Complicit Article III Courts – immigrationcourtside.com

DEBUNKING THE TRUMP REGIME’S WHITE NATIONALIST MYTHS☠️: Furthering & Protecting Immigrants’ Rights Benefits Society — Bogus “COVID-19” Visa Restrictions & Other Nativist Nonsense Enabled By Feckless Congress & Failing Courts Hurts America!

Gaurav Khanna
Assistant Professor of Economics
U.S. San Diego

https://apple.news/AtzkkrgAGThCSMutjCZCjAg

From SCIENMAG:

New Visa restrictions will make the US economic downturn worse

New research shows legal protections for immigrants improve lives and livelihoods of citizen workers

The Trump administration is expected to set limits on a popular program that allows international students to work in the U.S. after graduation while remaining on their student visas. The restrictions on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program are designed to help American graduates seeking jobs during the pandemic-fueled economic downturn; however, the move is likely to further hurt the economy, according to new University of California San Diego research on immigrant rights.

In a new research paper, economists find that immigrant rights enhance the lives and livelihoods of native-born workers in many ways. Drawing from a sweeping collection of studies on the U.S. labor market over the past century, the paper is the first of its kind to look at how legal protections for immigrants affect domestic workers of immigrant-receiving countries in terms of generating income, innovation, reducing crime and increasing tax revenues.

One in eight persons living in the United States was born in a different country. Therefore understanding the impact of migrant worker rights on receiving economies is crucial to immigration policymaking, especially with the White House’s immigration policies growing more exclusionary during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This time the political restrictions seem to be on high-skill foreign-born, like students, OPTs and those with H1B visas,” said Gaurav Khanna, co-author and assistant professor of economics at the UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS). “Many high-skill workers have lost their jobs, which means many will have to leave the country soon. When the U.S. crisis abates, there may be a scarcity of high-skill professionals, which could stall a robust recovery.”

Legal protections for immigrants aid entrepreneurship and innovation

About 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. These companies amass more than $6 trillion in revenue per year and include tech-giants like Google-Alphabet, Microsoft, Tesla and Apple. With one in four of computer scientists born in a different country, the U.S. immigrant workforce comprises of many of Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs, current CEOs or company founders.

As entrepreneurs know, starting a business requires a lot of money up front while the return on investment may take years, but the benefits to the local populations prove to be very positive from the start.

With the economy contracting at unprecedented levels, the White House’s decision to impose more visa restrictions is expected make economic recovery more difficult because the less confidence immigrants have in their status, the less likely they are to seed innovation and create businesses.

Providing legal permanence and stability to immigrants may help incentivize long-term local investments like businesses which lead to an increase in jobs and a larger tax base, Khanna and co-author Anna Brown, a graduate of GPS’s Master of Public Policy program write.

H1-B under fire, despite its well-documented economic benefits

Most technology workers enter the U.S. on H-1B visas, which are temporary work visas that are valid for three years and renewable up to another three years. At the end of the six-year period, these highly-skilled workers must either leave the country or apply for a costly green card that has a long waitlist, particularly for citizens of India and China.

“Extending the H-1B limit or making the green card process easier would provide immigrants with a longer legal work status in the U.S. and allow employers to retain high-skill talent, which could have downstream effects on other industries that use software, like banking, manufacturing and other sectors,” the authors write.

Since the H-1B visa was in introduced in 1990, it has yielded many economic benefits. For example, U.S.-born workers gained $431 million in 2010 as a result of the H-1B, according to previous research from Khanna. Moreover, another study of his revealed that hiring H-1B workers was strongly associated with firms introducing newer products.

However, new restrictions to the H-1B, the same type of visa the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, used to begin working in the U.S., could be released soon as the White House recently indicated it is reevaluating the program. This could yield another roadblock for the legalization of immigrants with entrepreneurial ambition.

“Unless immigrants are certain they will be allowed to remain within a country, they may not invest in developing a business in that country,” Khanna and Brown write. “This highlights a problem faced by many migrants who have ambitions to start businesses but will not because they know they may not be able to stay in the country for long.”

More protections for immigrants increases the likelihoods of jobs going to native born-workers, over immigrants

In addition to analyzing how immigrant rights aid entrepreneurship, Khanna and Brown also looked at how these policies impact the competition between native-born and immigrant workers. Immigrant worker rights protect migrant workers from employer exploitation; an indirect benefit of these laws is that they even the playing field between immigrants and non-immigrants.

“Migrant workers, who are not legally protected, face much lower wages compared with their native counterparts,” according to Khanna. “This is detrimental to U.S. born workers, who are less likely to be hired. Ensuring migrant workers have substantial rights inadvertently helps U.S. born workers as well.”

The study points to exclusionary immigration policies over the course of U.S. history, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ policies targeted at farmworkers, all of which were driven by fear of low-skill laborers from other countries depressing wages of native-born workers in the U.S.

However, economist all over the world have been unable to find evidence that proves these theories. Rather, in each of these cases throughout U.S. history, employers adjusted to the missing workers in ways other than substantially bidding up wages, such as by shifting to production technologies that use less labor.

“Often, such policies have been motivated by resentment against foreign workers; however, this fear may be based on false perceptions and lack of evidence,” the authors of the paper, which appeared in the UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs, write. “This resentment may also be driven by racial prejudices and xenophobia.”

Rights for immigrants also lower crimes in receiving countries

Even as the discussion on the impact of immigration has predominantly focused on wages and employment, the current U.S. President has strongly alluded to a link between immigrants and crime, propelling growing discourse on the subject.

Between 2001 and 2017, Gallup polls consistently reflected that roughly half (45 percent to 58 percent) of American respondents believe immigrants make the crime situation worse. These assumptions are false. The authors cite ample research that sheds light on incarceration rates being lower for immigrants, and far lower for newly arrived immigrants, revealing the baseline for criminal activity among immigrants is lower than native-born workers.

In addition, the authors point to previous studies that revealed a correlation between immigrant rights with decreased crime over the course of four decades (1970 to 2010).

“This is because the less protection and work opportunities immigrants have, the more likely they are to turn to criminal activity, as an act of desperation,” said Khanna. “Criminal behavior is widely understood to be a result of necessity and when given legal employment opportunities at livable wages, crime is reduced.”

For example, after the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of was implemented in 1986, which gave legal status to three million immigrants in the U.S., it led to a marked decrease in crime up to 5 percent.

Legal protections lower the fiscal burden and reduce deficits

Contrary to popular belief, undocumented migrant workers pay taxes, mostly income taxes, which are estimated to at $11.7 billion. Yet the number would be higher (by $2.2 billion) if undocumented migrants were granted legal status, an important consideration as the national deficit mounts in the wake of COVID-19.

Additional ways more protections for migrants would help domestic populous could be lower health care costs. Undocumented migrants may not be eligible for insurance, adding to healthcare costs in times of emergency.

“We find that the fiscal burden can be greatly reduced if immigrants are given working status and allowed to contribute to the tax base,” the authors wrote. “In conclusion, we find there are several areas where strengthening migrant worker rights benefits native-born workers, outweighing any costs borne by them.”

To read the full paper, go to the UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs website.

Media Contact
Christine Clark
ceclark@ucsd.edu
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/new-visa-restrictions-will-make-the-u.s-economic-downturn-worse

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The fear mongering, racist lies, anti-scientific BS, and White Nationalist false narratives pushed by the Trump regime and enabled by a feckless Congress and complicit Article III Courts that refuse to give meaning to our Constitution and statutes while failing to require honesty and candor from the Administration are destroying America.

No, everything can’t be changed overnight. Sadly, the damage inflicted by Trump, his corrupt cronies, and his supporters on America and on our democratic institutions is huge; it will take years if not decades to repair. That’s what makes the exceptionally poor performance of Congress and the Federal Judiciary as a whole under the defective leadership of the Supremes so reprehensible. Far, far too many of the wrong people in the wrong jobs at the worst time in our history for fecklessness, lack of courage, and absence of integrity, not to mention empathy and compassion for “the other.” Disgraceful!

But regime change and appointing Federal Judges who demonstrate “community creds,” a commitment to due process, fundamental fairness, equal justice under law, human rights, and human decency would be an important necessary step to making social justice in America a reality rather than just a slogan. It would also help protect us against any future “Trump-style, neo-fascist regime.”

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

06-06-20

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: Will Trump’s Incompetence Save America From His Maliciousness?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-all-about-deregulation–except-when-it-comes-to-his-enemies/2020/05/28/dcfb9638-a116-11ea-b5c9-570a91917d8d_story.html

Catherine writes:

. . . .

That’s because the pretense was nonsense from the start. Trump’s regulatory agenda was never about helping the economy; it was always about rewarding friends and punishing enemies. White House officials have weaponized the “administrative state” they claim to hate and have repeatedly tried to strangle disfavored groups with regulations and red tape.

Not just Twitter, either.

Arbitrary delays in processing visa applications, for example, have been used to punish immigrants and the companies that employ them. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has rejected visa applications because applicants lack a middle name. It has also waited to mail approved visas until (oops!) after the visas had already expired.

The additional costs and uncertainty these processing changes create for workers and their employers are a feature, not a bug.

Elsewhere, both federal and state officials have ratcheted up bureaucratic hurdles for the poor, as Georgetown University professors Pamela Herd and Donald P. Moynihan have documented.

Right now, for example, states can decide a poor family is automatically eligible for food assistance if the family is enrolled in other means-tested safety-net programs. The Trump administration is trying to block states from doing this, and require more paperwork to prove eligibility. By the administration’s own calculations, this would cause 1 million children to lose their automatic eligibility for free school lunches.

The administration, of course, argues that its regulatory decisions are determined not by Trump’s political whims but by meticulous analysis of what’s best for the economy.Helpfully, a method exists to check their work: the cost-benefits analysis that agencies must produce ahead of major rule changes.

These records show, however, that the administration has repeatedly struggled to prove that its regulatory actions actually increase economic and social welfare.

To get the numbers to work out in its favor, the administration has had to cook the books.

. . . .

The only upside to this slapdash math is that it makes the administration’s most damaging and punitive regulatory changes less likely to hold up in court. Already, the Trump administration has lost more than 90 percent of the legal challenges to its regulatory policies, according to New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. By comparison, previous administrations lost only about 30 percent of the time.

“A lot of these losses have been because of the poor quality of the analysis — who’s harmed, who’s helped, by how much,” said Richard Revesz, a law professor who directs the institute.

The only thing that may save us from the administration’s regulatory vindictiveness is its incompetence.

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

As usual, Catherine’s analysis is “spot on.” My problem is this.

If the same private litigant and his or her lawyers kept presenting Federal Courts with false, misleading, or just plain faked evidence and statistics, the private lawyers likely would be facing discipline or disbarment for failure to provide “candor to a tribunal.” The client would be facing large penalties and likely contempt for continuing to institute or cause frivolous litigation.

Yet, except for occasional “harsh but toothless” language in judicial opinions or a couple of minor fines, Trump, his sycophantic toadies, and his battery of unethical Government lawyers get off scot-free for abusing the Article III Judiciary and our legal and judicial processes. Meanwhile, the private litigants are forced to file the same challenges over and over again in different jurisdictions across the country. In the area of immigration, asylum, and human rights, most of the lawyers are donating their time pro bono, while the unethical Government attorneys and their corrupt clients are on the taxpayer’s dime.

The occasional Equal Access to Justice Act award against the Government seldom comes close to compensating private lawyers for their actual lost time and lost opportunities. Nor does it deter the Trump regime, because it comes out of “you of the taxpayers’” pocket.

A Federal Judge demands accurate statistics from DHS after private litigants show the last batch was bogus; the DHS merely submits another set of bogus or misleading data, forcing the private litigants to once again have to demonstrate their unreliability. Government officials and their attorneys claim, contrary to fact, that there is no “child separation” policy, but suffer no consequences other than to be told to stop violating the Constitution. Instead of doing that, they “repackage” unconstitutional child separation as a bogus “parental choice.” So, now the private litigants, who have already won once, have to show that the latest iteration of a clearly illegal and contemptuous policy is what it is: unlawful.

A Federal Judge orders they DHS to make individualized release determinations for detainees held in overcrowded substandard conditions that violate the Government’s own health guidance. Instead of doing that, the DHS merely moves them to another, slightly less crowded facility with equally bad conditions and falsely claims they have “fixed” the problem. Again, the private litigants have to gather new evidence that the move has not materially reduced the health risks to the clients. And so on.

Essentially, the Trump regime and their lawyers are playing a big game of “hide the ball;” every time the private advocates show the Federal Judge where the ball actually is hidden, the Government simply moves it again. And, unfortunately, most Federal Judges give the regime and its ethics-challenged lawyers unlimited “plays” at the expense of the other side. Even when relief is ordered, it just solves the “problem of the moment” rather than halting the pattern of ethical abuses, contemptuous attitudes, and unlawful conduct by the regime and its complicit lawyers.

In effect, the regime has “weaponized” the Federal Courts and the Article III Judiciary in a way not dissimilar from how Sessions and Barr have “weaponized” the Immigration Courts. Turning the Article III Courts into a feckless “runaround” where the individuals and their lawyers “lose even when they win” makes the process punitive and serves as a deterrent to those seeking to challenge the regime’s overtly lawless agenda.

The November election is the chance to throw a scofflaw regime out of office. But, the deep-seated institutional and integrity problems of an Article III Judiciary, beginning with the dangerously complicit and spineless in the face of tyranny “Roberts Court,” that has allowed itself to be “weaponized” and used by the army of authoritarian scofflaws to punish those seeking to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law won’t be solved so quickly. The Article III Judiciary requires an institutional re-examination and a philosophical and ethical overhaul so that it serves the Constitution, due process of law, and equal justice for all, rather than protecting the interests of an insular right-wing minority that seeks nothing less than the disintegration of our nation and our cherished democratic institutions.

PWS

05-29-20

⚖️💰JUSTICE FOR SALE: DOJ ATTEMPTED TO “BUY OUT” “HOLDOVER” BIA MEMBERS TO CLEAR THE WAY FOR AGGRESSIVELY NATIVIST AGENDA — It Failed, But The Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Asylum, Anti-Due Process Tilt Still Took Place!

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

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/27/doj-memo-offered-to-buy-out-immigration-board-members/

Tanvi Misra reports for Roll Call:

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/27/doj-memo-offered-to-buy-out-immigration-board-members/

DOJ memo offered to buy out immigration board members

The buyouts were only offered to Board of Immigration Appeals members hired before Trump took office

The Justice Department memo came from the director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, a Justice Department agency. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

By Tanvi Misra

Posted May 27, 2020 at 5:04pm

The Justice Department offered buyouts to pre-Trump administration career members on its influential immigration appeals board as part of an ongoing effort to restructure the immigration court system with new hires who may be likely to render decisions restricting asylum.

An internal memo viewed by CQ Roll Call shows that James McHenry, the director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, offered financial incentives to longtime members of the Board of Immigration Appeals to encourage them to retire or resign. The buyouts and “voluntary separation incentive payments” were offered to “individuals whose positions will help us strategically restructure EOIR in order to accommodate skills, technology, and labor markets,” according to the April 17 memo.

EOIR is the Justice Department agency that oversees the Board of Immigration Appeals, a 23-member body that reviews appealed decisions by immigration judges and sets precedent.

According to two knowledgeable sources at EOIR who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, the memo was sent to the nine board members appointed under previous Republican and Democratic administrations, before Trump took office. No one accepted the buyout offers, according to both sources.

CQ Roll Call reached out for comment on the memo to McHenry, EOIR and the Justice Department and received a statement Wednesday saying that “the Department does not comment on personnel matters.”

“Any insinuation that politicized hiring has become ramped up is inconsistent with the facts,” the statement said.

The memo sheds light on an ongoing debate over BIA hiring. Immigration judges, lawyers and former EOIR employees say the Trump administration has used the board to help meet its goal of reducing immigration, while government officials say they have simply streamlined a lengthy hiring process that was always subject to political judgments.

In October, CQ Roll Call reported on documents showing the Justice Department had tweaked the hiring process to fill six new vacancies on the board with immigration judges with high asylum denial rates and a track record of complaints. Additional memos that CQ Roll Call wrote about earlier this month shed further light on these rule changes that enabled fast-tracking of those and more recent hires.

The three most recent hires to the board include an immigration judge who denied 96 percent of the asylum requests before him and had a history of formal complaints about “bias and prejudice.” The vacancies were created after a flurry of career board members left the BIA.

“EOIR does not select board members based on prohibited criteria such as race or politics, and it does not discriminate against applicants based on any prohibited characteristics,” the Justice Department said in its statement. “All board members are selected through an open, competitive, merit-based process that begins with a public advertisement on the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) federal employment website.”

Recent changes to EOIR hiring procedures “have made the selection process of board members more formalized and neutral,” the department said.

While buyouts are typically offered to soften the blow of workforce reductions, the two sources at EOIR said the agency’s offers were made so that the BIA could be reconfigured entirely, with the positions of “board members” replaced by those of “appellate immigration judges.” The differences go beyond title, extending to pay ranges and leave policy. Appellate immigration judges also hear cases at both the trial and appellate levels, creating potential conflicts of interests.

“Many board members have viewed themselves as appellate immigration judges for years, and EOIR first proposed such a designation in 2000,” according to the Justice Department statement. “Elevating trial-level judges to appellate-level courts is common in every judicial system in the United States.”

The American Immigration Lawyers Association and other critics said the buyout offer is the latest example in a series of moves that have undermined the neutrality of the immigration court system. They point out that BIA is already housed under a law enforcement agency, the Justice Department, whose leadership may have a stake in the outcome of the court process.

“The administration is trying to further politicize the immigration court system by packing the appellate bench and is seeking to make room for more handpicked judges with this buyout,” Benjamin Johnson, AILA’s executive director, told CQ Roll Call.

“These latest actions reveal the severe impact of our nation’s immigration system being housed under the Attorney General and only underscore the real need to create an independent immigration court,” he said.

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

The refusal of the “holdovers” to take the “buyout” just forced the DOJ politicos to use a different “strategy:” creating additional “appellate judgeships” and “packing” them with appointees with established records of hostility to asylum seekers and the due process rights of respondents.

This presents an interesting historical comparison with an earlier GOP Administration’s program for promoting an anti-immigrant agenda at the BIA. Under Bush II, Ashcroft arbitrarily “cut” the size of the BIA to get rid of the vocal minority of judges who dared to speak up (usually in dissent) for the rights of asylum seekers and other migrants to due process, fundamental fairness, and humane treatment. I was one of those judges “exiled” from the BIA during the “Ashcroft Purge of ‘03.”

Fortunately, I got a “soft landing” just down the hill from the “EOIR Tower” at the Arlington Immigration Court where I remained on the bench and (mostly) “below the radar screen” for the following 13 years. And, yes, I was offered a “buyout” in the form of “early retirement,” which would have been a rather bad financial deal for me at the time. So, I rejected it, and eventually got a much better “deal.”

The DOJ’s claim that the current farce is a “merit selection system” is beyond preposterous. But, as long as Congress and the Article IIIs won’t stand up to Trump’s blatant abuses of due process, the “de-professionalization” of the career Civil Service, and the dehumanization of the “other” before the law (“Dred Scottificfation”), the charade will continue.

Of course the problem isn’t, as EOIR would lead you to believe, that some “trial judges” are elevated to the appellate bench. It’s which “trial judges” are being “rewarded” for their records of hostility to asylum seekers, respondents, and their attorneys.

Also, in what has become essentially a “closed system” of Immigration Judges, staffed almost exclusively by government attorneys overwhelmingly with prosecutorial backgrounds, the “elevation” of existing trial judges, basically tilts the system heavily in favor of DHS and against respondents. Indeed, some fine Immigration Judges with broader experience including private practice, who would have made superior Appellate Immigration Judges in a true merit-based system, were instead forced off the bench by the demeaning, biased, restrictionist policies implemented at EOIR.

Also, having served as both a trial and appellate judge, I know that the “skill sets” are related, but by no means identical. Not all good trial judges make good appellate judges and vice versa. While it’s certainly to be expected that some trial judges will be elevated to the appellate bench, that should not be the sole source of appellate judges.

Appellate judging requires scholarship, collegiality, creativity, writing, and a broad perspective that many talented private advocates, academics, and NGO lawyers possess in abundance. The same holds true of the Article III Appellate Bench. From the Supremes on down, it’s basically in various degrees of failure to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution against the attacks by the Trump regime.

It’s a case of far too many former District Court Judges, former prosecutors, and right-wing “think tankers,” and far too few individuals who have litigation, legal, and life experience gained from representing those who actually come before the courts. The Supremes in particular are badly in need of folks with a broader, more practical, more humane perspective on the law.

The institutional failure of today’s Supremes in the face of concerted Executive tyranny threatens to collapse our entire justice system and take our democratic republic down with it. The whole Article III judicial selection system needs careful reexamination and reforms lest it fall into the same type of institutional dysfunction and disrepute as today’s Immigration “Courts” (which aren’t “courts” at all in any normal sense of the word).

Of course, Trump, Barr, and the rest of their anti-democracy gang would love to make the captive, biased, Executive-controlled Immigration “Courts” the “model” for the Article III Judiciary. And, John Roberts and the rest of the “JR Five” seem all too eager to accommodate them. The perception already is out here that Roberts & Co. “work for” Trump Solicitor General Noel Francisco in somewhat the same way as Immigration “Judges” work for Billy Barr. Until Roberts and his gang show the courage to stand up to Trump and enforce the legal, constitutional, and human rights of “the other” in our society, that perception will only deepen.

As generations of African-Americans discovered following the end of Reconstruction, Constitutional and legal rights are meaningless in the face of biased and cowardly legislators, judges, and other public officials who simply look the other way, join the abuses, or “go along to get along” with treating “the other” unfairly under the law.

Due Process Forever, Captive & Complicit Courts, Never!

PWS

05-28-20

UPDATE:

Benjamin Johnson
Executive Director
AILA

AILA Statement on BIA:

AILA: EOIR Director Attempts to Buy Out Remaining Board Members to Solidify Control of Immigration Courts

AILA Doc. No. 20052830 | Dated May 28, 2020

Washington, DC – According to the Roll Call story published May 27, 2020, Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Director McHenry sent the remaining members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) a buy-out memo offering them financial compensation in exchange for early retirement or resignation. This memo was sent on April 17, 2020, during the global public health crisis, and highlights the continuing push by this administration to manipulate the functions of the BIA, the appeals court located within EOIR.

AILA Executive Director Benjamin Johnson stated, “This administration has taken numerous steps to alter the composition and role of the BIA, all in an effort to gain more control over the immigration courts and influence court decisions. In recent months, it came to light that the EOIR Director was attempting to pack the immigration bench with more appointees who have among the lowest asylum grant rates in the country. Now, he is attempting to winnow existing members from the BIA and replace them with a roster of Appellate Immigration Judges, despite congressional and stakeholder concerns about politicization of the BIA. Last year, these new appellate judge positions were created out of thin air. They appear to have nearly identical job functions as the BIA members but the Appellate Immigration Judges can adjudicate both trial and appellate level cases at the same time and can be reassigned away from the BIA at the whim of the EOIR Director.”

“This effort shows a complete disregard, or at the very least a failure to appreciate how our judicial system is supposed to work to provide a fair day in court. In 2003, Attorney General Ashcroft purged several members of the BIA, a political move that was severely criticized and ultimately undermined the credibility of our court system. These recent efforts by this administration make it even clearer that our nation urgently needs an immigration court system that is independent, fair and impartial.”

###

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.

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The BIA is a travesty, to be sure. But, an even bigger travesty is the continued “deference” given to a biased, unqualified, non-expert tribunal and its political handlers by the Article III Courts! Under Marbury v. Madison, it’s the job of the Article III Courts to say what the law is. To “defer” to the BIA, a body that currently functions not like a independent, expert tribunal, but has become a “shill” for DHS Enforcement and an adjunct of White Nationalist White House Policy Advisor Stephen Miller, is a disgraceful case of judicial task avoidance and dereliction of duty.

If nothing else, the ongoing disaster at the BIA points to an “inconvenient truth” in America’s justice system: We need better, more informed (particularly in the areas of immigrants’ rights and human rights), more courageous judges at all levels of the Federal Judiciary if we are to survive as a democratic republic where the rule of law and equal justice under law have meaning!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-28-20

MICA ROSENBERG @ REUTERS: Migrants In Trump’s New American Gulag Risk Dying Distant From Hospitals — U.S. Judges Dither As Human Rights Abuses Mount & U.S. Justice System Crumbles Under COVID 19 & Trump’s Continuing Human Rights Abuses! ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘

Mica writes:

I wanted to share our latest reporting, which found about a third of the 43,000 immigrants in detention as of March 2 were housed at facilities that have only one hospital – or none – with intensive-care beds within 25 miles, according to an analysis of data from the American Hospital Directory and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The seven sites with no such hospitals nearby held a total of about 5,000 detainees, according to the analysis, which examined centers that averaged 100 or more detainees. (ICE has said there are fewer detainees being held currently – around 35,600 – but did not provide a facility-by-facility breakdown of their whereabouts)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-detention-insi-idUSKBN21L1E4

We focused on Louisiana where the number of immigrant detainees has quadrupled under Trump to nearly 7,000 as of March 2 data. Many of the detention centers in the state are in tiny, rural towns. The Catahoula Correctional Center for example houses more than 500 detainees. It is just outside of Harrisonburg, LA, population 330.

Nurses, doctors and hospital administrators at the small hospitals closest to the detention centers – and even at larger facilities farther away – said they would be overwhelmed if there is an outbreak inside one of the facilities.

Public health experts said an outbreak in a population of 1,500 detainees could require between 150 and 175 intensive-care admissions.

We previously have reported on how lawyers are seeking parole for vulnerable immigrant detainees and how the city of Matamoros in Mexico, where thousands of migrants are stuck in limbo in tent camps, is unprepared for an outbreak.

Please read and share and contact me with additional tips for us to follow!

………………………………………………….

Mica Rosenberg

Reuters News

National Immigration Reporter

www.reuters.com

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The whole idea of locating immigration prisons “in the middle of nowhere” intentionally to hamper representation, coerce, punish, and deter detainees from asserting legal rights, and limit accountability and public oversight has been a grotesque denial of due process from the “git go.” Congress and the Article III Courts should have intervened long ago to put a stop to this nonsense before it became life-threatening on an even larger scale.

Even more preposterous is that the DOJ and EOIR have located so-called “courts” (that aren’t really courts in any sense of the term, and which no longer provide any semblance of due process and fundamental fairness) within the Gulag. It’s more like the Spanish Inquisition than it is 21st Century American Justice. Except the tragedy is that this is what passes for justice in 21st Century America! What has happened to our country and our souls? Sadly, it’s actually possible that those appearing before the Spanish Inquisition were treated better than we treat asylum seekers under the Trump regime.

Even worse, the “perpetrators” of this disgraceful mockery of the law and human dignity have to date gotten away Scot-Free. Our justice system at all levels has failed migrants seeking fair and humane treatment under our laws. (Apparently, threatening the lives, rights, and safety of non-criminal so-called “civil detainees” isn’t a problem for either Congress or the Article IIIs. We already know that Trump considers our Constitution to be a joke, and that he therefore runs over it with regularity, contempt, and impunity, while Roberts and his Supremes’ majority express disinterest in holding the Trump regime accountable for even the most boldly egregious abuses. No wonder his open contempt for the Article IIIs has only grown over the past three years.)

Thanks, Mica, for your courageous reporting and continuing to tell the story of those whose lives are being endangered by a “maliciously incompetent” White Nationalist regime and feckless Federal Courts, many of whom have forgotten the meaning of their oaths of office and their obligations to their fellow human beings.

Read all of Mica’s stories in their entirety at the above links. Or, better yet, contact Mica directly@Reuters with your own “horror stories” from inside Trump’s judicially-enabled New American Gulag.

Due Process Forever! The Trump Regime & The Complicit Congress & Federal Courts That Enable Its Abuses, Never!

Vote Like Your Life Depends On It This November! Because, It Does!

PWS

04-04-20

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

AS THOSE CHARGED WITH PROTECTING JUSTICE “TOADY UP” & ENABLE TRUMP REGIME’S “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY,” ONE GROUP OF CIVIL SERVANTS HAS THE COURAGE TO STAND UP FOR DUE PROCESS, THE RIGHTS OF ASYLUM SEEKERS, & SIMPLE HUMAN DIGNITY: USCIS ASYLUM OFFICERS! BONUS+: My Latest Monday Essay: “Heroes & Enablers”

https://apple.news/AOKo5byofRfKem24qSuLsaA

Joe Jurado reports for The Root:

The immigration policies executed by the Trump administration have been, to be succinct, f***ed up. That’s not even just me saying that. The people who have to execute his policies are saying it too.

The New York Times reports that a union of federal asylum workers has filed an amicus brief stating that a policy from the Trump Administration that diverts migrants to Guatemala is unlawful. The union, National CIS Council 119, represents 700 asylum and refugee officers of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The brief states that international treaty obligations are being violated as a result of having to deport migrants to a country where they will likely face prosecution. The Trump administration made a deal with Guatemala that allows the United States to deport migrants seeking asylum in the States to Guatemala. The union believes that these new rules are forcing them to violate the laws they were trained to uphold.

. . . .

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

Read the complete report at the link.

HEROES & ENABLERS — Judges Who Aid The Trump Regime’s Deadly Oppression Of The Most Vulnerable Among Us Will Eventually Hear The Voices Of Those They Abandoned & Dehumanized — Even From The Graves Of The Oppressed, History Will Pass Judgement On The Smugly Powerful Who Abuse The Weak!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

March 9, 2020

USCIS Asylum Officers are the “NDPA Heroes of the Week!”

So, one group of courageous civil servants is willing to put their careers on the line to defend the Constitution and the rights of the vulnerable. But, others in more protected positions, like, for example, Supreme Court Justices and some Court of Appeals Judges, are afraid to stand up to Trump and defend the rule of law and the humanity of those whose only “crime” is to trust in our legal protection system. The courage of one group contrasts with the willful ignorance and cowardly complicity of the other. What’s wrong with this picture?

At some point, there will be “regime change” in the Executive as well as the Senate. When that happens, our system needs a complete re-examination of the immigration scholarship, commitment to human rights, and the moral leadership of those we are giving lifetime appointments to the Federal Bench, particularly the Supremes.

Obviously, the system has failed when two current justices choose to use their power and privileged positions disingenuously to rail about the “bogus horrors” of nationwide injunctions, and thereby spur the regime on to even grater abuses, while papering over the real issue of the actual grotesque legal, constitutional, and human rights violations inflicted on migrants and others by a White Nationalist would-be authoritarian regime that would eventually do away with almost all of our legal rights.

In the future, perhaps we should consider elevating more Asylum Officers with law degrees and a record of fair adjudication and speaking truth to power to the Article III Judiciary, including the Supremes. There are younger members of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges who were forced by the regime into “early retirement” who could bring scholarship, fairness, practicality, and justice back to the Article IIIs. How about some pro bono lawyers, clinical professors, and NGO leaders who combine scholarship with real life experience and whose proven creativity and problem solving skills far exceed the pedestrian and wooden approaches we see all too often from today’s failing Article III Judiciary. Although their efforts are mocked, disrespected, and undermined by complicit Article III Judges, like the “J.R. Five,” these courageous “defenders of democracy and the rights of the weak” are the ones who are in fact keeping our legal system afloat in the face of Article III willful ignorance and complicity in tyranny.

And, we definitely need fewer corporate lawyers (except those who have extensive pro bono immigration/human rights experience), prosecutors, and right wing “think tankers” occupying the Federal bench.We have an oversupply of those folks on the bench right now, and our rights are suffering for it. It will take years, perhaps decades, to repair the damage they are causing and to bring the Federal Judicial system back into a proper balance.

These aren’t “liberal/conservative philosophical questions.” They are black and white questions of moral courage and the willingness to enforce Due Process and protect those whose lives are endangered by the Trump regime’s cruel and lawless programs and constant racially-inspired lies, naked bias, and misrepresentations. Sending folks back to dangerous countries without functioning asylum systems is wrong as a matter of law. Period. Making them “Remain in Mexico” is wrong. Period. A so-called “court system” run by a transparently biased, disingenuous, “uber enforcement” official like Billy Barr does not provide the “fair and impartial adjudications” required by Due Process. Period. Separating families and putting kids in cages and “kiddie gulags” is wrong. Period. Those initiating and carrying out those policies should be chastised and held accountable, not enabled. Period.

Actually, many courageous and scholarly U.S. District Judges have gotten these straightforward legal questions exactly right and promptly entered life-saving injunctions. A number of U.S. Immigration Judges have also courageously adhered to the rule of law in the face of excruciating and unethical pressure from DOJ politicos and their toadies to cut corners and railroad individuals out of the country without due process.

It’s the Supremes and too many Circuit Court Judges who who have “rolled over” for the regime’s cruel and inhuman nonsense. By doing so, they essentially “pull the rug” out from under those judges who have the encourage and integrity to “just say no” to the regime’s constant overreach. In doing so, the Federal Appellate Courts and the Supremes are actually engaging in undermining the system they serve and encouraging “worst practices” and even worse results. What truly reprehensible “role models” for upcoming lawyers. Fortunately, many newer lawyers are members of the New Due Process Army and are ignoring the poor and immoral examples of judicial spinelessness set by their supposed “elders.”

Life tenure protects the jobs and paychecks of Article III Judges. But, it won’t protect them from justified criticism and the ultimate judgement of history. Bashing the oppressed in behalf of those in power might seem like a good short-term strategy. After all, the deported, the abused, and the dead don’t normally get to “write history.”

But others are watching this travesty unfold and are pledged to “give a voice” to those silenced by the gross dereliction of legal duties and ignoring simple human decency and values by many with power who could have put an end to these obscene human rights abuses. Chief Justice Roger Taney might have been hailed by the White Supremacists of his age for his opinion in Dred Scott. But, he hasn’t “weathered the test of time” too well! Nor will Chief Justice Roberts and others who have been “going along to get along” with cruel and illegal abuses wantonly inflicted by the White Nationalist regime on the most needy and vulnerable among us.

Congrats and much appreciation from all of us in the New Due Process Army to USCIS Asylum Officers for your courage and integrity in the face of tyranny!

Due Process Forever; Complicity & Enabling Cruelty Never!

PWS

03-09-20

🤡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

WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!

yhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-us-is-putting-asylum-seekers-on-planes-to-guatemala–often-without-telling-them-where-theyre-going/2020/01/13/0f89a93a-3576-11ea-a1ff-c48c1d59a4a1_story.html

Kevin Sieff reports from Guatemala for WashPost:

By

Kevin Sieff

Jan. 14, 2020 at 4:21 p.m. EST

GUATEMALA CITY — The chartered U.S. government flights land here every day or two, depositing Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers from the U.S. border. Many arrive with the same question: “Where are we?”

For the first time ever, the United States is shipping asylum seekers who arrive at its border to a “safe third country” to seek refuge there. The Trump administration hopes the program will serve as a model for others in the region.

But during its first weeks, asylum seekers and human rights advocates say, migrants have been put on planes without being told where they were headed, and left here without being given basic instruction about what to do next.

When the migrants land in Guatemala City, they receive little information about what it means to apply for asylum in one of the hemisphere’s poorest countries. Those who don’t immediately apply are told that they must leave the country in 72 hours. The form is labeled “Voluntary Return.”

“In the U.S., the agents told us our cases would be transferred, but they didn’t say where. Then they lined us up to get on the plane,” said a woman named Marta, 43, from Honduras. She sat in a migrant shelter here with her 17-year-old son, who nursed a gunshot wound in his left cheek — the work, both say, of a Honduran faction of the MS-13 gang.

“When we looked out the window, we were here,” she said. “We thought, ‘Where are we? What are we supposed to do now?’ ”

After the volcano, indigenous Guatemalans search for safer ground — in Guatemala, or the United States

Human rights organizations in Guatemala say they have recorded dozens of cases of asylum seekers who were misled by U.S. officials into boarding flights, and who were not informed of their asylum rights upon arrival. Of the 143 Hondurans and Salvadorans sent to Guatemala since the program began last month, only five have applied for asylum, according to the country’s migration agency.

“Safe third country” is one of the Trump administration’s most dramatic initiatives to curb migration — an effort to remake the U.S. asylum system. President Trump has called it “terrific for [Guatemala] and terrific for us.”

But an Asylum Cooperation Agreement is bringing migrants to a country that is unable to provide economic and physical security for its own citizens — many of whom are themselves trying to migrate. In fiscal 2019, Guatemala was the largest source of migrants detained at the U.S. border, at more than 264,000. The country has only a skeletal asylum program, with fewer than a dozen asylum officers.

Trump wants border-bound asylum seekers to find refuge in Guatemala instead. Guatemala isn’t ready.

As the deal was negotiated, it drew concerns from the United Nations and human rights organizations. But its implementation, advocates say, has been worse than they feared.

“It’s a total disaster,” said Thelma Shau, who has observed the arrival of asylum seekers at La Aurora International Airport in her role overseeing migration issues for Guatemala’s human rights ombudsman.

“They arrive here without being told that Guatemala is their destination,” she said. “They are asked, ‘Do you want refuge here or do you want to leave?’ And they have literally minutes to decide without knowing anything about what that means.”

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump meet in the Oval Office last month with then-President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Guatemalan government says that it explains asylum options and that migrants are simply choosing to leave voluntarily.

“Central American people are given comprehensive attention when they arrive in the country, and respect for their human rights is a priority,” said Alejandra Mena, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s migration agency. “The information provided is complete for them to make a decision.”

In Guatemala, lenders that were supported by USAID and the World Bank are now funding illegal migration.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. The United States has signed similar “safe third country” agreements with El Salvador and Honduras, but they have not yet been implemented. In recent days, Trump administration officials have said they are considering sending Mexican asylum seekers to Guatemala to seek refuge.

Human rights groups in Guatemala that have observed the process say migrants here are not given key information about their options — such as what asylum in Guatemala entails and where they would stay while their claims are being processed. Many migrants are aware that Guatemala suffers from the same gang violence and extortion that forced them from their home countries.

Migrants from Guatemala disembark from a raft in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, in June. (Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press)

Paula Arana observed the orientation as child protection liaison for the human rights ombudsman.

“It’s clear that the government is not providing enough information for asylum seekers to make a decision, especially in the three minutes they are given,” she said. “Instead, they are being pushed out of the country.”

The United States had suggested that it would begin implementing the agreement by sending single men to Guatemala. But less than a month after it began, families with young children are arriving on the charter flights. Last week, Arana said, a 2-year-old arrived with flulike symptoms.

On Thursday, a man named Jorge, 35, his wife and two daughters, ages 11 and 15, landed here. A day later, they were clustered together at the Casa del Migrante, a shelter in Guatemala City where government officials took them in a bus. They had been given the papers with 72 hours’ notice to leave Guatemala, and couldn’t figure out what to do.

The family had fled multiple threats from gangs in Honduras, which started with an interpersonal dispute between Jorge’s wife and one of the gang’s leaders. Jorge was certain that going back would mean certain death. Like Marta, Jorge did not want his last name to be published out of fear for his family’s safety.

“We’re thinking about our options. We know we can’t stay here. What would I do? Where would we stay?” he said. “Maybe we need to try to cross to the United States again.”

In western Guatemala, cultivating coffee was once a way out of poverty. As prices fall, growers are abandoning their farms for the United States.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is not participating in the program. But officials say they’re aware of problems with its implementation.

“UNHCR has a number of concerns regarding the Asylum Cooperation Agreement and its implementation,” said Sibylla Brodzinsky, UNHCR’s regional spokeswoman for Central America and Mexico. “We have expressed these concerns to the relevant U.S. and Guatemalan authorities.”

Human rights advocates who have interviewed the asylum seekers, known locally as “transferidos,” say many have decided that their best option is to migrate again to the United States. Smugglers often offer their customers three chances to make it across the border.

Migrants at the Casa del Migrante described spending a week in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in the United States, where they had intended to make their asylum claims. Many carried binders full of evidence they assumed would bolster their cases. On her phone, Marta saved avideo of her son being tortured by MS-13 gang members.

But in their brief conversations with U.S. immigration officials, they were told they would not be given a chance to apply for asylum in the United States.

“We had all this information to show them,” Marta said, leafing through photos of her son’s scars and Honduran court documents. “They said, ‘That’s not going to help you here.’ ”

This school aims to keep young Guatemalans from migrating. They don’t know it’s funded by the U.S. government.

In interviews with The Washington Post, some migrants said they were told vaguely that their cases were being “transferred.” Others were told they were going to be returned to their countries of origin.

“One agent told me, ‘You’re going back to Honduras,’ ” Marta said. But then they arrived in Guatemala City.

“When we looked out the window, we just assumed it was a stop,” her son said.

Marta thought Guatemala might be even more dangerous. They had no connection to the country and nowhere to stay beyond their first few days. When she left the migrant shelter to buy food Friday morning, she said, she stumbled upon a crime scene with a dead body a few blocks away.

During their nine-day detention at an ICE facility in Texas, she said, the family shared a cell with a Guatemalan family that was fleeing violence perpetrated by a different MS-13 group based here.

Agronomy students, some hooded, block a street outside a Guatemala City hotel before lawmakers voted on the deal that made Guatemala a “safe third country” for migrants seeking asylum in the United States. (Oliver De Ros/Associated Press)

“Why would they send us to a country where the same gangs are operating?” she asked.

In the absence of a thorough explanation of their asylum rights in Guatemala, El Refugio de la Niñez is offering a short tutorial to the asylum seekers. So far, 45 have attended.

“The Guatemalan government is completely absent in this whole process,” said Leonel Dubon, the director of the U.N.-funded center. “It sends a clear message. The government isn’t here to offer shelter, it’s here to push people out as quickly as possible.”

The Trump administration negotiated the “safe third country” agreement last year with lame-duck Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales.

As Guatemala pursues war criminals, a dark secret emerges: Some suspects are living quiet lives in the U.S.

Guatemala’s constitutional court initially blocked the deal. Then Trump threatened tariffs on the country and taxes on remittances sent home by Guatemalans living in the United States. It was eventually signed in July.

The new Guatemalan president, Alejandro Giammattei, was sworn in Tuesday. He has raised concerns about the agreement, saying he hadn’t been briefed on its details.

At the signing ceremony, Trump said it would “provide safety for legitimate asylum seekers, and stop asylum fraud and abuses [of the] system.”

U.S. asylum officers do not vet the cases of migrants before they are sent to Guatemala.

In her brief conversations with U.S. immigration agents, Marta tried to get them to look at her binder full of documents and photos.

“They weren’t interested,” she said. “They just kept saying that your case will be transferred to an institution that can handle it.”

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

Kevin writes about a tragically absurd situation that seems to have fallen “below the radar screen” of public outrage or even discourse. This is wrong! Most days I can’t believe that the county that I proudly served for more than 35 years is engaging in this type of abusive behavior that would be below the level of even some Third World dictatorships.

And, it isn’t just “occasional abuse” — it’s systemized, institutionalized abuse and dehumanization on a global and regular basis — all approved or de facto enabled by feckless and spineless Federal Appellate Courts, all the way up to the Supremes! These are folks who should know better and really have no other meaningful function in our “separation of powers” system other than to protect our individual rights. Authoritarian governments and dictators hardly need “courts” to enforce their will, even if some find it useful to “go through the motions” of creating and employing complicit “judges.” As one of my Round Table colleagues succinctly put it “there appears to be no bottom!”

Clearly, the “Safe Third Country” exception was never intended by Congress, nor does the statutory language permit it, to be used to “orbit” asylum applicants to some of the most dangerous refugee sending countries in the world with thoroughly corrupt governments and non-existent asylum systems. So, why does the Trump regime have confidence that it can and will get away with these atrocities? Because they believe, correctly so far, that the Article III Federal Courts, many of them now stacked with Trump’s hand-selected “toady judges,” are afraid to stand up to tyranny and protect the rights of desperate, mostly brown-skinned, asylum seekers.

Obviously, from an institutional standpoint, the Article III Courts are saying:

“Who cares what happens to a bunch of brown-skinned foreigners. Let ‘em die, rot, or be tortured. Human rights, due process, and human dignity simply don’t matter when they don’t affect us personally, financially, or socially. That’s particularly true because the results of our abuses are taking place, thankfully, in foreign nations: out of sight, out of mind. Not our problem.”

Apparently, many Americans agree with this immoral and illegal approach. Otherwise, the “black robed, life tenured ones” would be pariahs in their communities, churches, and social interactions. They wouldn’t be offered those cushy teaching positions at law schools or a chance to expound before public audiences.

But, not speaking out against bad judges and not insisting on integrity and courage in the Article III courts could ultimately prove fatal for all of our individual rights. Judges who use their privileged positions to turn a blind eye to the oppression of others, particularly the most vulnerable humans among us, and the catastrophic failure of the rule of law and Due Process in the U.S. immigration system can hardly be expected to stand up for the individual rights of any of us against Government oppression.

After all, why should an exulted Federal Appellate Judge or a Supreme Court Justice care about what happens to you, unless your blood is about to spatter his or her pristine black robe? Many of those supportive of or complicit in Trump’s tyranny will personally experience the costs of a feckless Federal Judiciary when their “turn in the barrel” comes. And, the Trump regime’s list of those who’s “lives and rights don’t matter” is very, very long and continually expanding.

All I can say now is that some day, the full truth about what happens to those unlawfully and immorally turned away at our borders will “out.” Then, many Articles III judges will try to disingenuously protect their reputations by saying, similar to many judges of the Third Reich, “Gee, who knew,” or “I was powerless,” or “It was a political problem beyond our limited jurisdiction.”

My charge to the New Due Process Army: Don’t let the complicit judges get away with it in the “Court of History.” You see, know, and experience first-hand every day the results of Article III judicial complicity. Don’t ever forget what those judges have done and continue to do to human lives from their protected and “willfully clueless” ivory towers! Ultimately, you aren’t as powerless as the “complicit ones” think you are!

Due Process Forever; Feckless, Complicit, Immoral Federal Judges Never!

PWS

01-14-20

KNIGHT INSTITUTE CHALLENGES EOIR’S MUZZLING OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES ON 1ST AMENDMENT GROUNDS – See The Letter Here!

https://knightcolumbia.org/content/knight-institute-calls-on-dojs-executive-office-for-immigration-review-to-suspend-policy-silencing-immigration-judges

PRESS STATEMENT

Knight Institute Calls on DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review to Suspend Policy Silencing Immigration Judges

In a letter, the Institute argues that the agency’s policy, which it recently obtained through a FOIA request, violates the First Amendment

JANUARY 06, 2020

WASHINGTON — In a letter sent today to the acting director of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University demanded that the agency suspend its policy restricting the ability of EOIR employees to speak at public events. That policy, Institute lawyers argued, violates the First Amendment by unduly abridging the right of immigration judges and other EOIR employees to speak in their personal capacities about matters of significant public interest.

The Knight Institute recently obtained a copy of the EOIR’s policy through a Freedom of Information Act request. That FOIA request was submitted as part of a major investigation the Institute’s writer-in-residence Cristian Farias is leading on free speech restrictions at the U.S. border.

The policy categorically prohibits certain senior EOIR employees from speaking at public events in their personal capacities, and it requires all other EOIR employees to obtain supervisory approval before doing so.

“There is immense public interest in recent changes to immigration policy, and the effects those changes are having on migrant communities,” said Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at the Knight Institute. “EOIR’s policy deprives the public of a crucial voice in that debate, by silencing those charged with operating the nation’s immigration courts.”

The Knight Institute’s constitutional objections to the EOIR policy come in the midst of an ongoing conflict between U.S. immigration judges—who are EOIR employees—and the U.S. government. Some immigration judges have been critical of Trump administration policies that they say interfere with their independence, such as case-completion quotas, and the administration is now attempting to decertify the union that represents the judges. A hearing in that decertification proceeding is scheduled to begin tomorrow.

“Federal employees don’t relinquish their First Amendment rights when they begin working for the government,” said Stephanie Krent, a legal fellow at the Knight Institute. “Limits on federal-employee speech must be tailored to speech that would be genuinely disruptive, but this policy is anything but. It sweepingly suppresses protected speech without any apparent justification.”

Read the Knight Institute’s letter and the EOIR policy here.

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, Knight First Amendment Institute, lorraine.kenny@knightcolumbia.org, (646) 745-8510.

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

Click the above link in the press release to see the letter to EOIR Director McHenry.

Given the absolute Due Process disaster in Immigration Court and the total dysfunctional mess that the “malicious incompetents” at DOJ and EOIR so-called “management” have made out of an already troubled system, it’s perfectly understandable why EOIR doesn’t want any public scrutiny or the truth to come out.

However, given the regime’s complete disregard of the Constitution, the rule of law, and sound public policy in areas from immigration to the environment to voting rights, etc., I wouldn’t hold my breath for EOIR to change their unconstitutional and “just plain dumb” policies. Hopefully, the Knight Institute has the resources to take this to the “real” courts and, perhaps, even to Congress in better times.

But, to date, a divided Congress with “Moscow Mitch” in the driver’s seat and the higher-level Article IIIs have shown little interest in applying the Constitution or insisting on compliance with laws when it’s only the rights and lives of immigrants, particularly brown skinned ones from south of our border, involved. That’s particularly interesting, and not just a little discouraging, because very few members of the Article III Judiciary are Native Americans; almost all descend from immigrants and many of their ancestors would not have been allowed to come here or would not have survived under the types of stereotyping and invidious, unconstitutional discrimination unleashed by Trump and his minions. The ability to see yourself in the situation of other humans should be a requirement for any Article III judge! Obviously, it hasn’t been, or at least not to a sufficient extent, in the past.

So far, the Article IIIs Appellate Courts have bent over backwards to demonstrate just how aggressively out of touch they are with humanity and the everyday individual rights of Americans, whether citizens or non-citizens, entitled to protection under our laws.

Unfortunately, the “failure of courage and dereliction of Constitutional responsibility” among the Article III Appellate Judiciary is a problem that will continue to plague whatever is left of America and our institutions even after Trump and his kakistocracy are gone from the scene.

At some point, maybe legal education in American has to focus on a larger problem: educating a future judiciary with an overriding commitment to ethics, courage to stand up for individual rights, and the integrity to “just say no” to tyranny, inhumanity, wanton cruelty, and constant Executive overreach!

We can’t change what has happened, but we can learn from our failures.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-10-19

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

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Vote Like Your Life Depends On It This November! Because, It Does!

PWS

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