"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Democrats suffered a major blow when the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, decided that they could not include immigration provisions in their $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. According to MacDonough, the effect that the immigration provisions would have on the budget would be incidental to their overall policy effect.
The rejected provisions would have provided legalization for undocumented immigrants who were brought here illegally as children, often called “Dreamers;” undocumented immigrants with Temporary Protected Status; and undocumented essential workers. This would have made lawful status available to more than 8 million undocumented immigrants.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) claims that there is another option, which is to narrow the immigration reform provisions such that Democrats can navigate it through the Senate’s Byzantine rules. He thinks this can be done with an update to the registry provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
Registry is a process that permits undocumented immigrants to become lawful permanent residents (green card holders) on the basis of their long-standing presence in the country, regardless of their status or the way they entered the country.
I don’t think updating the registry provision will be acceptable to MacDonough either — It’s just another way to legalize undocumented immigrants.
But it might be possible to move a registry update through the regular legislative process. The registry process has been in place for nearly a century. It reflects our nation’s historical sense of fairness to allow undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for a very long time an opportunity to obtain legal status, and it hasn’t been updated since 1986.
As Dean Kevin Johnson noted in his ImmigrationProf post, Nolan correctly predicted that the Parliamentarian would reject registry as part of budget reconciliation. But, the possibility for bipartisan legislation doesn’t end there.
Any time we have Nolan and ImmigrationProf Blog resident expert Professor Kit Johnson talking about the same possible solution, folks in Congress on both sides should wake up and take notice! Doesn’t mean they will. But they should think about proposed solutions from thoughtful subject matter experts, who have been involved in the process for years, and who often come at problem-solving from different angles.
Kit Johnson Associate Professor of Law University of Oklahoma Law School
There are enormous downsides to border disorder, to immigration policy paralysis and to leaving the fates of more than 11 million current immigrants without any path to a secure future — even beyond the reinforcement it provides to the United States’ growing international reputation for dysfunction. No one gains by the chaos except smugglers who soak desperate migrants financially on their way north in hopes of a better life. The losers include not only the “dreamers” brought to this country as children, who must live in perpetual anxiety, but also the country as a whole, which loses the value of immigrants, skilled and otherwise, who would turbocharge entrepreneurship, create jobs and help the economy grow.
There are available solutions if Congress could overcome its horror of bipartisan compromise. The goal should be to establish a realistic annual quota of immigrant visas for Central Americans, Haitians and others desperate to reach this country who otherwise will cross the border illegally — a number that recognizes the U.S. labor market’s demand for such employees. That must be supplemented by a muscular guest worker program that enables legal border crossing for migrants who want to support families remaining in their home countries.
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Read the complete editorial at the link.
It’s worth adding that the current “border disorder” is largely the result of White Nationalist, legally defective, anti-immigrant policies of the Trump regime compounded by the failure of Mayorkas and Garland to take the obvious, available, common sense steps necessary to reopen legal border ports of entry, to make the long overdue necessary reforms to establish a fair, efficient, and generous legal asylum system at the USCIS Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts, and to insist on the creation of a robust, functional refugee program for Latin America and the Caribbean.
None of the this is “rocket science!” 🚀 Plenty of great blueprints for administrative reforms and the potential expert leadership to implement them were “out there for the taking” at the beginning of the Biden Administration. By dawdling, tapping the wrong leaders, and continuing enforcement policies and bad judicial practices that were proven failures, the Administration predictably put itself “behind the eight-ball” in establishing order and implementing the rule of law at our borders!
Until the Biden Administration ends its disgraceful, cowardly, illegal, cruel, ineffective, and inhumane reliance on bogus “Title 42” restrictions to suspend orderly legal processing at the border, they will continue to bobble the next predictable “border crisis.” The GOP will continue to spout nativist nonsense. Desperate people will continue to do desperate things. Only a tone-deaf Administration would continue to ignore this reality!
The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, on Sunday defended the Biden administration’s decision to send thousands of Haitians to a home country they fled because of natural disasters and political turmoil.
White House criticizes border agents who rounded up migrants on horseback
Mayorkas told NBC’s Meet the Press the removals were justified because of the coronavirus pandemic, a point disputed by advocates and public health experts.
“The Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention, or CDC] has a Title 42 authority that we exercise to protect the migrants themselves, to protect the local communities, our personnel and the American public,” Mayorkas said.
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“The pandemic is not behind us. Title 42 is a public health policy, not an immigration policy.”
Since Donald Trump’s administration implemented Title 42 in March 2020, advocates and dozens of public health experts have called for its end.
Under Title 42, people who attempt to cross the border are returned to Mexico or deported to their home countries without an opportunity to test asylum claims.
In January, Joe Biden stopped the rule from applying to children. Despite that, at least 22 babies and children were deported to Haiti in February.
More than 30 public health experts wrote to Mayorkas and the head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, earlier this month, saying Title 42 was “scientifically baseless and politically motivated”.
This coalition has repeatedly said the policy violates the right to seek asylum and ignores how basic public health measures can reduce the spread of Covid-19.
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“Title 42 runs counter to the government’s own commitment to address Covid-19 globally,” the coalition said. “The absence of effective Covid-19 mitigation services at the border and the expulsion of people to situations in which they may be exposed to Covid-19 and unable to practice prevention are contrary to the US government commitment to address Covid-19 globally.”
On Sunday, Mayorkas told CNN about 4,000 Haitians who arrived in the past two weeks have been expelled, 13,000 others had been allowed to enter the US to pursue their immigration cases in court and 8,000 had voluntarily chosen to return to Mexico.
NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd questioned Mayorkas about why thousands were being sent to Haiti even though they had traveled to the US from South America.
“These are Haitian nationals,” Mayorkas said. “Some of them don’t have documents from the countries from which they just left. So they are subject to removal.”
. . . .
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Of course, Haiti clearly is not a safe place to return migrants:
‘They treated us like animals’: Haitians angry and in despair at being deported from US
‘They treated us like animals’: Haitians angry and in despair at being deported from US
Haitian deportees arriving from Texas say they were ‘rounded up like cattle and shackled like criminals’
Joe Parkin Daniels in Port-au-Prince
Published:
05:00 Sunday, 26 September 2021
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When Evens Delva waded across the Rio Grande with his wife and two daughters, he had dreams of starting a new life in Florida. But less than a week later, he and his family stepped on to the tarmac in Port-au-Prince, the sweltering and chaotic capital of Haiti, with nothing except traumatic memories and a feeling of bubbling anger.
Delva, along with nearly 2,000 other Haitians, was deported from southern Texas this week to Haiti, despite having lived in Chile for the past six years and having few remaining connections to his home country. His younger daughter, who is four, does not hold Haitian citizenship, having been born in Chile, and speaks more Spanish than Haitian Creole.
“I don’t know what we’ll do, we don’t have anywhere to stay or anyone to call,” the 40-year-old said, moments after getting off the plane in the blistering midday Caribbean heat. “All I know is that this is the last place I want to be.”
Evens Delva and his wife at Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti on Friday after being deported from Texas. Photograph: Joe Parkin Daniels/The Guardian
It is not hard to understand why. Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is mired in overlapping crises. Gasoline shortages and blackouts are a daily reality, while warring gangs routinely kidnap for ransom and wage battle on the streets.
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The grim situation only worsened when the president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home on 7 July, triggering a political power struggle and further instability and street violence. On 14 August, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the country’s poor southern peninsula, killing more than 2,200 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.
US envoy to Haiti resigns over ‘inhumane’ decision to deport migrants
The Biden administration’s decision to deport thousands of Haitians under such circumstances drew opprobrium around the world, and prompted the US envoy to Haiti to resign in protest. Haiti is “a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life”, he wrote in his resignation letter. “Surging migration to our borders will only grow as we add to Haiti’s unacceptable misery.”
Last week, the world was shocked by images of police officers on horseback charging at desperate Haitian migrants near a camp of 12,000, set up under the Del Río-Ciudad Acuña International Bridge. Delva was on his way to buy food and water for his family when the cavalry charge sent him and dozens of his compatriots running in a frenzy.
“We were rounded up like cattle and shackled like criminals,” he said, having spent the six-hour flight from San Antonio with his hands and legs tied.
“They treated us like animals,” added Maria, his wife.. “We’ll never forget how that felt.”
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David K.Shipler American Author PHOTO: Twitter
David Shipler does a great job of exposing the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of Mayorkas and other Biden Administration immigration officials.
America’s Callous Border
By David K. Shipler
Several years ago, a gray-haired passport control official at Heathrow Airport in London, noting “writer” under “occupation” on my landing card, asked me what I wrote. I was finishing a book on civil liberties, I told him, with a chapter on immigration. That caught his interest. He leaned forward, glanced around, lowered his voice and said, “I loathe borders.”
Funny line of work you’re in, I said. We shared a chuckle, he stamped my passport, and I crossed the border that he loathed.
We have nation states, and so we have borders. Dictatorships need them to keep people in, lest their countries be drained of the talented and the aspiring. Democracies need them to keep people out—often those with talent and aspiration who are fleeing to safety and opportunity. So far, the United States is lucky enough to be the latter. So far.
When desperate fathers and mothers are drawn with admiring naïveté to the beacon of America, when they carry their children through months of torment by mountain jungles and predatory gangs, when their courage and towering fortitude set them apart from the masses, shouldn’t they be embraced when they reach the final border of a nation of fellow immigrants that touts its compassion and humanity?
Cut through the crazy tangle of immigration laws, regulations, and inconsistent enforcement to the essential ethic, and the answer is an obvious yes. But the obvious is not obvious in the White House or in the Department of Homeland Security or in the ranks of the beleaguered Border Patrol, whose horsemen scramble, as if herding cattle, to intercept frantic Haitians wading from the Rio Grande onto the banks of freedom and promise.
Instead, a new torment is found: Haitians with enough grit to leave their country a decade or so ago and build lives on the margins in Brazil, Chile, and elsewhere are taken from their first steps onto U.S. soil and summarily—summarily, without due process—deported. And where to? To Haiti, a failed state where many have long since lost family or work or even places of shelter. To Haiti, which has collapsed into such violence and disarray that the State Department warns Americans on its website: “Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and COVID-19.”
What is wrong with the air in the White House? Is there not enough oxygen? What accounts for the impaired thinking that seems to transcend administrations, from Republican to Democratic. Where is the regard for human dignity? Why is it so often absent in the calculations that create policy?
Donald Trump wore callousness on his sleeve and was proud of it. His base hooted its applause at his vilification of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. By contrast, Joe Biden wears a badge of empathy. His mantra is compassion. “Horrible” and “outrageous” were the words he found to describe the photographed attacks on Haitians from horseback. He halted the use of horses and vowed that agents responsible “will pay.” He also said, “It’s simply not who we are.”
But it is who we are. The images have been compared to old photos of white overseers on horseback commanding enslaved Blacks in the fields. The Border Patrol in cowboy hats have been compared to Texas Rangers “who were celebrated for their excellent ‘tracking skills’ that were put to use to hunt and capture enslaved people,” said historian Monica Martinez of the University of Texas.
These are compelling analogies with painful resonance. They are also flawed as parallels, for the Black migrants at the border are not slaves. They are clamoring to be here, crossing illegally, seeing the border as a threshold. They were not brought here in chains against their will. Some are being removed in chains against their will.
Nevertheless, in a sense they are enslaved by their blackness. If white Canadians tried this up north, does anybody truly believe that they would be treated as the Black Haitians are? Animating America’s conscience should not require reaching back to the sin of slavery. The present ought to be enough.
Our borders always put our split personality on display: We are cruel and welcoming, hateful and helpful, defined by doors closed at times to entire ethnic groups and then opened to invigorate the nation with willing hands and vital contributions.
In fact, if the country is not sufficiently moved by simple morality, then it might consider self-interest. The U.S. population growth rate has been falling steadily since 2008, dropping to a mere 0.58 percent from 2020 to 2021. Many regions lack skilled workers, as homeowners and small business owners and even hospitals can testify from trying to hire carpenters, plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanics, and nurses. We should have winced when one Haitian deportee was quoted as describing himself as a welder and carpenter.
Using abuse to manipulate determined people did not work under Trump—a lesson that Biden and his advisers might have learned. Trump’s administration separated children from their parents at the border, his aides reasoning that families heading north would get the message and—what?–abandon their fortitude and survival instincts, turn around, and head back to life-threatening misery?
So, too Biden officials are reportedly figuring that tossing Haitian expatriates into Haiti’s maelstrom will dissuade others from coming. In other words, don’t be humane, and folks will give up. But they won’t give up. They will still roll the dice, because there’s always a chance, especially since some are being allowed to stay, at least for a while, pending proper examination of their asylum claims as the law requires. When your ship has sunk, you don’t stop clinging to a piece of flotsam just because some shipmates have slipped off into the sea.
What the Biden White House needs is somebody in an influential position who has made this journey, who has shepherded family and children through jungles and ganglands to reach this supposedly promised land. That official might bring to the Oval Office a glimmer of understanding and respect for the force of personality and perseverance that drive a person toward our callous border.
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Something about the DHS Secretary job seem to require checking honesty, common sense, historical perspective, and humanity at the door, not to mention the true “rule of law.”
“Adel Ghanem, a former lawful permanent resident of the United States, seeks to avoid removal to Yemen, from which he fled to avoid persecution on account of political opinion. He pursues three forms of relief that were denied by the Immigration Judge (IJ) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA): asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a), withholding of removal under the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3), and withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture, 8 U.S.C. § 1252, 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c). Ghanem was kidnapped and tortured before being convicted and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for political opposition to the Houthi regime. We will therefore grant the petition for review and remand to the BIA. … We begin by reviewing the agency’s determination that Ghanem was ineligible for asylum under the INA because he was not persecuted “on account of” political opinion. We perceive two errors in its analysis: First, the Board’s conclusion ignores overwhelming evidence that Ghanem was persecuted on account of political opinion. Second, it erroneously treated familial relationships as disqualifying and failed to give the proper weight to the substantial record evidence that a protected ground remains one central reason for Ghanem’s persecution. … Illustrating “gross, flagrant [and] mass violations of human rights” that he would be unable to escape, the record evidence not only fails to support but directly contradicts the BIA’s conclusions that Ghanem is not likely to be tortured with the government’s acquiescence, if returned to Yemen. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(c)(3)(iii).8 The denial of relief under CAT therefore cannot withstand even our most deferential review. … For the foregoing reasons, we will grant Ghanem’s petition, vacate the BIA’s order, and remand to the agency for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
How is the BIA’s grotesque misapplication of asylum and CAT law and intentional distortion of the record evidence acceptable adjudication from a Federal Court, even a “quasi-judicial administrative tribunal?” Lives are at stake are here! But, Garland remains indifferent to the deadly ☠️ daily injustices and stunning judicial incompetence and bias he promotes, coddles, defends, and enables at his dysfunctional EOIR!
And what is his OIL doing defending this garbage before the Circuits? Garland’s DOJ is an ethical cesspool and a slimy mess of legal incompetence! Where’s the long overdue “thorough housecleaning” of this gross abuse of taxpayer dollars and walking talking insult to the Canons of Legal and Judicial Ethics!
These aren’t just “honest legal mistakes!” No way! They are the product of an anti-asylum, anti-immigrant, anti-due process, anti-people of color “culture” which was actually encouraged and promoted at EOIR during the Trump regime and still endures!
It starts, but doesn’t end, with aBIA “packed” with a number of Trump/Miller appointees who were nationally renowned for their unsuitability to fairly adjudicate ANY asylum case, let alone to be “elevated” to the highest immigration tribunal. But, it’s not like any BIA Appellate Judge has the guts and integrity to stand up and speak out for immigrants’ rights, human rights, and constitutional due process!
It’s outrageous that the BIA as currently comprised is charged with setting precedents, maintaining consistency, and guaranteeing fairness for asylum applicants, particularly women and people of color. Of course this type of misconduct and incompetence will continue to generate huge, uncontrolled backlogs! THIS national, even international, disgusting disgrace will be Garland’s lasting legacy!
The proposed “asylum reform regulations” and all other immigration and racial justice reforms put forth by Biden will fail without a better, progressive, expert BIA totally committed to due process, fundamental fairness, and racial justice! Why hasn’t Congress demanded an accounting from Garland for his jaw-dropping mismanagement of the Immigration Courts and his failure to make obvious administrative reforms?
Demand better from Garland and the Biden Administration! This disgraceful, dysfunctional, deadly mess at EOIR is NOT OK!🤮👎🏽
Democrats’ push to give young undocumented Dreamers a path to citizenship violates Senate rules, according to the Senate’s parliamentarian, who dealt yet another blow on Sunday to long-stalled immigration reform efforts in Congress.
. . . .
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Predictable! It’s pretty simple. Long overdue and badly needed positive immigration reform, including Dreamer relief, is dead until enough GOP nativists are removed from Congress to save our democracy!
Heather Cox Richardson Historian Professor, Boston CollegeFrances Perkins (1880-1965) U.S. Secretary of Labor (1933-45) PHOTO: Public realm
From “Letters From An American:”
September 5, 2021
By Heather Cox Richardson
On March 25, 1911, Frances Perkins was visiting with a friend who lived near Washington Square in New York City when they heard fire engines and people screaming. They rushed out to the street to see what the trouble was. A fire had broken out in a garment factory on the upper floors of a building on Washington Square, and the blaze ripped through the lint in the air. The only way out was down the elevator, which had been abandoned at the base of its shaft, or through an exit to the roof. But the factory owner had locked the roof exit that day because, he later testified, he was worried some of his workers might steal some of the blouses they were making.
“The people had just begun to jump when we got there,” Perkins later recalled. “They had been holding until that time, standing in the windowsills, being crowded by others behind them, the fire pressing closer and closer, the smoke closer and closer. Finally the men were trying to get out this thing that the firemen carry with them, a net to catch people if they do jump, the[y] were trying to get that out and they couldn’t wait any longer. They began to jump. The… weight of the bodies was so great, at the speed at which they were traveling that they broke through the net. Every one of them was killed, everybody who jumped was killed. It was a horrifying spectacle.”
By the time the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was out, 147 young people were dead, either from their fall from the factory windows or from smoke inhalation.
Perkins had few illusions about industrial America: she had worked in a settlement house in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood in Chicago and was the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for workers. But even she was shocked by the scene she witnessed on March 25.
By the next day, New Yorkers were gathering to talk about what had happened on their watch. “I can’t begin to tell you how disturbed the people were everywhere,” Perkins said. “It was as though we had all done something wrong. It shouldn’t have been. We were sorry…. We didn’t want it that way. We hadn’t intended to have 147 girls and boys killed in a factory. It was a terrible thing for the people of the City of New York and the State of New York to face.”
The Democratic majority leader in the New York legislature, Al Smith—who would a few years later go on to four terms as New York governor and become the Democratic presidential nominee in 1928—went to visit the families of the dead to express his sympathy and his grief. “It was a human, decent, natural thing to do,” Perkins said, “and it was a sight he never forgot. It burned it into his mind. He also got to the morgue, I remember, at just the time when the survivors were being allowed to sort out the dead and see who was theirs and who could be recognized. He went along with a number of others to the morgue to support and help, you know, the old father or the sorrowing sister, do her terrible picking out.”
“This was the kind of shock that we all had,” Perkins remembered.
The next Sunday, concerned New Yorkers met at the Metropolitan Opera House with the conviction that “something must be done. We’ve got to turn this into some kind of victory, some kind of constructive action….” One man contributed $25,000 to fund citizens’ action to “make sure that this kind of thing can never happen again.”
The gathering appointed a committee, which asked the legislature to create a bipartisan commission to figure out how to improve fire safety in factories. For four years, Frances Perkins was their chief investigator.
She later explained that although their mission was to stop factory fires, “we went on and kept expanding the function of the commission ’till it came to be the report on sanitary conditions and to provide for their removal and to report all kinds of unsafe conditions and then to report all kinds of human conditions that were unfavorable to the employees, including long hours, including low wages, including the labor of children, including the overwork of women, including homework put out by the factories to be taken home by the women. It included almost everything you could think of that had been in agitation for years. We were authorized to investigate and report and recommend action on all these subjects.”
And they did. Al Smith was the speaker of the house when they published their report, and soon would become governor. Much of what the commission recommended became law.
Perkins later mused that perhaps the new legislation to protect workers had in some way paid the debt society owed to the young people, dead at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. “The extent to which this legislation in New York marked a change in American political attitudes and policies toward social responsibility can scarcely be overrated,” she said. “It was, I am convinced, a turning point.”
But she was not done. In 1919, over the fervent objections of men, Governor Smith appointed Perkins to the New York State Industrial Commission to help weed out the corruption that was weakening the new laws. She continued to be one of his closest advisers on labor issues. In 1929, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt replaced Smith as New York governor, he appointed Perkins to oversee the state’s labor department as the Depression worsened. When President Herbert Hoover claimed that unemployment was ending, Perkins made national news when she repeatedly called him out with figures proving the opposite and said his “misleading statements” were “cruel and irresponsible.” She began to work with leaders from other states to figure out how to protect workers and promote employment by working together.
In 1933, after the people had rejected Hoover’s plan to let the Depression burn itself out, President-elect Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve as Secretary of Labor in his administration. She accepted only on the condition that he back her goals: unemployment insurance; health insurance; old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; and abolition of child labor. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”
She promised to find out.
Once in office, Perkins was a driving force behind the administration’s massive investment in public works projects to get people back to work. She urged the government to spend $3.3 billion on schools, roads, housing, and post offices. Those projects employed more than a million people in 1934.
In 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act, providing ordinary Americans with unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services.
In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage and maximum hours. It banned child labor.
Frances Perkins, and all those who worked with her, transformed the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire into the heart of our nation’s basic social safety net.
“There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,” Perkins said. “It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”
Aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911) ILGWU Archives Public Realm
Get more from HCR at the above link!
Perkins is one of the most important and under-recognized heroes of modern American history. Perkins believed that Government was there to promote the public good.
But, it wasn’t just a hollow slogan like those spouted by many of today’s politicos. She actually “walked the walk,” using her powerful intellect, energy, talent, advocacy skills, persistence, and influence with FDR to make America a much better place.
Just think of it: “unemployment insurance; health insurance; old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; and abolition of child labor.” An amazing list of accomplishments for which she has received far, far too little credit from historians. Today, most Americans probably think of Perkins, if at all, as the “first female Cabinet Secretary.” But she was more than that. Much more!
Perkins also used her position as Labor Secretary (prior to WW II the cabinet officer with responsibility for immigration) creatively in an attempt to save Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Although she won a major legal battle on the positive use of “charge bonds” to assist refugees, the actual effects of her humanitarian efforts appear to have been unfortunately limited.
In the xenophobic, anti-Semitic, isolationist America of the 1930s, she also became a target of the far right for her strong commitment to human rights. In 1939, Congressional xenophobes initiated an unsuccessful impeachment attempt.
In 1940, FDR transferred responsibility for immigration from the Labor Department to the Department of Justice. That spelled not only the end of Perkins’s efforts to help Jewish refugees, but also was a death sentence for many who might have been saved.
The DOJ threw up a powerful combination of restrictive requirements and bureaucracy to guarantee the death of more European Jews in the Holocaust. Indeed, the DOJ went one better by putting Japanese-American U.S. citizens in concentration camps based on “national security” claims that have since been shown to be both bogus and racially motivated. Sound familiar?
You can read all about this disgraceful chapter in American history and Perkins’s largely fruitless attempts to “swim against the tide” here, in this article by Rebecca Brenner Graham in Contingent Magazine: https://contingentmagazine.org/2019/08/23/no-refuge/.
Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham Teacher, Author, Historian PHOTO: Rebeccabrennergraham.com
I really enjoyed Rebecca’s very lively, accessible historical writing that brings to life one of the ugliest episodes in modern American history, now largely swept under the carpet by today’s nativist revisionists. It’s also covered in the a Holocaust museum, an exhibit that contains much of the same bogus “America is full” xenophobic rhetoric spouted by too many of today’s GOP nativists.
This really horrible response by Western democracies to lives in peril was what gave rise to the Geneva Refugee Convention, the basis for the Refugee Act of 1980 and our current refugee and asylum system! How quickly we forget! The Trump Administration, with help from the Supremes, basically abrogated the legal system for refugees and asylees, without legislation. Despite promises to restore the rule of law, the Biden Administration has basically allowed most of Trump’s illegal and immoral policies to continue damaging humanity and diminishing us as a nation.
What would Frances Perkins have done? Certainly more than Garland and Mayorkas! At any rate, I enjoyed Rebecca’s historical writing and look forward to more!
A few years ago, Cathy and I had the pleasure of touring the Perkins Family Homestead, near Damariscotta, Maine, now owned by the Frances Perkins Center, with our dear, now departed Boothbay Harbor neighbor Sue Bazinet. It certainly opened my eyes to what true progressive values, lived and acted upon, were and still are!
Frances Perkins Homestead Damariscotta, ME PHOTO: Francis Perkins Center
We could use more leaders like Perkins today! Many thanks to the always-fabulous HCR for highlighting this great American!
SCOTUSblog: The Supreme Court on Tuesday night rejected the Biden administration’s plea for a reprieve from a district-court order requiring it to reinstate a Trump-era program known as the “remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they wait for a hearing in U.S. immigration court. The court was divided on the decision to deny relief, with the court’s three liberal justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – indicating that they would have granted the government’s request and put the district court’s order on hold. See also The Supreme Court’s stunning, radical immigration decision, explained; Biden administration will continue challenging ‘Remain in Mexico’.
Politico: U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials. See also In evacuation mission’s 11th hour, hope dims for Afghans seeking escape.
AP: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must test detainees for COVID-19 before they are transferred to the immigrant detention center in Tacoma, a federal judge ordered Monday.
The Intercept: ATLAS helps DHS investigate immigrants’ personal relationships and backgrounds, examining biometric information like fingerprints and, in certain circumstances, considering an immigrant’s race, ethnicity, and national origin. It draws information from a variety of unknown sources, plus two that have been criticized as being poorly managed: the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, also known as the terrorist watchlist, and the National Crime Information Center. Powered by servers at tech giant Amazon, the system in 2019 alone conducted 16.5 million screenings and flagged more than 120,000 cases of potential fraud or threats to national security and public safety.
AP: Five months after the Biden administration declared an emergency and raced to set up shelters to house a record number of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone, kids continue to languish at the sites, while more keep coming, child welfare advocates say.
NYT: a new camp sprang up about 55 miles farther west, in the Mexican city of Reynosa, and this one, aid workers say, is far worse than the one at Matamoros ever was. Overcrowded already, with more than 2,000 people, it is filthy and foul-smelling, lacking the health and sanitation infrastructure that nonprofit groups had spent months installing at Matamoros. Assaults and kidnappings for ransom are commonplace.
NYT: . Through July, Border Patrol officials found 383 dead migrants, the highest toll in nearly a decade, and one already far surpassing the 253 recovered in the previous fiscal year.
Law360: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis demanded the Biden administration provide personal information on undocumented migrants being relocated to Florida, including names, addresses and the number of people who tested positive for COVID-19 or refused the coronavirus vaccine.
Law360: A federal watchdog on Wednesday called on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to improve its employment eligibility verification system, finding shortcomings that kept the agency from accurately confirming workers’ identities and work authorization in at least 800,000 instances.
AILA: The Supreme Court denied the application for a stay and thus preventing the Biden administration’s effort to halt the reminstatement of “Remain in Mexico.” (Biden, et al. v. Texas, et al., 8/24/21)
AILA: The court extended the district court stay on the preliminary injunction on the Biden immigration enforcement memos indefinitely. (Texas, et al., v. USA, et al., 8/27/21)
Law360: A Nepalese asylum-seeker has another shot at avoiding deportation after the Second Circuit ruled Friday that an immigration judge had prematurely declared his story of Maoist intimidation and violence not credible without giving him a chance to address minor discrepancies.
Law360: The Second Circuit rejected an immigrant’s arguments Wednesday that after being beaten by members of a rival political party for his affiliation with a Sikh party, he could not escape the threat of more violence by moving within India, affirming a Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision to deny asylum and deport the man.
Law360: A panel of Fifth Circuit judges vacated a Pakistani man’s deportation order issued after he was convicted for synthetic marijuana possession, finding that the Board of Immigration Appeals failed to fully consider whether his state law conviction is equivalent to federal drug law.
AILA: Where the petitioner alleged that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sessions v. Dimaya made his removal unlawful, the court held that the BIA did not err by construing his motion as a motion to reconsider nor by denying it as time barred. (Gonzalez Hernandez v. Garland, 8/13/21)
AILA: The court granted the petition for review of the BIA’s denial of the petitioners’ motion to reopen, finding the BIA abused its discretion by departing from established policy when it failed to apply the Matter of Sanchez Sosa factors. (Gonzales Quecheluno v. Garland, 8/12/21)
AILA: Where BIA had reversed the IJ’s findings that petitioner would more likely than not be tortured in Somalia, the court found that BIA applied the correct legal standard to the Convention Against Torture (CAT) claim and did not engage in impermissible fact finding. (Mohamed v. Garland, 8/13/21)
Law360: The Eighth Circuit refused to stop an Ethiopian refugee’s deportation, ruling Friday that a portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act allowing the deportation of certain migrants who face persecution upon return is ambiguous, but not unconstitutionally vague.
Law360: The Ninth Circuit Wednesday revived a Cameroonian rape survivor’s asylum bid, ruling that the immigration judge cherry-picked discrepancies in the woman’s testimony to justify deporting her and “displayed a dubious understanding of how rape survivors ought to act.”
AILA: The court upheld BIA’s determination that petitioner was ineligible for cancellation of removal under INA §240A(b)(1)(C) due to his conviction for an offense described in INA §212(a)(2), even though he had been previously admitted into the United States. (Sanchez-Ruano v. Garland, 8/11/21)
AILA: The court held that the IJ failed to put the petitioner on notice that his alleged false claim of U.S. citizenship would be at issue during his hearing, and that such failure violated due process by denying him a full and fair hearing. (Flores-Rodriguez v. Garland, 8/16/21)
AILA: The court found it lacked jurisdiction to review petitioner’s challenge to his expedited removal proceedings, concluding that the Supreme Court’s decision in DHS v. Thuraissigiam abrogated any colorable constitutional claim exception to INA §242(a)(2)(A). (Guerrier v. Garland, 8/16/21)
AILA: The court held that an Interpol Red Notice, among other evidence, created a serious reason to believe that the petitioner had committed a serious nonpolitical crime before entering the United States, and that he was ineligible for withholding of removal. (Villalobos Sura v. Garland, 8/17/21)
AILA: The court held that the record did not compel the conclusion that the petitioner suffered hardship in India that rose to the level of past persecution, where he did not experience significant physical harm and his harm was an isolated event, among other factors. (Sharma v. Garland, 8/17/21)
AILA: Granting in part the petition for review, the court held that vehicle theft under California Vehicle Code §10851(a) is indivisible in its treatment of accessories after the fact, and thus is not an aggravated felony theft offense under INA §101(a)(43)(G). (Lopez-Marroquin v. Garland, 8/18/21)
AILA: The court denied the petition for review, holding that because petitioner was convicted of a violation of 18 USC §1546(a) and his sentence was greater than one year, his conviction expressly fell under the definition of aggravated felony in INA §101(a)(43)(P). (Germain v. Att’y Gen., 8/18/21)
Law360: A split Eleventh Circuit panel refused Tuesday to grant asylum to a member of a Sri Lankan ethnic minority or to block his deportation, ruling he hasn’t proven past persecution or credible fear of future persecution.
Law360: A Texas federal judge has blocked an executive order from the state’s governor banning the transportation of certain migrants in the state, holding it violates the supremacy clause of the Constitution by authorizing state officials to make federal immigration determinations.
Law360: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must test immigrants for COVID-19 before transferring them to a Washington state detention center, after a federal judge blamed the agency for 240 detainees and facility staff contracting the virus over the past three months.
Law360: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has told a California federal judge that it could not produce an administrative record related to its practice of turning back asylum-seekers at the southern border because no such policy existed.
AILA: USCIS provided information regarding a proposed class settlement in A.O., et al. v. Jaddou, et al. No. 19-cv-6151 (N.D. Cal.) regarding juvenile court orders in the California Juvenile Court with subsequent filed Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) petitions after the age of 18 years old.
AILA: DHS released a memo with guidance on immigration processing for certain Afghan nationals, stating that they will be paroled into the U.S. on a case-by-case basis for a two-year period and may be eligible to apply for status through USCIS.
AILA: EOIR launched its FOIA Public Access Link (PAL), which will allow users to submit requests, check the status of requests, download records, browse the FOIA reading room, and correspond with the EOIR FOIA Service Center. The PAL also allows users to pay required fees online.
AILA: ICE issued interim guidance to all OPLA attorneys to guide them in appropriately executing interim civil immigration enforcement and removal priorities and exercising prosecutorial discretion. Note, on 8/19/21, OPLA suspended reliance on this guidance due to litigation.
Thanks, Elizabeth! It’s interesting and satisfying that several Circuits, including the 2d and the 9th, are openly rejecting EOIR’s practice of “nit-picking” asylum applicants’ testimony in an attempt to deny meritorious applications. It’s all part of the “culture of denial” that continues to flourish at EOIR’s deportation assembly line under Garland.
Sadly, the Circuits haven’t yet had the guts to face the larger problem here — the EOIR system, as currently staffed with too many “Trump plants” as judges and a continuing lack of expertise and anti-asylum, anti-immigrant bias is clearly unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment!
Indeed, some Circuit panels take judicial review seriously, others function as rubber stamps, and most individuals wronged in Immigration Court lack the lawyers and wherewithal to take their case to the Circuits. This means that inconsistent results and lack of consistently applied expertise at all levels of the Federal legal system just add to the inconsistencies and unfairness heaped on migrants in violation of the Due Process Clause. To date, no Circuit has been willing to act on the glaring constitutional defects at EOIR staring them in the face.
Unhappily, Congress also has failed to act on long-overdue legislation to create an independent, Article I Immigration Court. In the interim, it would be possible to ameliorate, if not entirely eliminate, these constitutional problems by replacing marginally qualified IJs and BIA judges with well-qualified progressive experts and then giving them independence to issue precedents and make necessary procedural and structural changes to restore some semblence of Due Process, quality control, fair procedures, and efficiency to this disgracefully dysfunctional, unnecessarily backlogged system. The private bar could be constructively involved in creating universal representation and sane docket management. Indeed experts recommended these very changes to Garland, only to be ignored in favor of the “same old, same old” incredible mess and gross indifference to both the rule of law and human life at EOIR!
Not surprisingly, a recently issued report from the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) highlighted lack of “shareholder engagement” — something specifically discouraged by the Trump kakistocracy — as an endemic and continuing problem at EOIR. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-104404
Shareholder engagement means having a meaningful dialogue with those practicing before the courts, and honestly considering their input in advance of promulgating new policies. So called “Town Halls” to announce unilaterally developed bureaucratic policies are the antithesis of this meaningful process. It’s no mystery why EOIR continues to founder and stumble under Garland.
Trumpy nativists, posing as fiscal conservatives, want you to question whether the United States can afford to take in Afghan allies and refugees.
The better question is whether we can afford not to.
The Republican Party has cleaved in recent weeks over the issue of Afghan refugees, specifically those who served as military interpreters or otherwise aided U.S. efforts. On the one hand, Republican governors and lawmakers around the country have volunteered to resettle Afghan evacuees in their states. Likewise, a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that bringing these allies to the United States is phenomenally popular, garnering support from 76 percent of Republican respondents. Influential conservative constituencies are invested in this issue, too, including veterans’ groups and faith leaders.
On the other hand, the Trump strain within the GOP has been fighting such magnanimous impulses with misinformation.
Xenophobic politicians and media personalities have been conspiracy-theorizing about the dangers of resettling Afghan allies here — even though we had previously entrusted these same Afghans with the lives of U.S. troops and granted them security clearances. And even though they go through additional extensive screening before being brought to our shores.
No matter; if you listen to Tucker Carlson and his ilk, you’ll hear that these Afghans are apparently part of a secret plot to replace White Americans, and that untamed Afghan hordes are going to rape your wife and daughter.
Often these demagogues try to disguise their racist objections to refugee resettlement (and immigration more broadly) as economic concerns. Their claim: that however heartbreaking the footage from the Kabul airport, compassion for Afghan refugees is a luxury Americans simply cannot afford.
Refugees are somehow responsible for existing housing shortages, proclaims Carlson. (This is demonstrably false; the reason we have too little affordable housing is primarily because people like Carlson oppose building more and denser housing.) More refugees would sponge up precious taxpayer dollars, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). And in general, refugees — like all immigrants — are a massive drain on the U.S. economy, alleges Stephen Miller.
This is nonsense.
. . . .
***********************
Read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the link!
Thanks, Catherine, for once again standing up to and speaking truth against disgraceful, neo-Nazi, nativist racists like Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene!
By contrast, one might well ask what “value added” folks like Stephen Miller and his buddies, (Miller has largely sponged off of taxpayer funds while looking for ways to inflict misery on others and destroy America) bring to the table. None, that I can see!
Moreover, even beyond the undoubted value of robust refugee admissions, there is good reason to believe that large-scale migration presents our best opportunity for salvation and prosperity, rather than the “bogus threat” posited by Miller & Co.
As Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman recently, and quite cogently, wrote in American Prospect:
. . . .
A “Statue of Liberty Plan” for the 21st century could make the United States the world’s most welcoming country for immigrants. Right now, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population lags behind that of Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. In order to surpass them, the United States would have to admit millions more people each year for a decade or longer. We currently admit immigrants to promote family integration, meet economic needs, respond to humanitarian crises, and increase the diversity of our population from historically underrepresented countries. Under this plan, we could dramatically expand admissions in all four categories and add a fifth category to recognize the claims of climate migrants. As a civic project of national renewal, with millions of people playing a role in welcoming new immigrants, such a policy could reweave frayed social bonds and create a healthier, outward-looking, multiracial national identity.
The politics of immigration, however, lag far behind the moral and economic logic of the case for a pro-immigration policy. The immigrant threat narrative has become so pervasive that many liberals have embraced it, if only because they hope to fend off threats from right-wing nationalists. President Obama not only deprioritized immigration reform in his first term but deported record numbers of immigrants, hoping that such a display of “toughness” might win support for legalization of the undocumented immigrants already here. Hillary Clinton advocated liberal immigration policies in her 2016 presidential campaign but later tacked toward restrictionism. Liberals and leftists across the global North, from Austria to France to the U.K., have offered similar concessions to nativism. But mimicking right-wing appeals is a losing gamble that only serves to legitimize the anti-immigrant agenda and its standard-bearers.
There are promising signs of potential for shifting the debate, however, if progressives lean in. Polling shows that Americans increasingly reject the immigrant threat narrative, largely due to Trump’s shameless cruelty. Last year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1965, more Americans supported increased levels of immigration than supported reduced levels. A telling barometer of how the sands are shifting is that President Biden’s proposed immigration bill is far to the left of what Obama proposed.
The work of shifting gears toward a more welcoming policy can begin right now by fully welcoming immigrants who already reside in our country. A crucial starting point would be to include a path to citizenship for essential workers, Dreamers, farmworkers, and Temporary Protected Status holders in the American Jobs Plan Congress is considering. This is not only a humane approach, but it also will stimulate economic growth and thus help finance other parts of the plan. A separate campaign by the Biden administration (not requiring congressional action) to simplify the naturalization process for nine million eligible green-card holders would help make the nation’s electorate more reflective of its population.
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
If slavery and genocide were the country’s original sins, its occasional and often accidental genius has been to renew itself through periodic waves of immigration. Once we expose the immigration threat narrative as the Big Lie that it is, it becomes plain that immigration is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity and necessity to be embraced.
This, of course, also casts doubt on the wisdom of our current, wasteful and ultimately ineffective, policy of illegally rejecting legal asylum applicants at our Southern Border, rather than attempting in good faith to fit as many as qualify under our current system, as properly and honestly administered (something that hasn’t happened in the past). Additionally wise leaders would be looking for ways to expand our legal immigration system to admit, temporarily or permanently, those whose presence would be mutually beneficial, even if they aren’t “refugees” within existing legal definitions. In this respect, the proposal to modernize our laws to admit climate migrants is compelling.
Remember, as stated above:
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
NDPA members, keep listening to Catherine and the other voices of progressive wisdom, humanity, practicality, and tolerance. The key to the future is insuring that the “Stephen Millers of the world” never again get a chance to implement their vile, racist propaganda in the guise of “government policy.”
Happily, many Northern Virginians have listened to our “better angels.” Humanitarian aid and resettlement opportunities for Afghan refugees are pouring in, as shown by this report from our good friend Julie Carey @ NBC 4 news:
Julie Carey NOVA Bureau Chief, NBC4 Washington PHOTO: Twitter
The local couple interviewed by Julie emphasized the impressive “human dignity” of the Afghan refugees! (I also observed this during many years of hearing asylum cases in person at the Arlington Immigration Court.) Compare that with the lack thereof (not to mention absence of empathy and kindness) shown by the nativist naysayers!
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Biden administration must comply with a lower court’s ruling to reinstate President Donald Trump’s policy that required many asylum seekers to wait outside the United States for their cases to be decided.
The administration had asked the court to put on hold a federal judge’s order that the “Remain in Mexico” policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) had to be immediately reimplemented. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled earlier this month that the Biden administration did not provide an adequate reason for getting rid of the policy and that its procedures regarding asylum seekers who enter the country were unlawful.
Over the objections of the three liberal justices, the court’s conservative majority agreed that the administration had not done enough to justify changing the policy.
The administration “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” the court said in a short, unsigned order. In such emergency matters, the court often does not elaborate on its reasoning.
It said Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would have granted the administration’s request. The three also gave no reason.
The action could be an ominous sign for the new administration. The court is considering a request that it dissolve the pandemic-related evictions moratorium implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about which the court’s most conservative justices have already expressed skepticism.
The court often showed deference to the Trump administration in such emergency matters, including when the MPP was first implemented.
. . . .
*************
Read Robert’s full article at the link.
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Supremes’ GOP majority makes it clear that it considers asylum seekers of color as something less than human, whose rights and lives simply don’t matter! They are expendable, according to elite ivory tower righty jurists who don’t even give asylees lives a thought and condemn them without rationale. Not their kids, not anyone they can relate to. EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Not too surprising, given the Roberts Court’s fairly consistent disregard for human rights, the rule of law, the Due Process Clause of the Constitution, and ill-concealed contempt for racial justice and people of color! They had already gone “belly up” on MPP after it was properly blocked by lower Federal Courts during the Trump regime.
It’s going to be a long four years for American democracy, human rights, and individuals of color if the Dems can’t get it together, eliminate the filibuster, and enact some legislation while they are still in control of all three branches. But, it’s the Dems, so don’t count on much besides some hand-wringing and feckless rhetoric.
And to be fair, the Biden Administration’s continuedlawless use of Title 42 to suspend the rule of law for many at the border compliments both the Trump regime’s xenophobic policies and the Supremes’ dissing of people of color. Dred Scott is still alive and kicking in 21st Century America, even as our nation grows more diverse.
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
08-24-21
ADDENDUM:
As recently posted by Dean Kevin Johnson on ImmigrationProf Blog:
“Thousands of people have suffered the horrible consequences of the Migrant Protection Protocols. The Supreme Court has now upheld the Texas court’s decision and, instead of keeping MPP a stain in the history books, it will continue to be a present-day disaster.
“Forcing vulnerable families and children to wait in provisional camps in Mexico puts their lives at risk, while also making it nearly impossible for them to access the asylum process. The Biden administration can and must work to terminate the policy again immediately. Rather than turning away people fleeing harm, we should ensure people have a fair day in court.”
Inside the Gulag — PHOTO: Creative Commons In the fine tradition of Josef Stalin, like US Presidents before him, President Biden finds it useful to have a “due process free zone” to stash people of color and other “undesirables” whose “crime” is to demand due process under law! How subversive!
The Supreme Court has decided a number of immigrant detention cases in recent years. Next Term brings another case. Alyssa Aquino for Law360 reports that the Court agreed today to review a Ninth Circuit decision that required bond hearings for immigrants who have been detained for more than six months with final removal orders. A split ruled that the Immigration and Nationality Act requires the federal government to hold bond hearings for detained migrants, and that the government bears the burden of proving that detainees are a flight risk or public safety threat.
Notice any difference between the Biden-Harris campaign rhetoric and actual performance once elected?
Never know when a “due process free zone” where individuals not charged with crimes can be detained forever without individualized bond determinations will be a handy hammer to have in your toolbox!
And, don’t forget those huge profits being raked in by the private detention industry, so beloved by DHS and politicos who receive contributions and can tout the “job creation” in the Gulag! Also, states and localities who rent out substandard prison space on questionable contracts love the Gulag!
Significantly, none of the lower court decisions the Biden Administration seeks to overturn requires the release of anyone! Nope! All the lower courts have done is to give the “civil prisoners” a right to plead their cases for release and to require the Government to provide an individualized rationale for continued indefinite detention! Sure sounds like simple due process to me!
Maybe, if Garland, Mayorkas, and the Supremes had a chance to spend a few “overnights in the Gulag” they would take the Fifth Amendment’s application to people of color in our nation and pleading for their lives at our borders more seriously!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever! The “New American Gulag,” Never!
Here’s the link to 1) sign Neela’s petition; 2) watch her very impressive video; and 3) donate (only if you choose, of course, not required to do 1 & 2):
Neela is the daughter of my friend, Northern Virginia Immigration Lawyer Yousef Nesari, whose firm appears in the Arlington Immigration Court on a regular basis.
I’ve helped lawyers with some cancellation cases since retirement. The unnecessary delays, inconsistent decisions, and human toll caused by failure to do better is simply appalling. An obvious example is the Government’s dilatory actions and litigation that took the “stop time” rule unsuccessfully to the Supremes twice, rather than just dong things fairly, correctly, and according the law in the first instance. Talk about “low hanging fruit” among the ways the Biden Administration and Congress could “declutter the Immigraton Courts” while making America a better place by allowing more immigrants to reach their full potential!
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Beneath the disingenuous legal blather of the 5th Circuit’s tone-deaf judges, this is the sentence that they are pronouncing on the world’s most vulnerable, without any due process or concern for human dignity. EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)
Here’s the decision denying the Administration’s request for stay in Texas v. Biden:
Although this was only a stay application, the tone of the decision left little doubt about the court’s Trumpist ideology and intention to block rational humanitarian human rights initiatives by the Administration. Not surprisingly, the 3-judge panel was all GOP appointees — two Trump, one Bush II
I wouldn’t expect any help from the Supremes. So, we’ll see whether right wing Federal Judges and GOP AGs can conduct a war on human rights and communities of color by taking over the immigration enforcement apparatus and re-instating Trump’s racist policies.
The Administration is not entirely blameless here. The extreme problems with MPP, including how it caused needless deaths, torture, kidnapping, extortion, rape, and other grotesque mistreatment for those returned, were well-documented going into the 2020 election. Indeed, Biden and Harris campaigned on a promise to reverse them!
Yet, not having a viable plan for restoring the legal asylum system and dealing humanely with new border arrivals “ready for prime time” by inauguration, and still not really having one, is problematic. Although some have “touted” the just-released asylum NPR as the “solution,” that system is not, by any stretch of the imagination, “ready for prime time” either, given the disastrous operational, personnel, “cultural, and “quality control” issues at both the Asylum Offices and EOIR, which could and should have been addressed before now and which could actually become worse if the NPR goes into effect without major internal and leadership changes at these dysfunctional agencies.
Moreover, it appears that DOJ Attorneys did a substandard job of documenting the many problems, adverse effects, and operational issues with MPP and the injustices and abuses it inflicted upon legal asylum seekers.
As opposed to the rather contrived interests of the states in furthering oppression, endorsed by the Fifth Circuit, the human interests of those seeking asylum under what was supposed to be a fair and functional legal system have fallen off the radar screen. The law still says that any individual arriving at the border, regardless of status, has a right to apply for asylum. That right, as well as the humanity of refugees and the legal and moral obligations of our nation, has been entirely abrogated by the Fifth Circuit.
In a well-functioning democracy, Congress could reform the law, bring the righty judges back under control, and restore Constitutional protections and human and civil rights, But, that would probably take a party different from today’s Dems. And, of course, with the support of the Supremes, the GOP is working furiously to suppress minority votes and insure GOP minority rule stretches long into the future.
Honorable Joan Churchill Retired U.S. Immigration Judge Member Round Table of Retired JudgesHonorable Mimi Tsankov U.S. Immigration Judge President, National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)
In an interview with ABC News, Mr. Biden himself for the first time hinted at flexibility on the deadline, “if there are American citizens left.” That won’t be enough: This country’s moral responsibilities begin, but do not end, with U.S. citizens. On Tuesday, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) received and forwarded to Secretary of State Antony Blinken an appeal from the National Association of Women Judges on behalf of 250 Afghan women judges, trained by Americans and other Western countries, some of whom sentenced Taliban fighters to prison for murder or other crimes. These criminals have just been released by the Taliban. The judges have thus joined the ranks of the fearful. This country must make time for all of them.
NAWJ is the U.S. Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges, an organization which NAWJ founded, developed and helped grow. NAWJ joins the IAWJ in expressing our grave fears for the basic human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan as the Taliban advance and take control of large parts of the country. In particular, the women judges have disclosed that because they have followed their country’s laws, conducted trials, and administered sentences to the guilty, many of whom are members of the Taliban, they will soon be targeted for assassination. The AWJA judges have served in criminal, anti-corruption and narcotics courts, developed in conjunction with the United States over many years. Through their efforts, they have implemented rule of law and anti-corruption principles which are central to the mission statements of NAWJ and IAWJ.
At a virtual meeting of the AWJA last month, at which a number of NAWJ members were present, the Afghan judges spoke about the dangerous and difficult conditions in which they live and work. Some judges have lost their lives in terrorist attacks and several of the judges present had received death threats. Some have already been forced to flee their posts in the provinces with their families because it was too dangerous to remain. Their fears are not theoretical. In January, two women judges traveling to their jobs at the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, were murdered in the street. Now, the prisons housing convicted terrorists have been opened, and sentenced prisoners are contacting their judges threatening reprisals and revenge.
As a chapter of the IAWJ, an organization comprised of over 6500 women judges from more than 100 countries and territories worldwide, NAWJ wants to draw particular attention to the situation of Afghan women judges, given the special role they have played in upholding the rule of law and human rights for all, and the particular dangers they face as a result. We honor their commitment and their courage. Today, some 250 women serve as judges there.
Today, it is reported that the Afghan government has collapsed. The President of Afghanistan has fled the country. The United States Department of State is currently prioritizing visas for employees of the United States, including interpreters, as the United States reaches its date for final withdrawal from Afghanistan. NAWJ urges the Department of State to include the Afghan women judges and their families, who are in such a desperate and precarious position, in facilitating travel and processing visas in the same manner that special measures are being extended to interpreters, journalists and other personnel who provided essential service to the foreign military forces in Afghanistan. NAWJ urges our government to consider the fate of the women judges. By serving as judges and helping develop the Afghan judicial branch, women judges have helped establish the rule of law in their country, an essential pillar of a democratic state. Allowing them to be at the mercy of the Taliban and insurgent groups, given what they have sacrificed and contributed working side by side with the United States would be tragic indeed.
Hon. Karen Donohue
President, NAWJ
*******************
Thanks to my friends and long-time colleagues Judge Churchill and Judge Tsankov for standing up and speaking out. I understand from them that Senior DC Court of Appeals Judge Vanessa Ruiz (also a past President of the NAWJ) was also instrumental in this effort.
Honorable Vanessa Ruiz Senior Judge, DC Court of Appeals PHOTO: Wikipedia
Also, many thanks to Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) for sending this to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory or shown much moral or intellectual courage in standing up for the rights and lives of refugees and energizing the bureaucracy to save lives.
Compare this with the conspicuous lack of moral, intellectual, and legal leadership and effective action from the Biden USDOJ on refugee and asylum issues.
Sadly, as many of us tried, in vain, to tell the incoming Biden Administration, failure to make immediate, bold, progressive, humanitarian, due process reforms at EOIR and to take a strong, courageous stand against the continuing misuse of bogus legal rationales to suspend refugee and asylum processing (and ignore our legal and moral obligations to refugees and other migrants) at the border will likely cripple the US response to arising human rights catastrophes and cost more innocent human lives.
Human rights and immigrant justice are not “back burner” issues! Nor are they “rocket science!” Delay costs lives and undermines democracy and our international leadership.
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Lack of expertise and moral courage has consequences!
USAToday: Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, directed the Biden administration to reinstate the program, saying the administration “failed to consider several critical factors” when ending the program. Kacsmaryk delayed his order for seven days to give the administration a chance to appeal.
Reuters: Mayorkas, speaking at a news conference in south Texas, did not provide details about which asylum seekers would be eligible to use the online system, but said further asylum changes would be announced in the coming days.
WaPo: The number of migrants detained along the Mexico border crossed a new threshold last month, exceeding 200,000 for the first time in 21 years, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement data released Thursday.
NYT: By this week, at least 1,000 migrants were housed at the teeming camp, erected by the nearby city of McAllen as an emergency measure to contain the spread of the virus beyond the southwestern border. About 1,000 others are quarantined elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley, some of them in hotel rooms paid for by a private charity.
Politico: Thousands of lawsuits on every aspect of immigration policy are pending from the Trump years — from challenges to the government’s moves to block asylum for specific individuals to roughly 100 lawsuits filed by the government to gain access to or seize land near the southern border for Trump’s border wall.
Newsweek: [S]ix months in, Biden’s administration and his Democrat-led Congress are spending millions more taxpayer dollars to expand detention and surveillance of immigrants. A private prison company is profiting from both.
WaPo: Last week, the Biden administration began the expulsion flights from the United States to the southern Mexican city of Villahermosa in a bid to deter repeat border crossers. Mexico agreed to accept those flights and said it would allow those who feared persecution in their home countries to apply for asylum. But the migrants — mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — who have arrived in the remote Guatemalan border town of El Ceibo describe a chaotic series of expulsions, first from the United States in planes and then from Villahermosa to Guatemala by bus. They say they were not given an opportunity to seek refuge in Mexico.
CNN: The agency’s new policy, issued Wednesday, marks the latest effort by the Biden administration to pivot from the Trump administration and tailor enforcement priorities. Going forward, ICE will require agents and officers to help undocumented victims seek justice and facilitate access to immigration benefits, according to the agency.
WSJ: The situation complicates what has already been a yearslong wait for many of the 1.2 million immigrants—most of them Indians working in the tech sector—who have been waiting in line to become permanent residents in the U.S. and are watching a prime opportunity to win a green card slip away.
CBS: The death toll from a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Haiti soared to at least 1,297 Sunday as rescuers raced to find survivors amid the rubble ahead of a potential deluge from an approaching tropical storm. Saturday’s earthquake also left at least 2,800 people injured in the Caribbean nation, with thousands more displaced from their destroyed or damaged homes.
TheCity: Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, speaking publicly for the first time as New York’s governor-to-be, insisted Wednesday she’s “evolved” since fighting against driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants by threatening them with possible arrest and deportation.
AILA: The BIA dismissed the appeal after concluding that the respondent’s prior receipt of special rule cancellation of removal under the NACARA bars her from applying for cancellation of removal. Matter of Hernandez-Romero, 28 I&N Dec. 374 (BIA 2021)
Law360: The Third Circuit signed off Monday on an order from the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office barring law enforcement agencies from sharing certain information with federal immigration authorities, ruling in a precedential opinion that two federal statutes do not bar the directive since they regulate states and not private actors.
AILA: The court upheld the BIA’s denial of asylum to the Salvadoran petitioner, finding that his proposed particular social groups of “former members of MS-13” and “former members of MS-13 who leave for moral reasons” were overbroad and lacked social distinction. (Nolasco v. Garland, 8/2/21)
AILA: The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the BIA’s finding that the petitioner had not presented prima facie evidence of her eligibility for cancellation of removal pursuant to INA §242(a)(2)(B)(i). (Parada-Orellana v. Garland, 8/6/21)
AILA: The court held that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying the petitioner’s motion to reopen, where the evidence showed that the poor conditions facing homosexuals and Christians in Somalia have remained substantially similar since the time of her hearing. (Yusuf v. Garland, 8/9/21)
AILA: The court held that the BIA did not err in finding that the petitioner’s proposed particular social group (PSG) of “Mexican mothers who refuse to work for the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación” was not sufficiently particularized or socially distinct. (Rosales-Reyes v. Garland, 8/4/21)
AILA: The court found that because petitioner had failed to rebut the presumption set out in the Attorney General’s decision in In re Y-L-, the BIA did not err in not considering her mental health as a factor in the particularly serious crime (PSC) analysis. (Gilbertson v. Garland, 8/2/21)
Law360: The Board of Immigration Appeals was wrong to deny administrative closure to a Mexican woman and her daughters while they had a U visa petition pending, an Eighth Circuit panel ruled, faulting the board’s reliance on now-vacated precedent.
AILA: Granting the petition for review, the court held that, because petitioner was not an applicant for admission, the BIA impermissibly applied the “clearly and beyond doubt” burden of proof in finding him inadmissible and therefore ineligible for adjustment of status. (Romero v. Garland, 8/2/21)
AILA: The court remanded for the BIA to consider in the first instance whether the petitioner was eligible for withholding of removal on account of his membership in the particular social group of “people erroneously believed to be gang members.” (Vasquez-Rodriguez v. Garland, 8/5/21)
AILA: The court held that Hawaii’s fourth degree theft statute, a petty misdemeanor involving property of less than $250, is overbroad with respect to the BIA’s definition of a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) and is indivisible, and granted the petition for review. (Maie v. Garland, 8/2/21)
Law360: The Ninth Circuit denied a Mexican man’s appeal of his deportation order Wednesday, saying the Board of Immigration Appeals was correct in ruling that his past conviction for marijuana possession made him ineligible for cancellation of removal.
AILA: The court held that the petitioner’s conviction in Florida under Fla. Stat. §790.23(1)(a) for being a felon in possession of a firearm did not constitute a “firearm offense” within the meaning of INA §237(a)(2)(C) and its cross-reference to 18 USC §921(a)(3). (Simpson v. Att’y Gen., 8/4/21)
Law360: A Texas federal judge on Friday extended for an additional 14 days an emergency order temporarily blocking Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order restricting ground transportation of migrants detained at the border amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Law360: An American who has waited years for his Pakistani wife to have her green card application processed is suing the federal government, blaming their visa limbo on what they call an illegal national security vetting program.
AILA: ICE released ICE Directive 11005.3, Using a Victim-Centered Approach with Noncitizen Crime Victims, with guidance on how it will handle civil immigration enforcement actions involving noncitizen crime victims.
AILA: USCIS SAVE issued guidance regarding Afghans who are eligible for Special Immigrant Visas and their special immigrant LPR status or special immigrant parole that meets the special immigrant requirement for certain government benefits.
AILA: USCIS stated that 8/12/21 through 9/30/21, it will extend the validity period for Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record, from two years now to four years due to COVID-19-related delays in processing. Guidance is effective 8/12/21, and comments are due by 9/13/21.
AILA: Executive order issued 8/9/21, imposing sanctions on those determined to have contributed to the suppression of democracy and human rights in Belarus, including suspending the unrestricted immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of such persons. (86 FR 43905, 8/11/21)
AILA: On 8/5/21, President Biden issued a memo directing DHS to defer for 18 months the removal of Hong Kong residents present in the United States on 8/5/21, with certain exceptions. (86 FR 43587, 8/10/21)
The article by Anita Kumar in Politico should be an “eye opener” for those progressive advocates who think Garland is committed to due process, equal justice, and best practices in Immigration Court and elsewhere in the still dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy. This particular quote stands out:
“The Department of Justice really was a center of gravity for some of the most…hideous anti- immigrant policies that came out of the Trump administration and really was in some ways ground zero for the anti-immigrant agenda of Donald Trump,” said Sergio Gonzales, who worked on the Biden transition and serves as executive director of the Immigration Hub. “And this is why it’s so critical that DOJ moves swiftly and aggressively to undo that agenda.”
I dare any advocate to claim Garland has moved “swiftly and aggressively” to undo the Miller White Nationalist agenda! Yes, after a crescendo of outrage and public pressure from NGOs, he has vacated four of the worst xenophobic and procedurally disastrous precedents. But, there are dozens more out there that should have been reversed by now.
More important, returning the law to its pre-Trump state is highly unlikely to bring meaningful change and fairer results as long as far too many of the Immigration Judges and BIA Judges charged with applying that law are Trump-era appointees, some with notorious records of anti-immigrant bias and a number who have denied almost every asylum case that came before them. (And, it’s not like A-R-C-G- was fairly and consistently applied during the Obama Administration, which largely gave “the big middle finger” to progressives in appointments to the Immigration Judiciary).
Is an IJ who was denying nearly 100% of A-R-C-G- cases (and in some cases misogynistically demeaning female refugees in the process) even prior to A-B- suddenly going to start granting legal protection? Not likely!
Are BIA Judges who got “elevated” under Trump by being notorious members of the “Almost 100% Denial Club” suddenly going to have a “group ephifany” and start properly and generously applying A-R-C-G- to female refugees and insisting that trial judges do the same? No way!
Is a BIA where notorious asylum deniers are heavily over-represented and others have shown a pronounced tendency to “go along to get along” with Miller-type xenophobic White Nationalist policies now going to do a “complete 360” and start churning out “positive precedents” requiring IJs to fairly and generously grant asylum as contemplated in long-forgotten (yet still correct) precedents like Cardoza-Fonseca, Mogharrabi, and Kasinga? Not gonna happen!
Will a few rumored, long delayed progressive expert appointments to the Immigration Judiciary “turn the tide” ofsystemic dysfunction, intellectual dishonesty, anti-immigrant, anti-asylum “culture,” lack of expertise, and dereliction of due process and fundamental fairness at EOIR? Of course not!
So, progressives, don’t kid yourselves that Garland has “seen the light” and is on your side. Judge him by his actions and appointments!
Note, that unlike Sessions and Barr, it’s actually hard to judge Garland on his rhetoric, because there isn’t much. He’s five months into running a nationwide system of dysfunctional “star chambers.”
But, to date, he hasn’t uttered a single inspiring pronouncement on returning due process, fundamental fairness, human dignity, decisional excellence, or professionalism to EOIR, connecting the dots between immigrant justice and racial justice, or given any warning that those who don’t “get the message” will be getting different jobs or heading out the door.
I still remember my first personal encounter with AG Janet Reno when she exhorted everyone at the BIA to promote “equal justice for all!” I still think of it, and it’s still “on my daily agenda” — over a quarter century later, even after the end of my EOIR career!
Where are Garland’s “inspiring words” or “statements of values” on immigrant justice and equal justice for all!Actions count, but rhetoric in support of those actions is also important. So far, Garland basically has “zeroed out” on both counts!
Yes, along with the entire immigration community, I cheered the appointment of Lucas Guttentag! But, Lucas isn’t deciding cases, nor has he to date brought the progressive experts to EOIR Management and repopulated the BIA with progressive expert judges who will end the due process abuses and grotesque injustices at EOIR and start holding IJs with anti-asylum, anti-migrant, anti-due-process agendas accountable.
Also unacceptably, progressive litigators haven’t been brought in to assume control of the Office of Immigration Litigation (“OIL”) and end wasteful, and often ethically questionable, defense of the indefensible in immigration cases in the Article IIIs.
We need bold, progressive, due process/fundamental fairness/racial justice reforms! It’s got to start with major progressive personnel changes! And, it should already have started at EOIR!
The best laws, regulations, precedents, and policies in the world will remain ineffective so long as far too many of those judges and senior executives charged with carrying them out lack demonstrated commitment to progressive values, not to mention relevant, practical expertise advancing human and civil rights!
Contrary to what many think, bureaucracy can be moved by those with the knowledge, guts, determination, and commitment to do it! Seven months after Biden’s inauguration, the DOJ remains a disaster with the situation at EOIR leading the way!
It didn’t have to be that way! It’s unacceptable! Foot dragging squanders opportunities, wastes resources, and, worst of all, actually costs lives and futures where immigration is at stake. This isn’t “ordinary civil litigation!” It’s past time for tone-deaf and inept Dem Administrations to stop treating it as such!
The following item from Angelika Albaladejo at Newsweek should also be a “clarion call” to advocates who might have thought this Administration (and even Congressional Dems) has a real interest in human rights reforms.
Here’s the essence:
President Joe Biden promised to end prolonged immigration detention and reinvest in alternatives that help immigrants navigate the legal process while living outside of government custody. These promises were part of Biden’s campaign platform and the reform bill he sent to Congress on his first day in the White House.
But six months in, Biden’s administration and his Democrat-led Congress are spending millions more taxpayer dollars to expand detention and surveillance of immigrants. A private prison company is profiting from both.
Meanwhile, community case management—which past pilot programs and international studies suggest is less expensive while more effective and humane—is receiving comparatively little support.
Same old same old! Election is over, immigration progressives who helped elect Dems are forgotten, and human rights becomes an afterthought —or, in this case, worse!
Progressives must continue to confront a largely intransigent and somewhat disingenuous Administration. A barrage of litigation that will tie up the DOJ until someone pays attention and, in a best case, forces change on a tone-deaf and recalcitrantAdministration, is a starting point.
But, it’s also going to take concerted political pressure from a group whose role in the Dem Party and massive contributions to stabilizing our democracy over the past four years is consistently disrespected and undervalued (until election time) by the “Dem political ruling class!”
Legislation to create an Article I Immigration Court and get Garland, his malfunctioning DOJ, and his infuriating “what me worry/care attitude” completely out of the picture has also become a legal and moral imperative, although still “a tough nut to crack” in practical/political terms. But, we have to give it our best shot!
Actions (including, most important, personnel changes) solve problems and save lives! Unfulfilled promises, campaign slogans, and fundraising pitches not so much!
Many who helped put Biden and Garland in office believed that “Americans Gulags” and “EOIR StarChambers” would be a thing of the past by now. But, outrageously, they are still alive, well, and thriving in the Biden Administration, even being expanded and defended by Garland’s team of morally and ethically challenged DOJ lawyers. “The Inspiring Words & Deeds of AG Merrick Garland on Immigrant Justice” would fill a book about as large as “The Combined Wisdom & Humanity of Donald Trump & Stephen Miller.” Oh well, at least the Grim Reaper must be happy with the way things are going! Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License
😎Due Process Forever! Star Chambers and the New American Gulag, Never!
Additionally, the status quo does not guarantee that no one will be present in the United States without permission. In fact, with the plenary power doctrine in place, there are approximately 10 million individuals living in the United States without permission. (And most of them crossed the border legally, entering the territory with legal authorization for some period that expired.) Despite this, the United States continues to exist. Noncitizens, however, are denied more independent adjudicators under the false idea that by denying them we somehow protect the nation’s sovereignty. These are complex lives interwoven with our communities, businesses, schools, and the lives of US citizens. The failure to provide fair process affects more than just the noncitizen; in fact, it degrades our democracy and affects us all.
Perhaps the sovereignty fear is shorthand for something else? Is it an objection to multiculturalism? The reflection of a desire to give the president power to thwart statutory immigration law? Or perhaps courts and policymakers have been invoking the phrase “plenary power” for so long that it has become an out of date, knee-jerk reaction.
Sovereignty and foreign policy will remain intact even with more independent immigration adjudication. The sovereignty fear is a distraction from what really needs our attention; we should not let it stop us from providing fair process.
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The threat to our democracy hardly comes from those seeking legal refuge to save their lives or to find meaningful work to support their families and contribute to society.A more robust and fair legal immigration system would assist in identifying the relatively small percentage of migrants who seek to do us harm.
No, the bigger threat comes from GOP neo-fascist insurrectionists and their spineless political enablers who actively seek to undermine our democracy with lies and White Nationalist racism.
In a more functional system, Professor Family and those like her who understand and are committed to the “big picture” of American democracy and equal justice for all would be the Appellate Immigration Judges and Article III Judges — jurists ready and willing to stand up to Executive abuses of authority! The Immigration Courts should be the “starting place” for restoring and reinforcing American democracy. Does the Biden Administration have the vision and guts to make it happen?
From “Letters From An American:”
