-immigrant bias in the hiring process.

The DOJ—which oversees immigration courts, houses the BIA, and employs immigration judges—has failed to disclose critical information about the hiring policy of appellate immigration judges and BIA Members, who make precedential decisions in the immigration adjudicatory system.

Advocates and policymakers have become concerned that DOJ’s hiring practices for appellate immigration judges and Board Members are improperly influenced by the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies. Biased hiring practices for these judges are a concern for the public because these judges can set legal precedent that has the potential to negatively impact thousands of immigrants seeking protection and/or a path to lawful status in the United States.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges DOJ’s failure to disclose information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in October 2019.

“The fairness of the immigration court system depends on the impartiality of judges who are responsible for deciding thousands of cases each year. If appellate judges are not neutral decision-makers, the integrity of our immigration system is compromised,” said Claudia Valenzuela, FOIA senior attorney at the American Immigration Council. “The lack of transparency in this hiring process only serves to undermine public confidence in this system.”

“It’s imperative that the public, policymakers, and stakeholders be provided with the opportunity to review the thus far opaque hiring process at the BIA. Allegations of politicized hiring give rise to the notion that BIA decisions serve the political purposes of the attorney general, rather than adhere to prior case law,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

A copy of the complaint is here.

The American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. Follow the latest Council news and information on ImmigrationImpact.com and Twitter @immcouncil.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members. Follow AILA on Twitter@AILANational.

Cite as AILA Doc. No. 20031937.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

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The whole idea that a White Nationalist prosecutor and political toady like Billy Barr gets to hire the “judges” for a so-called “appellate tribunal” is as absurd and illogical as it is clearly unconstitutional. The perversion of our humanity and our legal institutions that has allowed this to operate in plain view as if it were “normal” should be a subject for reflection and study. That the Supremes and Congress both took a “dive” on this is beyond question. How they got away with it and continue to do so without any accountability is another story. Hopefully, at some point it will be told in full.

In particular, the anti-asylum bias of the regime has been aggravated by a large dose of anti-Latino racism and misogyny that both Congress and the Article III Courts have enabled and, in the case of the Supremes actively encouraged by rewarding the clearly disingenuous and misleading arguments of Solicitor General Noel Francisco on fabricated “emergencies” and bogus rationales for transparently invidious and irrational actions.

DUE PROCESS FOREVER! CLOWN COURTS 🤡🤡 AND THEIR COMPLICIT ENABLERS, NEVER!

PWS

03-20-20

🤡🤡POLITICIZED “CLOWN COURTS” BEHOLDEN TO DOJ POLITICAL HACKS CONTINUE TO THREATEN PUBLIC HEALTH IN ADDITION TO ERADICATING DUE PROCESS WHILE FECKLESS CONGRESS AND ARTICLE IIIS LOOK ON !

Josh Gerstein reports for Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/17/anger-virus-dangers-immigration-courts-134709

Anger builds over virus dangers in immigration courts

After protests, Trump administration makes late-night move to scale back deportation hearings

Prior to the curtailment announced Tuesday night, a spokeswoman for the DOJ unit said: “EOIR continues to evaluate the information available from public health officials to inform the decisions regarding the operational status of each immigration court. “

However, individual scheduled hearings were not covered by the Sunday announcement nor were those for those in detention. “All other hearings proceeding,” the twitter message that night said.

One immigration judge dismissed the limitation announced Sunday as a “drop in the bucket.”

Immigration court participants complained that they were being notified by late-night Twitter posts rather than a more detailed public announcement of how the risks and benefits were being weighed.

“The immigration courts need to close. Period,” said Jeremy McKinney of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Most of these hearings can wait in order to put the safety of the public first….Close the courts for a few weeks until screening and proper testing can be done.”

Closing the immigration courts altogether would create thorny issues, particularly for immigrants who are being held in custody. Such a move would likely trigger legal challenges on due process grounds.

However, immigration lawyers said there are workarounds for many of the issues, including handling bond hearings via written filings and conducting hearings by video or teleconference. Video conferencing is already used to beam detainees into hearings in many courts.

Morning Shift

Get the latest on employment and immigration, every weekday morning — in your inbox.

Still, some of the steps being promoted by lawyers for immigrants could be viewed as undermining aspects of the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement policies.

Immigrant advocates are urging the administration to “parole” into the U.S. asylum applicants sent back to Mexico under the remain-in-Mexico policy. That would be similar to the prior policy that administration officials derided as “catch and release.”

Several court participants said they found it ironic that immigration courts were largely shuttered during a government shutdown last year when their personnel were deemed non-essential, but the same personnel were told this week they are essential and must report to work despite officials at all levels of government urging Americans to remain home if at all possible.

“What is outrageous is that our non-detained courts were shut down for the government furlough, for political reasons,” said Dana Leigh Marks, a San Francisco immigration judge and former president of the judges’ union. “Yet, here we have a health emergency and no action.”

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

Gee, it’s not like there aren’t thousands and thousands of us out here who have been pointing out for years the outrageous unconstitutionality and threat to our country presented by these “captive courts” under the Trump regime! It’s also not that they haven’t already killed folks: certainly their politicized misapplication of asylum and other protection laws have done just that! But, do we really have to have them mindlessly spreading an epidemic to have folks take notice!

We need regime change in November! We also need a re-examination of the composition of our Article III Judiciary, specifically on the Supremes and Courts of Appeals, to determine why so few Federal Appellate Judges have had the guts and integrity to stand up for the Constitution, the rule of law, and human decency in the time of crisis and in the face of patent Executive incompetence and tyranny. The “institutional failures” go well beyond the continuing farce in the Immigration Courts and the inexcusable failure of the regime to be better prepared for crisis.

Due Processe Forever! Clown Courts Never!🤡🤡

PWS

03-18-20

WILL CLUELESS CLOWN COURTS ENDANGER PUBLIC HEALTH & SAFETY? 🤡🤡 — The Inevitable Spread of Coronavirus Is “Old News” & Poorly Designed & Mismanaged Immigration Courts Appear To Be a “High Risk” Potential Breeding Ground — Predictably, Dysfunctional EOIR Has No Contingency Plans In Place! — 100-Case “Master Calendars” in Mini-Courtrooms Bringing Old & Young, Infirm & Able, From Far & Near Together Under Threat Of In Absentia Deportation — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

NDPA stalwart Laura Lynch, Senior Policy Counsel @ AILA reports:

Flagging this new CNN article along with two letters from the NAIJ.

Letter from NAIJ to Acting Chief Immigration Judge Chris Santoro on the lack of guidance issued to EOIR staff, March 9, 2020

Letter from NAIJ to IJs to provide guidance on the immigration courts and COVID-19, March 9, 2020

CNN: Immigration judges want to know how to handle coronavirus, March 9, 2020

Immigration judges want to know how to handle coronavirus

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 5:04 PM ET, Mon March 9, 2020

(CNN)The union representing immigration judges urged the Trump administration in a letter Monday to “immediately” implement steps to protect judges and their staff and provide guidance on how to proceed amid the coronavirus outbreak, which also has the potential to exacerbate the overwhelming backlog of pending cases.

The letter calls for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an agency within the Justice Department that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, to inform employees about the plan “as it relates to a potential pandemic,” noting that some immigration court functions “may not lend themselves to telework.”

“As you know, our work requires us to be in close contact with the public on a daily basis, often in very large numbers and groups,” wrote Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

She continued: “Beyond our own employees, the respondents who come before us may also be at high risk for developing serious illness. Because we order their appearance and they face the prospect of removal if they don’t appear, sick respondents and respondents vulnerable to serious illness will keep coming to court unless we take action.”

As concerns over the coronavirus ramp up, some government agencies, businesses and organizations have taken steps to try and prevent the spread of the disease by preparing for employees to telework, limiting travel and canceling gatherings.

In Monday’s letter, the union asked the Trump administration to consider measures such as waiving the appearance of some respondents, allowing for telephonic appearances and limiting in-court paper filings. The union is also recommending in an email to the workforce that judges keep bottles of hand sanitizer in the courtroom, use disinfecting wipes to clean surfaces and limit court attendance.

Any change in daily operations is critical in immigration court, which faces a pile-up of pending cases. Immigrants fighting deportation generally have a chance to make their case in court, where they can ask a judge to allow them to stay in the US by arguing they qualify for asylum or another legal option.

Last year’s US government shutdown, which resulted in some cases being postponed, exacerbated the long-standing issue and added to the backlog. There are more than 1 million pending cases before the immigration courts, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC, which tracks immigration court data — resulting in cases being scheduled out years in advance.

TRAC estimated last year that between 80,000 and 94,000 immigration court hearings may have been canceled as a result of last year’s government shutdown. The only cases that moved forward during that time were those of immigrants in detention.

The concerns held among immigration lawyers Monday are reminiscent of the government shutdown.

Immigration attorneys are worried about the effect on the backlog of cases if judges, attorneys, and other stakeholders are out because of the illness.

“If this thing gets out of control, it’s always a problem when cases are canceled, given the backlog,” Lawrence K. Le Roy, an immigration lawyer based in Newark, said in reference to coronavirus.

John Leschak, an immigration attorney, had a hearing scheduled Monday at the Newark immigration court for a client seeking asylum in the United States. The judge was not in court and the hearing was postponed. It’s unclear whether the reason behind the judge’s absence was related to coronavirus.

“It’s unfortunate because it’s a case that’s been pending for a long time,” Leschak said. “We’re between a rock and a hard place.”

The coronavirus is also already impacting the operations of some federal courts across the US.

For example, a district court in Washington state and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from nine western states including Washington, altered some of the procedures as the virus continues to spread. Washington has seen at least 80 cases.

Unlike other courts, however, immigration courts fall under the executive branch, not the judicial branch.

Ariane de Vogue and Kevin Bohn contributed to this story.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

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

Thanks Laura, my friend, for keeping us up to date. And, as always, thanks to Priscilla for her great reporting on the never-ending mess and continuing outages at EOIR.

When it comes to public service and professional court administration from “Headquarters,” “today’s EOIR is the pits.” And, that’s not a knock on Chief Judge Chris Santoro who is generally known as a “straight shooter” and a “problem solver.” I think that I’ve acknowledged before that he was always kind and supportive to me and helped me through some very difficult times in my career at Arlington. I’ll always be appreciative for that.

“Reading between the lines,” he was ordered by one of his “superior bozos” in EOIR’s ludicrous “chain of command” to issue the inane order and then to rescind it when everything “hit the fan.” Typical EOIR “march ‘em up the hill, then march ‘em down again nonsense,” that actually has an adverse effect on both internal morale and the public.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s time for those who know how screwed up and “maliciously mismanaged” this system is to “come out and join the resistance,” as others in our Round Table have done, some at considerable personal sacrifice (not me, of course — I was fortunate enough to be able and ready to retire from EOIR even before the current regime took over.) I have no doubt that someone with Chief Judge Santoro’s ample and diverse skill set could find employment in the private sector.

But, this “circus-like” incident raises deeper issues.

In what kind of “court system” are “judges” not allowed to post public notices issued by the CDC without saying “Captain May I?” The DOJ falsely claims that its “judges” are “policy officials.” Whoever heard of a “policy official” who couldn’t hang up a Government public health poster? This whole thing is an unbelievable farce! Why does it take a directive from “Headquarters” to rectify what should be a no brainer in any functioning court system?

And, what kind of “court system” (outside the military) reports to “headquarters.” You think that the U.S. District Courts in Washington called up John Roberts to see if it was OK to cancel trials because of a public health threat? I doubt it.

Why wasn’t NAIJ President Judge Ashley Tabaddor involved in the Coronavirus planning. She speaks for those “on the line” in contact with the public. Certainly, few issues could have a greater effect on “working conditions” than steps to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Why is the NAIJ forced to waste time complaining and going to such lengths when competent management would have involved them in advance planning months ago?

Imagine how much better this system would operate if it were run by real judges who hired professional court administrators to work for the public good, instead of maliciously incompetent clowns carrying out Stephen Miller’s fascist agenda?

As you know, I blame the Article IIIs and Congress for letting this deadly mockery of our Constitution and American Justice continue to operate — essentially to dehumanize, abuse, and sometimes kill. I trust the younger members of the NDPA, folks like Laura and her colleagues, and the next generations to see that the life-tenured judges and legislators who looked the other way and knowingly acted as enablers as human dignity, our Constitution, and the rule of law were trampled upon by a White Nationalist regime are held fully accountable in the “court of history.”

The “J.R. Five’s” toxically improper action in Wolf v. Cook County, skirting the rules to enable the regime’s illegal, racially motivated rewriting of the “public charge” rules to go into effect has been exposed for the outrageous politically biased action it is. It allows the regime to intentionally spread panic in ethnic communities, particularly targeting Hispanics, citizens, immigrants, and the undocumented, and to intimidate those who should be seeking health care advice from doing so. Nice public health policy. As if Coronavirus and other diseases know the difference between “documented” and “undocumented” humans. It’s likely that Roberts and his tone deaf cronies will have even more “blood on their hands” before this is over.

As I said on Courtside recently, in the future, we also need more courageous, scholarly, humane, and ethical Article III Judges — folks who will read the Constitution and stand up for individual rights and for human dignity — folks who understand as MLK once said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The current group of Article IIIs is a national disgrace (as a whole, although there are many notable exceptions, mostly among the U.S. District Court Judges who all too often get reversed by the CAs and the Supremes as their “reward” for “standing tall” for the rest of us and standing up for the fair application of the rule of law).

In the meantime, NAIJ President Judge Ashley Tabaddor is a national hero for standing up for the due process rights of all and having the courage to “speak truth to power” in these perilous times. Obviously, the unethical “decertification action” started by DOJ and EOIR is part of the effort to punish and silence her. Hang in there Ashley! We in the NDPA and the Round Table support and appreciate you and your tireless efforts!

Due Process Forever! Clown Courts 🤡& Complicit Article III Courts Never!

PWS

03-11-20

CONTEMPT FOR COURTS: 7TH CIR. BLASTS BIA FOR MISCONDUCT: “We have never before encountered defiance of a remand order, and we hope never to see it again. Members of the Board must count themselves lucky that Baez-Sanchez has not asked us to hold them in contempt, with all the consequences that possibility entails.” — Baez-Sanchez v. Barr — Chief “Perp” Billy Barr remains at large to inflict more wanton damage on our republic, our legal system, and the most vulnerable humans!

FULL DECISION:

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2020/D01-23/C:19-1642:J:Easterbrook:aut:T:fnOp:N:2462983:S:0

Baez-Sanchez v. Barr, 7th Cir., 01-23-20, published

PANEL: BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge Easterbrook

KEY QUOTE:

What happened next beggars belief. The Board of Immigration Appeals wrote, on the basis of a footnote in a letter the Attorney General issued after our opinion, that our deci- sion is incorrect. Instead of addressing the issues we specified, the Board repeated a theme of its prior decision that the Secretary has the sole power to issue U visas and therefore should have the sole power to decide whether to waive in- admissibility. The Board did not rely on any statute, regulation, or reorganization plan transferring the waiver power under §1182(d)(3)(A)(ii) from the Attorney General to the Secretary. Nor did the Board discuss whether only aliens outside the United States may apply for relief under §1182(d)(3)(A)(ii). Likewise the Board did not consider whether Baez-Sanchez is entitled to a favorable exercise of whatever discretion the Attorney General retains. In sum, the Board flatly refused to implement our decision. Baez- Sanchez has filed a second petition for review.

We have never before encountered defiance of a remand order, and we hope never to see it again. Members of the Board must count themselves lucky that Baez-Sanchez has not asked us to hold them in contempt, with all the consequences that possibility entails.

The Board seemed to think that we had issued an advisory opinion, and that faced with a conflict between our views and those of the Attorney General it should follow the la]er. Yet it should not be necessary to remind the Board, all of whose members are lawyers, that the “judicial Power” under Article III of the Constitution is one to make conclusive deci- sions, not subject to disapproval or revision by another branch of government. See, e.g., Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211 (1995). We acted under a statutory grant of authority to review the Board’s decisions. 8 U.S.C. §1252(a)(1). Once we reached a conclusion, both the Constitution and the statute required the Board to implement it.

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

A NOTE TO THE 7TH CIRCUIT AND OTHER ARTICLE III JUDGES:

My sympathies to you.

But, frankly, rather than coming as a “shock,” you should know that similar stuff happens every day in our U.S. Immigration Courts, which are not “courts” by any known definition, do not provide fair and impartial decision makers, do not satisfy even minimal standards of Constitutional Due Process, and operate in a blatantly unconstitutional manner that you and your colleagues in other circuits and the Supremes have condoned for decades as it unfolded right under your noses. Contempt for the law, disregard of basic Due Process and fundamental fairness, bias against immigrants, particularly asylum seekers, rude treatment, disrespect for lawyers, contempt for the other coequal branches of Government, and failure to respect human decency and dignity are now among the “staples” of today’s “captive” Immigration Courts.

It’s just that most litigants don’t have the wherewithal and and access to competent lawyers to take their cases all the way to the Circuit Courts, sometimes several times as happened in this particular case, in a search for justice. They are, in very plain terms, simply railroaded out of the country without regard to the law or our Constitution.

Sadly, even when they do get before your colleagues across the country, far too many of them ignore the contemptuous travesty of justice being perpetrated by the Department of Justice in the Immigration “Courts.” They merely “rubber stamp” the defective final product. It’s called “going along to get along” or “cowardice in the face of tyranny.”

For some reason, not obvious those of who once put our careers on the line to stand up for justice and the legal rights and human dignity of the most vulnerable among us, many, many Article III Judges seem to treat “life tenure” as a sinecure that empowers them to ignore needlessly ruined lines and human suffering, rather than as an opportunity, given to none others within our democratic institutions, to stand up for truth, justice, and the Constitution, even in the face of an overbearing and tyrannical Executive who has no respect for your functions.

Since you seem to have disturbingly little understanding of the true nature of the system which forms a significant part of your appellate workload, let me help you out. Members of the Board of Immigration Appeals are not true “judges” in any sense of the word. They are “employees” of Attorney General Billy Barr.

Billy himself is an acolyte of the “Unitary Executive” — a neo-fascist concept described by former White House Counsel and ex-con John Dean as meaning “that neither Congress nor the federal courts can tell the President what to do or how to do it.” In Billy’s view,. the power of Donald Trump, or any other GOP President (I doubt that he would apply it to a Democrat President), is unlimited and unfettered and the functions of the Judiciary and the Legislature are largely meaningless, except to the extent that they align with Trump’s agenda. The same goes for the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Code. They are nothing more than what Donald Trump and his toadies like Billy say they are.

Billy Barr is also an unapologetic agent of DHS Enforcement. Although nominally listed as a “party” before these “kangaroo court’ proceedings involving migrants, Barr and his equally contemptuous and lawless predecessor, Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, have made it clear that “their judges” are to operate as an adjunct of their “partners” at DHS enforcement. Their only meaningful function is to railroad as many migrants as possible out of the country without regard to Due Process or legal rights.

Indeed, both Barr and Sessions have simply rewritten the law, through bogus “precedent decisions” that plainly violate the basic rules of judicial ethics requiring impartiality and forbidding prejudgment of cases, as will as requiring that litigants and their attorneys be treated with basic respect and civility. All of these “bogus precedents” favor DHS Enforcement; none favor the individuals trying to save their lives and vindicate their legal rights. A number reverse well-established rules insuring fair adjudication, particularly for asylum seekers, while others deprive “their judges” of even minimal power to manage their dockets in a rational manner.

Additionally, Sessions and Barr have proved to be historically incompetent managers. While doubling the number of Immigration Judges, by hiring almost exclusively from the ranks of government prosecutors, they have more than doubled the court backlog, now approximately 1.1 million “active” cases with another 300,000 “waiting in the wings” as a result of a mindless and unethical precedent decision by Sessions reversing years of slow but incremental progress on docket management.

They have also created this dysfunctional mess through a process of eliminating the reasonable and sensible use of priorities and “prosecutorial discretion” by DHS in the Immigration Courts as well as by using a process known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” or “ADR.” Under ADR, judges and cases are shuffled around the country and the dockets are rearranged to respond to the “emergency of the day” while “ready for trial” cases, some of which have been pending for many years, are arbitrarily “orbited” to the end of dockets, some of which stretch out beyond 2024.

The judges and Board Members work for Billy Barr, who can fire them, reassign them, send them off to the FOIA unit, or turn them into “hall walkers.” (All of which actually happened during the reign of John Ashcroft, where a group of us were “punished” for exerting our authority as independent quasi-judicial officials and the BIA was absurdly cut from 23 Members to 12, under an astoundingly disingenuous claim of “efficiency.” By comparison, Barr recently announced an equally ill-conceived and unjustified plan to expand the BIA to over 50 Members stationed throughout the country).

Under these conditions, it is hardly surprising that Board Members feel themselves compelled and justified in ignoring your court orders in favor of a footnote in letter from the Attorney General, “the boss.” It’s completely consistent with the theory of the all-powerful “Unitary Executive” and the actuality that Board Members and Immigration Judges are constantly told that there are “mere employees” of the Attorney General required to carry out his “policies” under the threat of job loss.

The good news is that you folks aren’t as powerless as you seem to think yourselves to be. You don’t actually need a “motion” from private counsel to:

Hold this systemic clown show purporting to be a “court” system unconstitutional, as it most surely is, and shut it down pending legislative reform;
Throw Billy Barr in jail for his contemptuous behavior in allowing the BIA to violate your valid orders and then compounding it by neither confessing error nor apologizing, but rather sending his DOJ attorneys in to waste your valuable time and insult your intelligence;
Schedule some contempt hearings for non-compliant EOIR officials and explain to them that the “Unitary Executive” is nothing more than a figment of Billy’s warped imagination and that, no matter who signs their paychecks, they are obliged to follow the laws, obey your orders, provide Constitutional Due Process of law to individuals coming before them, exercise independent judgment based on the law and facts in the record, and ignore any nonsense stemming from Billy & company that flies in the face of any of the foregoing.

Then and only then, by standing up for the rights of the most vulnerable among us and your constitutional prerogatives, will you become part of the solution instead of “just another snappy quote line in one of my Courtside headlines.”

If you don’t act now, this dysfunctional mess of an out of control, illegal, and grotesquely mismanaged system will eventually fall into your collective judicial laps, no matter how much you would like to shun it. For example, Billy is encouraging, basically demanding, that the BIA make more use of largely judicially discredited. “summary affirmances” and often arbitrary, capricious, and sloppily reasoned, “single member opinions,” both entered without meaningful deliberation or discussion, to “rubber stamp” more removal orders. Indeed, one of your retired colleagues, Judge Richard Posner, was an outspoken critic of the shockingly unprofessional and frequently incorrect results produced by the earlier “weaponization” of “assembly line justice,” featuring “summary affirmances” and “single member decisions” resulting from the “Ashcroft debacle.”

Billy and his EOIR bureaucratic toadies fully intend to further reduce the already questionable quality of the “legal product” that the BIA sends your way. They are counting on you folks to either 1) look the way and join the”rubber stamp brigade,” or 2) do their dirty work for them. At that point, you will not be able to avoid the “judgment of history” regarding your own complicity and fecklessness in the face of lawless tyranny that is destroying our precious democratic institutions and even more precious human lives every day. Wake up and act, before it’s too late, for you and for our nation!

Due Process Forever!

With my very best wishes,

PWS

01-25-19

FOOTNOTE:

For those interested, Judge Easterbrook was appointed by President Reagan; Judge Bauer by President Ford; and Judge Hamilton by President Obama.

If nothing else, Billy and EOIR are uniting judges across the political spectrum in their disgust and outrage.

🤡WELCOME TO CLOWN COURT: Where The Lives Of Millions Of Humans & The Future Of America Are Treated Like A Cruel Joke, As Complicit Article III Courts Watch This Grotesque Unconstitutional Spectacle & Parody Of Justice Unfold On Their Watch!

DEEPTI HAJELA — Deepti Hajela
Reporter
Associated Press, NY

https://apple.news/A9aA4TWFpQoSBoXVeAOv_Rg

By KATE BRUMBACK, DEEPTI HAJELA and AMY TAXIN, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In a locked, guarded courtroom in a compound surrounded by razor wire, Immigration Judge Jerome Rothschild waits — and stalls.

A Spanish interpreter is running late because of a flat tire. Rothschild tells the five immigrants before him that he’ll take a break before the proceedings even start. His hope: to delay just long enough so these immigrants won’t have to sit by, uncomprehendingly, as their futures are decided.

“We are, untypically, without an interpreter,” Rothschild tells a lawyer who enters the courtroom at the Stewart Detention Center after driving down from Atlanta, about 140 miles away.

In its disorder, this is, in fact, a typical day in the chaotic, crowded and confusing U.S. immigration court system of which Rothschild’s courtroom is just one small outpost.

Shrouded in secrecy, the immigration courts run by the U.S. Department of Justice have been dysfunctional for years and have only gotten worse. A surge in the arrival of asylum seekers and the Trump administration’s crackdown on the Southwest border and illegal immigration have pushed more people into deportation proceedings, swelling the court’s docket to 1 million cases.

“It is just a cumbersome, huge system, and yet administration upon administration comes in here and tries to use the system for their own purposes,” says Immigration Judge Amiena Khan in New York City, speaking in her role as vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

“And in every instance, the system doesn’t change on a dime, because you can’t turn the Titanic around.”

The Associated Press visited immigration courts in 11 different cities more than two dozen times during a 10-day period in late fall. In courts from Boston to San Diego, reporters observed scores of hearings that illustrated how crushing caseloads and shifting policies have landed the courts in unprecedented turmoil:

–Chasing efficiency, immigration judges double- and triple-book hearings that can’t possibly be completed, leading to numerous cancellations. Immigrants get new court dates, but not for years.

–Young children are everywhere and sit on the floor or stand or cry in cramped courtrooms. Many immigrants don’t know how to fill out forms, get records translated or present a case.

— Frequent changes in the law and rules for how judges manage their dockets make it impossible to know what the future holds when immigrants finally have their day in court. Paper files are often misplaced, and interpreters are often missing.

In Georgia, the interpreter assigned to Rothschild’s courtroom ends up making it to work, but the hearing sputters moments later when a lawyer for a Mexican man isn’t available when Rothschild calls her to appear by phone. Rothschild is placed on hold, and a bouncy beat overlaid with synthesizers fills the room.

He moves on to other cases — a Peruvian asylum seeker, a Cuban man seeking bond — and punts the missing lawyer’s case to the afternoon session.

This time, she’s there when he calls, and apologizes for not being available earlier, explaining through a hacking cough she’s been sick.

But by now the interpreter has moved on to another courtroom, putting Rothschild in what he describes as the “uneasy position” of holding court for someone who can’t understand what’s going on.

“I hate for a guy to leave a hearing having no idea what happened,” he says, and asks the lawyer to relay the results of the proceedings to her client in Spanish.

After some discussion, the lawyer agrees to withdraw the man’s bond petition and refile once she can show he’s been here longer than the government believes, which could help his chances.

For now, the man returns to detention.

. . . .

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

Read the full article at the link. Yes, there’s lots of blame to go around: Administrations of both parties, an irresponsible Congress, several decades of underfunding and poor management.

But that doesn’t change these simple truths:

We have a scofflaw regime that glories in committing “crimes against humanity” directed at migrants;
We have a feckless Congress that won’t legislate responsibly as long as “Moscow Mitch” McConnell and his Trump-toady GOP control the Senate;
The only branch of Government that could put a stop to this unconstitutional and unconscionable mess is the Article III Federal Judiciary;
And, this highly privileged group of jurists, the only public officials I’m aware of with the “protective insulation” of life tenure, has stood by and watched their fellow humans being “thrown to the lions” in this disgraceful display of unconstitutional injustice.

Do your duty Article IIIs and put an end to the EOIR Clown Show! History is recording your failures to act, every day!

Due Process Forever; Clown Courts 🤡 and Their Complicit Enablers, Never!

PWS

01-17-20

FARCE UNDER THE “BIG TOP” – “Clown Courts” Deliver Potential Death Sentences With Nary A Trace Of Due Process As Article III Judges Beclown Themselves By Looking The Other Way!

Michelle Hackman and Alicia A. Caldwell report for the Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/immigration-tent-courts-at-border-raise-due-process-concerns-11576332002

Immigration Tent Courts at Border Raise Due-Process Concerns

By

Michelle Hackman and

Alicia A. Caldwell | Photographs by Verónica G. Cárdenas for The Wall Street Journal

Dec. 14, 2019 9:00 am ET

BROWNSVILLE, Texas—Each morning well before sunrise, dozens of immigrants line up on the international bridge here to enter a recently erected tent facility at the U.S. border.

Inside a large wedding-style tent, the government has converted shipping containers into temporary courtrooms, where flat screens show the judge and a translator, who are in front of a camera in chambers miles away.

The tents, which appeared at ports of entry here and up the Rio Grande in Laredo in late summer, are the latest manifestation of the Trump administration’s evolving response to a surge of migrants seeking asylum at the southern border.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you think the differences between the tent courts and other immigration courts deny some applicants due process? Join the conversation below.

Migrants are ushered to these courts dozens at a time, allowing them access to the U.S. legal system without admitting them onto U.S. soil. They are already part of yet another Trump administration experiment, the Migrant Protection Protocols, which requires migrants to live in Mexico for the duration of their court cases.

The administration says the tent courts are designed to help the immigration system move more quickly through cases, providing asylum faster for qualified applicants and turning away the rest—many of whom, the administration says, have submitted fraudulent claims.

In the past, nearly all families and children arriving at the border were allowed into the U.S. to await hearings. But now, tens of thousands of asylum seekers must wait months in Mexican border cities that have some of the highest crime rates in the Western Hemisphere.

Asylum seekers waited in line to attend their immigration hearings on the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros.

On a recent Friday, Judge Eric Dillow connected with the Brownsville tent via videoconference from his courtroom in Harlingen, Texas, about 30 miles away. The migrants, seated at a folding table, were shown on a large screen.

Judge Dillow planned to hold hearings for 28 migrants that morning, but only 17 appeared at the bridge the requisite four hours before their 8:30 a.m. hearing. Only two brought a lawyer. The rest were read their rights as a group, and when asked if they had questions, none raised their hands.

James McHenry, head of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that oversees immigration courts, said temporary courts adhere to the same procedures and offer the same rights to people as other immigration courts. “In all cases, a well-trained and professional immigration judge considers the facts and evidence, applies the relevant law, and makes an appropriate decision consistent with due process,” he said.

But immigrant-rights advocates and the union representing immigration judges—who are Justice Department employees—say the unique conditions of the tent courts deny migrants due process by depriving them of meaningful access to lawyers or interaction with judges, making the setup essentially a rubber stamp for deportation.

“It’s a system that’s designed in its entire structure to turn people away,” said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The judges union has expressed concern over numerous issues: Judges can’t interact with applicants face-to-face, which the union says is important to assess credibility. Immigration court officials aren’t in the tents, which are operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Judges can’t hand migrants documents directly to ensure they contain no errors. Unlike most U.S. courts, the tents are closed to the public and press.

A Cuban asylum seeker waited in Matamoros to present his documents to the agent who will be escorting him to his immigration hearing.

“The space of the court is supposed to be controlled by the court,” said Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “But the tents, we don’t have any control over.”

Most migrants who cross the border near Brownsville are sent to Matamoros, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande, where they live in shelters or tents near the bridge.

They are returned with little more than a sheet of paper stating their first court date and a list of lawyers to contact. But those contacts aren’t very useful because they have either U.S.-based or toll-free phone numbers that don’t function in Mexico.

Of the 47,313 people whose cases were filed between January and September, only 2.3% have legal representation and only 11 have been granted asylum or other legal status, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which tracks immigration court data.

Pro-bono lawyers who work with these migrants are fearful to travel far beyond the U.S. border into Mexico. Inside the tents, lawyers are typically permitted 15 minutes to meet clients before hearings. In most other U.S. courts, lawyers are free to visit clients, and detention facilities provide more opportunities for meetings.

On two recent days in the tents, migrants appearing alone spent about five minutes each before a judge, while migrants with lawyers took between 20 and 30 minutes each.

“The system is dependent on individuals not finding representation because they can be deported much easier and faster,” said Jeff O’Brien, a California-based immigration lawyer representing several Brownsville clients pro bono. “If everyone had a lawyer, it would essentially come to a halt.”

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent checked documents presented by asylum seekers.

Documentation errors are a common hurdle. Applicants’ addresses are often listed on forms as simply “domicilio conocido,” which roughly translates as general delivery, or sometimes a Matamoros shelter that many migrants avoid because they are scared to travel farther into the city.

Tent camp residents also had notices for hearings when courts aren’t open: one at 1 a.m. and another on a Saturday.

It isn’t known how the government notifies these migrants about changes in their cases without valid addresses. Migrants who aren’t at the bridge for hearings are assumed to have abandoned their cases. Government lawyers ask judges to deport absentees—ending asylum requests and barring them from the U.S. for a decade.

Asked about how address discrepancies are handled, a Justice Department spokesman said judges follow the Immigration Court Practice Manual. The manual requires migrants in the U.S. to notify the court of address changes, and in cases where they are detained, it requires the government to notify the court where. Neither scenario applies to migrants in Mexico.

Without lawyers, applicants routinely make paperwork errors—such as submitting documents in Spanish, or documents translated into English without a form certifying the translator is English-proficient—that advocates say they have seen judges use to order them deported.

At a recent hearing in Brownsville, a Honduran woman and her baby daughter appeared before Judge Sean D. Clancy in Harlingen. A CBP officer in Brownsville had faxed the woman’s asylum application to Harlingen, where a clerk handed it to the judge.

A Central American asylum-seeking mother hugged her child on a November morning in Matamoros.

“Are you afraid of returning to Honduras?” Judge Clancy asked the woman. A translator beside him repeated the question in Spanish. “Very much,” came the translated reply.

Judge Clancy looked at her application and noted a different response. “One question here says, ‘Do you fear harm if you return to your home country?’ And you checked ‘no.’”

The woman appeared confused. Judge Clancy told her to return to court with a properly completed application on April 15, when a date for her full asylum hearing would be set.

Write to Michelle Hackman at Michelle.Hackman@wsj.com and Alicia A. Caldwell at Alicia.Caldwell@wsj.com

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

What a total disgrace and mockery of justice! What do Circuit Court of Appeals judges do for a living if they don’t have the legal skills and courage to stand up for our Constitution and our asylum laws against US Government fraud and abuses like this?

Nobody without a lawyer has any chance in this system! With a representation rate of an astoundingly low 2.3% due to the Trump regime’s intentional obstacles, roadblocks, and refusal to promote and facilitate pro bono representation, this system is nothing less than an unconstitutional and illegal “killing floor” (a reasonable chance to be represented by pro bono counsel is actually a statutory requirement). You don’t have to be much of an Article III Judge to recognize the the systemic fraud and abuse going on here. But, a judge would have to have the courage to stand up to the Trump regime and put a stop to this disgraceful nonsense! Sadly, courage seems to be something in very short supply at the appellate levels of the Federal Judiciary these days.

Thanks Michelle and Alicia for exposing this ongoing parody of justice!

PWS

12-17-19

TRAC: TRUMP DOJ’S “MALICIOUSLY INCOMPETENT POLICIES” SIGNIFICANTLY CONTRIBUTED TO ASTOUNDING 1,346,302 BACKLOG AND 4+ YEAR WAITS FOR HEARINGS — Don’t Let The Villains Blame The Victims & Their Lawyers For This Largely Self-Created Mess!

Crushing Immigration Judge Caseloads and Lengthening Hearing Wait Times

==========================================

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

==========================================

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The current policies of the Trump Administration have been unsuccessful in stemming the rise in the Immigration Court’s backlog. Overcrowded dockets create lengthening wait times for hearings. At some locations, immigrants with pending cases now wait on average 1,450 days or more – over four years! – before their hearing is scheduled.

Despite promises to reduce the backlog, the latest case-by-case records show that the growth in the backlog has actually accelerated each year since President Trump assumed office. At the start of this administration, 542,411 cases were pending before immigration judges. By September 30, 2019, the backlog had grown to 1,023,767 “active” cases. This rises to 1,346,302 when cases that have not yet been calendared are added. Year-by-year the pace of increase has quickened. The active backlog grew 16.0 percent from January 2017 to the end of that fiscal year, climbed an additional 22.1 percent during FY 2018, and this past year jumped by a further 33.3 percent.

While many sources for this rise are outside the court’s control, policy decisions and practices by the Department of Justice which oversees the Immigration Court have significantly contributed to growing caseloads. For example, the decision to reopen previously closed cases has caused a much greater increase in the court’s backlog than have all currently pending cases from families and individuals arrested along the southwest border seeking asylum.

Despite accelerated hiring of new judges and the imposed production quotas implemented last year, the average caseload Immigration Court judges face has continued to grow. On average each judge currently has an active pending caseload of over two thousand cases (2,316) and over three thousand cases when the additional un-calendared cases are added (3,046). Even if the Immigration Court stopped accepting any new cases, it would still take an estimated 4.4 years to work through this accumulated backlog.

In the New York City Immigration Court which has the largest backlog in the country, hearings are currently being scheduled five years out – all the way into December of 2024. Four other courts are scheduling hearings as far out as December 2023. These include courts in Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Arlington, Virginia.

For full details, including the average wait times and pending cases at each hearing location, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/579/

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

https://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

follow us on Twitter at

https://twitter.com/tracreports

or like us on Facebook:

https://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Syracuse University

Suite 360, Newhouse II

Syracuse, NY 13244-2100

315-443-3563

trac@syr.edu

http://trac.syr.edu

———————————————————————————

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (http://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (http://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to http://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.

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

Obviously, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”), stripping Immigration Judges of all authority to manage their individual dockets, the war on Attorney representation, and the complete absence of the type of prosecutorial discretion that all other enforcement systems in America, save for the DHS, use to make reasonable use of the available judicial time are taking a big toll here! A court run by maliciously incompetent political clowns is inevitably going to become “Clown Court.”

Congress and the Article III Courts are heading for an existential crisis in our justice system if they don’t step in and force some Due Process, judicial independence, and normal professional unbiased judicial administration into this corrupt and intentionally broken system that spews out illegal and unconstitutional “removal orders” every day.

Whatever happened to accountability and the supposedly independent role of the Article III Federal Judiciary? Why is a national disgrace like the “Trumped-Up” Immigration Courts operating within the rogue DOJ allowed to continue its daily abuses?

History will judge these failing institutions and those who ignored their sworn duties harshly!

PWS

10-25-19

WHILE IMPOTENT CONGRESS & FECKLESS ARTICLE IIIs TURN THEIR COLLECTIVE BACKS: THINK THAT U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT HASN’T BECOME “CLOWN COURT” WITH POTENTIALLY DEADLY CONSEQUENCES? – Try This Out For Size: “Border Patrol Agents Are Writing ‘Facebook’ As A Street Address For Asylum-Seekers Forced To Wait In Mexico: ‘It’s wild…People are having to make things up as they go along.’”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/asylum-notice-border-appear-facebook-mexico

Adolfo Flores reports for BuzzFeed News:

An asylum-seeker from Honduras who presented himself at the southern border this summer seeking protection was forced to wait in Mexico until his court date in the United States. In case the government needed to contact him, a Border Patrol officer listed an address on his forms: “Facebook.”

The man, who asked to only be identified by his last name Gutierrez, told BuzzFeed News that shortly before he was sent back to Mexico along with his family, a Border Patrol agent asked him to confirm that a shortened version of his name was indeed the one he used on Facebook.

“I said ‘Yes, why?'” Gutierrez recalled. “The agent told me ‘Because that’s how we’re going to send you information about your court case.’ I thought that was strange, but what could I do?”

The form Gutierrez was given, called a Notice to Appear (NTA), is a charging document issued by the Department of Homeland Security that includes information on where an immigrant must present themselves for their first court hearing, and critically, should include an address where the applicant can be contacted if the time, date, or location of the hearing is changed.

If an immigrant fails to appear at court hearings they run the risk of being ordered deported in absentia by an immigration judge, which makes having accurate and detailed information on the forms crucial for asylum-seekers.

Gutierrez said he was never contacted about his case via Facebook and it’s unclear how DHS officials would contact an immigrant via social media.

A US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson did not respond to questions about why an agent would write “Facebook” as a known address, or whether the agency was using immigrants’ social media accounts as a way to inform them of any changes or updates to their hearings.

Attorneys and advocates working with asylum-seekers at the border, including those forced to wait in Mexico under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) said they’ve seen other notices with “Facebook” addresses, or no address at all.

“‘Facebook’ is the most egregious example of the Department of Homeland Security doing away with the aspect of proper notice,” Leidy Perez-Davis, policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association told BuzzFeed News. “Facebook is not an adequate way to serve an NTA.”

Perez-Davis said she’s heard from other attorneys who had viewed documents from immigrants with improper or inadequate addresses such as shelters, which are often already full or only allow immigrants to remain there for a few days. Asylum-seekers are often given initial US court dates months in the future.

“This is procedurally incorrect, but DHS has been doing it anyway because there hasn’t been oversight on insufficient NTAs,” Perez-Davis said.

An immigrant in Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), shows documents to a US border agent at Paso del Norte border bridge to attend a court hearing for asylum seekers.In June 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that an immigrant’s notice to appear was invalid because it didn’t have the date or location of his scheduled court appearance. Attorneys have pointed to the ruling to argue that NTAs with inadequate information should also be invalid.

The Trump administration policy, also known as “Remain in Mexico,” has seen more than 47,000 asylum-seekers sent back to the country, straining local resources that help immigrants in the border communities. In addition to facing violence, kidnappings, and discrimination, some immigrants live on the streets and rely on donations to feed themselves.

If an immigrant receives an improperly addressed notice to appear, they can challenge whether it was legally serviced in court, Perez-Davis said, giving an immigrant the chance to reopen their case if they do not appear at their scheduled hearing and are ordered removed in their absence.

“It goes back to the issue of due process,” Perez-Davis said. “They can’t initiate proceedings without telling someone the details of the proceedings.”

Zoe Bowman, a law student who interned with Al Otro Lado, a binational border rights project and legal service provider, said she saw at least five immigrant NTAs that had “Facebook” listed as the known address. The first of which she saw in May or June of this year.

“It’s wild,” Bowman told BuzzFeed News. “Some wouldn’t have any addresses listed at all.”

The US asylum process is not set up for cases to be fought from Mexico, making the issue uncharted territory for the US government, immigrants, and attorneys, Bowman said.

“The issues with the NTAs is just one branch of that,” Bowman said. “People are having to make things up as they go along.”

Many of the other asylum-seekers returned to Mexico along with Gutierrez left for their home countries almost immediately. Gutierrez tried to wait for his court date, but only lasted three weeks in Tijuana. Facing a months-long wait for their first court hearing without money or space in a shelter, Gutierrez said he decided to go back to Honduras with his family.

“Tijuana is dangerous, I can’t be traveling with my family to the bridge at 4 a.m.,” Gutierrez said of the early hour he was expected to appear at a border crossing for his hearing. “We were in Mexico without money or a place to stay, I couldn’t make my daughter suffer through that.”

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

Yup! This won’t go down as one the finest moments for America, the Executive, the Article III Courts, or any of the folks involved in implementing what can only be termed a program of blatantly illegal and overt human rights abuses.

Those of us fighting for our Constitution, human life, and the true rule of law appear to be losing the battle for the time being, given the cowardly and inept performances of those few institutions like Congress, the Supremes, and Article III Appellate Courts who could put an end to these travesties and require reform and compliance with the Constitution and the rule of law respecting treatment of refugee applicants.

But, we are making a legal and historical record of who stood up for human rights and who planned, executed, and enabled what can only be termed “crimes against humanity.”

This week’s coveted “Five Clown Award” goes jointly to the Supremes and Congress for their joint catastrophic failure to put an end to this illegal nonsense and reestablish Due Process and the Rule of Law.

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

09-27-19

TAL @ SF CHRON TAKES US INSIDE EOIR’S LATEST ASSAULT ON DUE PROCESS: Lack Of Live Interpretation Causing Confusion, Delays, Misinformation, & Denials Of Fundamental Fairness In U.S. Immigration Courts — Bogus “Court” System Continues To Make Major Changes Diminishing Due Process Without Consulting Judges, Attorneys, Or The Affected Individuals!

Tal Kopan reports for the SF Chron:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Confusion-delays-as-videos-replace-interpreters-14414627.php

Confusion, delays as videos replace interpreters at immigrants’ hearings

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has been slow to implement its new policy replacing in-person interpreters with informational videos at immigrants’ initial hearings, but the switch is causing delays and confusion where it has been introduced, including in San Francisco, observers say.

The Justice Department informed immigration judges in late June that it would replace in-person interpreters at the first court appearance for immigrants facing deportation with videos advising them of their rights. The switchover began in July.

So far, the policy has been rolled out to courts in just four cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

It’s not clear when the policy will expand. A spokesman for the Justice Department division that oversees the courts said the agency “is taking into consideration all feedback before additional translation videos are created and the program is rolled out to further immigration courts.”

Judges and attorneys observing the courts say the change has mostly served to delay proceedings, by adding lengthy steps and information that is not necessary for all migrants to hear.

After the videos are shown, each immigrant is called up for his or her individual hearing and may have questions for the judge. Although judges are now barred from scheduling in-person interpreters for the hearings, at times interpreters can be found on short notice in the courthouses. When none is available, judges must try a telephone service to reach an interpreter.

At issue are what are called master calendar hearings — immigrants’ first appearance in courts that determine whether they can remain in the U.S. The typically rapid-fire sessions serve to inform migrants of their rights and the process they will go through. Judges also schedule their next hearings.

Many immigrants in the system are Spanish speakers, but it’s also common for Chinese, Creole, and several indigenous languages from Central America and around the world to be spoken in courtrooms.

Judges in courts that have made the change are required to play either a Spanish-dubbed or English-language video for immigrants who do not have attorneys representing them. The 20-minute video runs through a lengthy list of technical legal advisories. Videos in other languages are not yet available, but the Justice Department has plans to introduce them.

Most of the dozens of immigrants going through their initial hearings Tuesday in San Francisco were shown the video. Many of them had attorneys present who translated, and others were able to use a Spanish-speaking interpreter who was on hand. Languages spoken in court included Spanish, Punjabi, Hindi, Mandarin and Fijian.

One hearing in the courtroom of Judge Arwen Swink involved a Mongolian woman who needed translation. After about five minutes, Swink was able to secure an interpreter in her language through the telephone service Lionbridge.

Swink asked the interpreter to introduce himself to the woman, who did not have an attorney, to ensure that she understood him. The interpreter said he had trouble hearing, but court staffers brought the microphone closer to the woman and the session was able to proceed.

With an interpreter in the room, such a hearing can take five minutes or less. The woman’s case took 15 minutes.

The Chronicle has obtained transcripts of the separate videos that are played for immigrants who are in detention and not in detention, as well as an FAQ handout they receive.

Roughly a fifth of the videos are devoted to a discussion of “voluntary departure,” under which immigrants can go back to their home country without being penalized if they try to come back someday. The videos also warn immigrants of the criminal consequences of trying to re-enter the country illegally after being deported.

Legal experts and veteran immigration judges say neither topic was commonly brought up in initial hearings before the videos were introduced because they are most relevant at the end of cases, if migrants do not prevail in their bid to remain in the U.S. Several said they feared the emphasis on voluntary departures and criminal penalties could prompt immigrants with valid claims to stay in the U.S. to waive their right without fully understanding what they’re doing.

The Justice Department did not consult with the union that represents immigration judges before making the change, and has proceeded despite ongoing bargaining with the group. The result is “lots of confusion, constantly changing parameters of the program by the agency and frustration among many judges,” said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges and an immigration judge in Los Angeles.

Tabaddor added that courts in New York and Miami have had trouble securing help by phone, and that cases have been delayed in the Los Angeles court because of shortages of interpreters.

Amiena Khan, the union’s executive vice president and a judge in New York, said the videos make for a “really long day” for unrepresented immigrants who have to wait through proceedings for all migrants who have attorneys before watching a 20-minute video. She finds herself repeating or adding key advisories when immigrants are called before her.

“There was no problem that needed to be solved by the introduction of the video,” Khan said. “What I think really bothers me is that it’s mandatory. I think if it was discretionary as a tool for the judge to use, it could be helpful. (But) it takes away our judicial independence as to what method to employ to best get through the day’s docket.”

Khan and former immigration Judge Jeffrey Chase, who reviewed the transcripts, also noted that the videos do not include information that would be important for immigrants, including that they have only one year to formally apply for asylum in the U.S.

“The information provided is misleading in a way that can lead to a noncitizen’s removal,” said Chase, who now volunteers for organizations that provide legal assistance to immigrants.

Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the transcripts show that the videos use “scare tactics” instead of informing immigrants of their rights. The videos warn immigrants against filing frivolous asylum claims, but don’t explain what asylum is, she noted.

“The videos provide an overwhelming amount of information that no one can easily digest in one setting,” Lynch said. “What’s more disturbing is that the content itself only tells one side of the story.”

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

Click on the link for Tal’s full story with links to actual transcripts of this “parody of justice.”

This is DOJ/EOIR’s “malicious incompetence” in action. Accurate interpretation is essential to Due Process and fundamental fairness as well as the hallmark of a competently and professionally run court system. Somewhere along the line, the money for interpreters was frittered away by what passes for “management” at DOJ/EOIR. And, let’s not even think about the waste of money on absurd “Immigration Judge Dashboards” while the two decades old overwhelming need for a functional nationwide e-filing system goes unmet.

Right now, Congress is paralyzed. When are the Article III Courts going to wake up, get some backbone, and enforce the U.S. Constitution by putting an end to this so-called “court system” run by prosecutors that provides not even a semblance of fair and impartial (and at least minimally competent) adjudication? No more “Clown Court!”🤡

PWS

09-05-19

JUSTICE BY OMAR THE TENTMAKER: Already A Circus, Trump & Barr Plan To Turn What’s Left Of America’s Immigration Courts Into A Traveling Tent Show!

https://apple.news/AAfRRMBVoRdSDB3MNFh7__w

Priscilla Alvarez & Geneva Sands reort for CNN:

Trump admin considers temporary courts along the southern border

5:44 PM EDT June 17, 2019
Washington

The Trump administration is considering building temporary courts along the southern border as part of an effort to expand its policy of returning some asylum seekers to Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings, according to two administration officials.

The US recently struck an agreement with Mexico that included expanding the policy, which, the administration argues, serves as a deterrent since it keeps migrants waiting in Mexico, instead of within the US.

Site assessments have been completed for almost all the ports of entry to determine where such temporary immigration courts, described by sources as “soft-sided,” would be needed, according to an administration official.

The facilities could be used to conduct hearings via video teleconference, which has previously been used by immigration courts elsewhere in the country, the official said.

The deal to expand the “Remain in Mexico” program across the border earlier this month came amid threats to impose tariffs on Mexico if it didn’t bolster enforcement.

Mexico, the joint declaration said, would authorize the entrance of asylum seekers, and offer jobs, health care and education to those individuals. In return, the US must expedite the asylum adjudication process. Consideration to erect immigration courts, which are overseen by the Justice Department, appears to be a step in that direction.

Migrants who are sent to Mexico to await their court hearings return to the US through a port of entry along the southern border to then be transported to their hearing. The temporary courts would allow migrants to have their hearings near or at the port, rather than being bussed miles away, said the official.

It also would likely help alleviate the caseload at San Diego and El Paso immigration courts, which have been taking these cases.

The Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review referred questions about the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols program to the Department of Homeland Security. A DHS official confirmed that the temporary structures are being considered, adding that the crisis has strained the immigration courts along the border. The administration has repeatedly requested additional immigration judges to chip away at a massive backlog that’s led to cases being scheduled years down the road.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy began in January and immediately received pushback back from immigrant advocates and lawyers who argue that it puts migrants who are predominantly from Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador and seeking asylum in the US in harm’s way.

As of May, the US had returned around 6,000 people to Mexico to await their court hearings. The number of migrants falling under the policy appears to be doubling over time, but it is unclear how many additional people have been added to the program since the agreement with Mexico was struck.

One of the locations actively working toward implementing the program is the Rio Grande Valley region in Texas, the busiest sector for arrests of people illegally crossing the border, a senior Border Patrol official told CNN.

Before the program can get underway in the region, officials need to first have the infrastructure in place, including logistics for court hearings. The US also needs to engage with Mexico and ensure its government is willing to receive migrants across the border, said the official.

Like other administration immigration policies, returning migrants to Mexico has also been challenged in court.

In May, a federal appeals court allowed the Trump administration to continue returning some asylum seekers to Mexico for the time being. A panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, while split on some issues, listed a number of factors that went into the decision, including risk of injury in Mexico and negotiations between the US and Mexico.

© 2019 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. All Rights Reserved.

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

Not surprisingly, no mention of guaranteeing attorney access, effective notice, or reasonable access to legal resources for those retuned to Mexico. Trump is emboldened by a dysfunctional Congress under Mitch McConnell and complicit Article III Courts like the 9th Circuit, unwilling to put an end to this grotesque perversion of our statutory laws, our Constitution, and human rights. It’s also a recipe for more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and bigger backlogs in Immigration Courts. But undoubtedly, Trump will blame others for the problems he has created.

PWS

06-18-19

EOIR SHAKEUP: Chief Immigration Judge, Deputy Director, General Counsel Ousted!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt for Immigrationcourtside.com

Alexandria, VA, June 8, 2019. The nation’s totally dysfunctional and highly politicized Immigration Court System, known as the Executive Office For Immigraton Review (“EOIR”), has ousted three of its top career senior executives, according to a report filed yesterday by Nicole Narea of Law360. Here’s a link to Narea’s story for those with Law360 access. https://www.law360.com/articles/1166974/three-senior-eoir-officials-to-step-down.

Evidently, Chief Immigration Judge MaryBeth T. Keller, General Counsel Jean King, and Deputy Director Katherine H. Reilly all “got the boot” late this week. They are career civil servants. Keller and King were “holdovers” from the prior Administration, while Reilly was appointed to her recent position by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Piecing together bits from anonymous sources, it’s likely that the three clashed with EOIR Director James McHenry and Department of Justice (“DOJ”) politicos over some of the more extreme aspects of the Administration’s “master plan” to demean and degrade Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigraton Judges at the Board of Immigration Appeals, strip them of the last vestiges of judicial independence and docket control, and return the Immigration Courts to their pre-EOIR status as perceived appendages of DHS (then INS) enforcement.

Keller supposedly “retired,” an unusual move given her age group and that senior executives are the civil service equivalent of brigadier generals. King was transferred to the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO”), long known as the “Siberia of EOIR” and a repository for prior senior executives who had fallen out of favor with “EOIR Management” and their DOJ “handlers.” Reilly reportedly transferred to a senior executive position with the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”), another surprising move for a top senior executive attorney at the DOJ.

Predictably, there has been no official announcement from EOIR or the DOJ, nor have any replacements been named. Meanwhile, the backlog mushrooms, morale sinks further, conditions continue to deteriorate, and due process and fundamental fairness are mocked every day in the EOIR “courts” and also by life-tenured Article III Judges who are willing to “rubber stamp” the results of this patently illegal and unjust system.

Keller, King, and Reilly have “escaped from the circus.” But, hopefully there someday will be accountability for those throughout government and the Article III Courts who continue to participate in, enable, and further this ongoing farce and the resulting gross perversion of American law and human values.

🤡”CLOWN COURT REPORT” — “ADR [“Aimless Docket Reshuffling”] is the watchword” — Yeah, it’s hard times under the Big Top (particularly if you’re in search of elusive and officially maligned Constitutionally-required Due Process!)

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

🤡”CLOWN COURT REPORT” — “ADR [“Aimless Docket Reshuffling”] is the watchword” — Yeah, it’s hard times under the Big Top (particularly if you’re in search of elusive and officially maligned Constitutionally-required Due Process!)

An inherently reliable, highly anonymous source deep within America’s most dysfunctional court system tells Courtside: “ADR is still the watchword. No telling how many cases are off calendar at this point.”

Origins of the term “Clown Court” 🤡 (it actually preceded the Trump Administration):

Once upon a time, when I was an Immigration Judge, I was assigned to do a 100-case Master Calendar by televideo to a court in another state. Slight problem: All of the files were in a third place. Another hitch: All of the ICE Assistant Chief Counsel’s files had been sent to the wrong office. In other words, no “government files” of any kind for 100 cases. Adding to the degree of difficulty: EOIR sent me a Spanish interpreter; but almost everyone on the calendar actually spoke French or a West African language (something clearly shown in the EOIR “computer system,” such as it was). I “finished” with this circus about 5 pm. But, none of my colleagues was around. They were in the conference room. I burst through the door and yelled “This is ——————— Clown Court.” Unfortunately, the then Chief Immigration Judge was making one of his rather infrequent visits to our Court. Needless to say, he wasn’t amused by my sudden outburst of unvarnished truth. Fortunately, he happened to be a long-time friend who owed his original hiring at the “Legacy INS” as well as several “up-ladder career moves” largely to me when I was the Deputy General Counsel/Acting General Counsel. So, I survived to “perform under the big top” another day. And remember, this was back when the Immigration Court was actually better managed by comparison with today’s intentional “man-made disaster.” Then, it was “quirky,” but not necessarily “beyond the pale.” It’s been straight downhill since. Every time we think it’s hit bottom, DOJ and EOIR management seem to dig a little deeper.

PWS

01-31-19

🤡U.S. CLOWN COURT: Where Justice & Logic Are A Bad Joke, & Those We Should Be Welcoming Are Instead Shown The Door!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/my-immigrant-client-won-a-judges-compassion-ice-still-dumped-him-on-the-border/2019/01/24/7802a800-1e9c-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html

Attorney Marty Rosenbluth writes in the Washington Post Sunday Outlook Section:

Attorney ’s client made a passionate case to the judge about our unjust system

This month, I went to court with José. He came to the United States without papers from Mexico when he was 15, in 1999. Now he has a wife, three kids and a job in construction in Raleigh, N.C. It all came apart when police pulled him over and arrested him for driving without a license. He soon landed in the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. He fought his deportation case alone for several months before his family finally called my law firm.

We first told him we couldn’t take his case because he had no chance of winning, so ethically we couldn’t take his money. Most people in deportation proceedings have few if any options to stay in the United States through the immigration courts. I urged him to take voluntary departure, which enables people to leave the country without getting a deportation order on their records, so it is easier to come back legally in the future. But he told me he was certain that, if he could just tell the court his story, the judge would see that letting him stay was right and just and fair. I told him that our immigration system had many rules and laws, but little or no justice.

In truth, I think José knew he had no chance, and he knew he’d have to leave. But he didn’t want to leave quietly. We agreed that I would accompany him — I wouldn’t say “help,” because he could have realized his plan without me, and I didn’t charge a penny — but he would address the judge directly. One of the most important things I do as an attorney is to just be present. Since the immigration laws are so defective, and the judges often play by their own rules (routine bond requests are usually denied, and this Georgia court has one of the lowest approval rates for asylum cases in the country), and the detention/deportation centers are designed to break people’s spirits, often there is not much else that can be done. Based on what transpired, I’m glad I went.

[Civil servants said separating families was illegal. The administration ignored us.]

José’s whole family came to support him — his wife and his kids and a friend. When we sat down at the bench, I told the judge that José would be speaking for himself. In immigration courts, migrants usually just answer questions, so the judge asked me if I was requesting to withdraw. I said I wasn’t: I was staying at the table, but José was going to do all the talking. And the judge, to his credit, heard him out.

The judge explained the law and what José would have to prove in order to win. Before hiring us, José had submitted an application, on his own, for “cancellation of removal.” There are four elements: He had to prove that he had been living here for more than 10 years, that he was a person of good moral character and that he hadn’t broken any laws that would bar him under the statutes from applying. José could show all of these things. But the fourth criterion is the hardest. José would have to prove that if he were deported, it would cause an “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a spouse, parent or child who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. Usually it means you have a child with cancer, or a spouse with a disability that makes them unable to work or support a family — something on that scale. If you can convince the court merely that your family would be made homeless or that your children would subsist on food stamps, that is not considered sufficient. That is just the usual hardship that deportees’ families experience.

Without missing a beat, José said to the judge, “I have the first three, your honor, but I do not have the fourth.” Turning around to look at his family, with obvious pride, he told the judge: “This is my family. These are my children. Everything I do, I do for them. But thankfully they are all healthy, which for the moment seems for some reason to be bad.” Truly, logic has no place in immigration court.

[I crossed the border seeking safety. Instead, they took my daughter away.]

The judge said that, based on this testimony, he would have to deny his application for cancellation of removal. Still, the judge offered José voluntary departure and explained, as I had, that it would make it easier for him to return.

I had met with José’s wife, Maria, too, and explained “VD,” which is a safer option than exiting the nation through the usual deportation machinery. People who are deported to Mexico from Stewart and many other detention centers are just dumped on the border, where gangs await them. (People deported to other countries are flown.) They are often robbed, kidnapped, raped or killed. Those who take VD, on the other hand, don’t get to leave jail, but they fly back on a regular commercial flight.

The problem with voluntary departure, though, is the cost: You have to buy your own fare, and it is very expensive, currently around $1,250. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will accept only a “Y” class ticket, or a full-cost coach fare, which can often cost more than first class. José thanked the judge and declined. “The tickets cost a lot of money, and my family will need the money after I leave.”

[My family immigrated here legally. I used to think that made us special.]

Maria interjected, crying. “Take the voluntary,” she said. “Take the voluntary!” My client began crying, too, followed by his kids.

I decided to take a chance. I asked the judge if José could talk to his wife over the barrier. Any direct communication and especially physical contact is strictly forbidden in this courtroom. To my surprise, he agreed. So Maria came forward, and she and José started hugging and kissing and crying. The bailiff moved to intervene, but I just shook my head and mouthed the word “Please.”

The couple talked for a few minutes, and then José sat back down and offered that he would take voluntary departure. But he’d gotten to hug his 6-, 8- and 12-year-old children across the barrier. Imagine that. Humanity in what passes for a court. This is not usually how immigration cases go. The judge gave José 30 days to buy his ticket before he would lose the “privilege” of taking VD.

In the end, José sat there smiling. And proud. He was still smiling as his family left the courtroom. And smiling when he gave me a hug. He’d known all along he wouldn’t win, but he wanted to be able to call out the injustice. And the judge, who has low rates of approval for just about anything, heard him out. (Only 31 of 347 judges denied asylum claims at a higher rate, according to the Transitional Records Access Clearinghouse.) It wasn’t a victory, exactly. José wouldn’t be staying with his family. But speaking a truth, to a hostile power, is still a kind of achievement.

[Trump’s attack on asylum is based entirely on false claims]

But it was a discordant one for such a ruthless corner of the law. And eventually the logic of our immigration system superseded his brave act.

This past week, according to a friend of his who called me to share the news, ICE came to his cell early one morning and said it would fly him to Mexico City; he wouldn’t even have to pay for his ticket. Then, that afternoon, officials came and handcuffed him, brought him to a room to wait with other detainees for several hours and deposited him on a bus. Not to the airport, as they had promised. They drove him to the border and dumped him out in Matamoros. I am looking into his legal options, because apparently no act of courage goes unpunished.

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

Thanks Marty, for giving us insight into the “parody of justice” that goes on daily in our Immigration Courts at the direction of a Department of “Justice” that long ago lost both its way and purpose and must be wrested from control of a major dysfunctional court system that it is so ethically and functionally unable to administer in anything approaching a fair and efficient manner.

I give the Immigration Judge credit for taking time to listen and allowing Jose to speak in court. In the toxic age of Trump, Sessions, Whitaker, and likely also Barr, Immigration Judges are pressured to prejudge cases and cut corners by denying claims without listening to the evidence to keep up with artificial “deportation quotas” imposed by Sessions and to keep up “productivity” which has replaced “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process” as the mantra of today’s “Clown Courts.”

On the other hand, there are alternatives available. The BIA precedents on what constitutes “exceptional and extremely hardship” are intentionally vague and subject to interpretation. How do I know? They were issued while I was serving as BIA Chair (one over my dissent).

They were supposed to be part of a group of cases, sometimes knows as the “basket of pain,” defining the term in a number of different contexts. But, after Ashcroft’s “Saturday Night Massacre” at the BIA “took out” those judges, including me, who sometimes ruled in favor of respondent’s positions, the project was abandoned. My remaining colleagues were afraid that ruling on anything so controversial, and particularly granting anything to a respondent, could be “career threatening,” probably with good reason. So, Immigration Judges were left to their own devices. Many of the BIA panels on the other hand, took a pretty hard line, all, of course, in unpublished decisions.

Coming to the Arlington Immigration Court from the BIA, I actually underwent some “culture shock.” In an early cancellation case, I was thinking that the respondents, although great folks who were doing good things for America and their citizen family, probably wouldn’t “make the cut” under the standards that my last BIA panel had been applying. But, when the Assistant Chief Counsel got up to make a closing, after I had given respondents’ counsel a rather “hard time,” I was surprised to hear an impassioned, well-reasoned, and well-supported plea joining counsel’s request for a finding of “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” and granting the case. “It’s Recinas, not Andazola,” as we came to say in Arlington, after the names of the BIA precedents that appeared to reach conflicting conclusions.

Some Immigration Judges would have found that deprivation of the support of the “primary breadwinner” is “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” and granted Jose cancellation of removal. And, some ICE Assistant Chief Counsel would have waived appeal. Just shows what a “crapshoot” justice has become in the Immigration Courts.

BS (“Before Sessions”) at the Arlington Immigration Court, the Assistant Chief Counsel would probably have offered “prosecutorial discretion” or “PD” to Jose. And, I would have encouraged Marty to take that offer and “live to fight another day.” I would have given Jose and his family my “bad things will happen if you screw up again in any way speech,'” “administratively closed” the case, and taken it off my docket. The court and both counsel would have saved time and Jose and his family could have gone on living their lives and contributing to America pending good behavior and an eventual legalization program by Congress.

Not a perfect solution to be sure. But, a fundamentally just one that allowed me, ICE, and the private bar to move on and deal with other higher priority cases that really needed my judicial attention.

Trump, Sessions, Nielsen and their White Nationalist Gang have stripped the Immigration Courts of whatever little sense of justice and judicial control remained. They intentionally have turned a struggling system into a totally dysfunctional and fundamentally unjust and unconstitutional one.

We can only hope that at some point the Article III Courts will have seen enough and will put this totally bankrupt system into “receivership;” or that some future Congress and a more competent and honest Administration will create an independent Immigration Court focused, as it should be, on fairness and Due Process. Until then, justice and logic will continue to be a bad joke in the “U.S. Clown Courts.” 🤡

PWS

01-28-19

Due Process Forever. Dysfunctional Courts That Endanger The Public, Never!

🤡☠️

“The cells stink. The toilets don’t flush. There’s never enough soap. They give out soap once a week. One bar of soap a week. How does that make any sense?”

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Due Processe Forever! Clown Courts Never!🤡🤡

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Origins of the term “Clown Court” 🤡 (it actually preceded the Trump Administration):

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