Tag: Executive Order

SURPRISE: NIELSEN SIGNED OFF ON FAMILY SEPARATION POLICY THAT SHE DENIED WAS DHS POLICY! — What Else Is She Hiding?

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Newly released memo reveals secretary of homeland security signed off on family separation policy

Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen previously denied existence of policy

Open the Government and the Project On Government Oversight have obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requestthat provides new insights into internal decision-making behind the separation of thousands of parents from their children at the border earlier this year.

The biggest revelation in the documents is a memo dated April 23, in which top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials urged criminal prosecution of parents crossing the border with children—the policy that led to the crisis that continues today. The memo, first reported on by the Washington Post on April 26, but never previously published, provides evidence that Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen signed off on a policy of family separation despite her repeated claims denying that there was such a policy. The Post appears to have obtained a copy of the memo prior to its signature.

The memo states that DHS could “permissibly direct the separation of parents or legal guardians and minors held in immigration detention so that the parent or legal guardian can be prosecuted.” It outlines three options for implementing “zero tolerance,” the policy of increased prosecution of immigration violations. Of these, it recommends “Option 3,” referring for prosecution all adults crossing the border without authorization, “including those presenting with a family unit,” as the “most effective.”

The last page of the memo contains a signature approving Option 3, but the signature—almost certainly Nielsen’s, given that the memo is addressed to her—was blacked out by FOIA officers on privacy grounds. FOIA officials also appear to have redacted the date of the signature indicating approval.

Open the Government and the Project On Government Oversight intend to appeal the redaction of the memo. The Secretary of Homeland Security is a high-level public official; using privacy exemptions to hide her role in major policy decisions is unacceptable.

Open the Government and the Project On Government Oversight did obtain an unsigned, unredacted copy of the same memo, but are unable to post the full document for reasons of source protection. The full memo recommends prosecuting and separating parents because:

…it is very difficult to complete immigration proceedings and remove adults who are present as part of FMUAs [family units] at the border. In fact, only 10 percent of non-Mexican FMUA apprehended during the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 surge have been repatriated in the nearly four years since their illegal crossing. Of these options, prosecuting all amenable adults will increase the consequences for illegally entering the United States by enforcing existing law, protect children being smuggled by adults through transnational criminal organizations, and have the greatest impact on current flows.

The memo references a pilot of the zero tolerance/family separation policies in the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector, which the Project On Government Oversight has previously investigated. The memo does not discuss any plan for reuniting separated families, or the harmful effects of separation on children, nor does it reflect any input from the government agencies who would be responsible for caring for the separated children.

The records released in response to the FOIA also include internal DHS directives sent in June and July following court orders to stop separating families, and internal emails discussing failed efforts to bring families back together. One troubling email explains that in July, DHS leadership instructed employees to deport families as quickly as possible, as a way of clearing out space for new families. The email raises questions on whether those deportations violated due-process protections.

At least 182 children remain separated from their parents months after a court-imposed deadline requiring the administration to reunite all of the separated families, according to a court filing dated September 20. The government has not taken all necessary measures to reunify families, according to immigration rights lawyers and non-profit groups.

Katherine Hawkins, an investigator at POGO, said of the DHS documents, “This is a small part of what must be an extensive paper trail on family separation, which needs to be made public so that the officials responsible can be held to account.”

“The newly disclosed documents provide a window into the internal policymaking behind the crisis that continues to haunt thousands of children,” said Lisa Rosenberg, Executive Director of Open the Government. “The administration needs to make available records that are still secret in order to fully understand why decisions were made to separate children from their families, and who made them.”

Read the newly released documents:

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
CBP response letter

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I’ve raised this point several times before. There is obviously a “paper trail” here, and some agency lawyers knew the truth about the policy that Nielsen was denying publicly and in court.

So, where is the “due diligence” from the DOJ lawyers representing Nielsen, Sessions, the DHS, and DOJ in court? Did the DHS attorneys who knew what the true policy was call the DOJ attorneys and tell them to retract their court denials? Did the DOJ lawyers check with their DHS/ICE colleagues before telling a court that a policy they conceded was unconstitutional wasn’t in effect?

Who is lying here and what has happened to the code of ethics (formerly?) applicable to Government lawyers? And why aren’t more Federal Judges “pushing back” on DOJ attorneys for their sometimes obviously untrue and other times thinly reasoned and meagerly supported positions in court?

While Trump is the undisputed “King of Liars,” Sessions and Nielsen also have well-established reputations for intentional lack of candor and twisting and misrepresenting facts, particularly on immigration policies. So why isn’t there some higher duty on Government lawyers to do “due diligence” when dealing with these known liars?

Thanks to the fabulous Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis for passing this item along.

PWS

09-26-18

 

Continue reading SURPRISE: NIELSEN SIGNED OFF ON FAMILY SEPARATION POLICY THAT SHE DENIED WAS DHS POLICY! — What Else Is She Hiding?

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HERE’S WHAT A RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION POLICY LOOKS LIKE, AS TRUMP ATTACKS LEGAL IMMIGRATION! — “[C]ultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.”

As usual, CNN’s Tal Kopan and her colleague Tami Luhby give us one of the best summaries of what’s happening:

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How Trump’s new definition of ‘public charge’ will affect immigrants

By Tami Luhby and Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration is seeking to give itself broad latitude to reject immigrants from the US if they have too little income and education, which could effectively impose a merit-based immigration system without an act of Congress.

The change is put forth in a proposed regulation, which would dramatically reshape how the government defines an immigrant likely to be dependent on the government.

President Donald Trump has long touted what he calls a merit-based system of immigration, backing a legislative proposal that would have heavily favored English-speaking, highly educated and high-earning immigrants over lower-skilled and lower-income applicants.

Quietly announced Saturday night, the proposed regulation could give the administration the authority to reshape the population of US immigrants in that direction without legislation.

The rule would mean many green card and visa applicants could be turned down if they have low incomes or little education because they’d be deemed more likely to need government assistance — such as Medicaid or food stamps — in the future.

The proposal applies to those looking to come to the US and those already here looking to extend their stay. And even if immigrants decide not to use public benefits they may be eligible for, the government could, under the proposed rule, still decide they are likely to do so “at any time in the future” and thus reject them from the US.

The administration says the proposed revamp of the so-called public charge rule is designed to ensure immigrants can support themselves financially.

“This proposed rule will implement a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Saturday.

But immigration advocates say it goes far beyond what Congress intended and will discriminate against those from poorer countries, keep families apart and prompt legal residents to forgo needed public aid, which could also impact their US citizen children.

They also say it will penalize even hard-working immigrants who only need a small bit of temporary assistance from the government.

“(The proposed rule) would radically reshape our legal immigration system, putting the wealthy at the front of the line, ahead of hardworking families who have waited years to reunite,” a coalition of more than 1,100 community advocacy groups wrote in a statement this week. “No longer would the US be a beacon for the world’s dreamers and strivers. Instead, America’s doors would be open only to the highest bidder.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/25/politics/immigration-public-benefits/index.html

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Meanwhile, editorials in the NY Times and the LA Times blasted the Administration’s latest anti-immigrant actions:

The NY Times says:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/editorials/immigrants-welfare-benefits-trump-administration.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20180925&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=2&nlid=79213886emc%3Dedit_ty_20180925&ref=headline&te=1

An Unhealthy Plan to Drive Out Immigrants

Denying green cards or visas to those on Medicaid or food stamps will only cost the United States more later.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

The Department of Homeland Security, headed by Kirstjen Nielsen, has proposed a new rule that would deny green cards or visas to immigrants here legally who have used public assistance.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The Trump administration has taken another step in its program to use fear and cruelty to drive out legal, as well as illegal, immigrants.

On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a rule that would enable it to deny green cards and visas to immigrants here legally who have used public health and nutrition assistance, including Medicaid and food stamps.

The United States already denies green cards and visas to applicants likely to become “public charges.” But that designation has generally referred only to a narrow set of people who need cash assistance or long-term institutionalization.

The new rules would also offer some exemptions — participation in the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program would be excluded, for example, as would refugees and asylum seekers and minors with Special Immigrant Juvenile status, meaning they had been abused or neglected.

But it’s not clear that those exemptions would provide sufficient protection. The Kaiser Family Foundation has indicated that fear of being denied residency would most likely cause immigrants to withdraw from both the targeted and the exempted programs. As Politico has reported, even when the current proposal was just a rumor, immigrants began withdrawing from these programs in droves. What’s more, not everyone who should be able to seek asylum or obtain special juvenile status is able to do so.

The Department of Human Services estimates that as many as 382,000 people would be affected by the new rule each year. There is no estimate yet on how many of them would be deemed to be public charges, but that number is likely to be far higher than under the current rules.

Which, of course, is the point. In an announcement on Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that she expected the rule to “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.”

That rationale is both callous and foolish: Scaring vulnerable populations off public assistance is likely to cost much more in the long run, in part because neglecting preventive health care and basic medical problems makes patients only more expensive to treat down the road. What’s more, Kaiser estimates that more than eight million children who are citizens but have at least one noncitizen parent will be caught in the cross hairs.

The Trump administration, however, is betting that a very public effort to crack down on immigrants, whether they’re here legally or not, will motivate its political base in time for the midterm elections. It’s just one more part of a package that has so far included an effort to detain indefinitely minors who have crossed the border and another to cap the number of refugees at its lowest level ever. It’s the border wall, without the wall.

There’s a real debate to be had over the criteria to decide who can stay in this country and who must go. What is the right way to manage family migration? Or evaluate asylum claims? Or weigh American labor needs against the skills of prospective visa holders? But cultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion).

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Here’s what the LA Times had to say:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=b270b5ea-1b78-4f77-86a2-3aa238bcde0b

The ‘public charge’ pretext
In an effort to make it more difficult for legal immigrants to live and work in the United States, the Trump administration proposed new rules over the weekend giving officials the right to withhold green cards from applicants who take advantage of a wide range of government programs to which they are legally entitled, including food and housing aid.
And for prospective immigrants who apply for visas from overseas, government officials would have broad power to reject people whom they believe might someday in the future tap government programs for financial support. That change, experts say, will reduce the overall flow of immigration and skew it toward people seeking to emigrate from more advanced countries.
These are unnecessarily strict and hard-hearted rules aimed at solving a problem that social scientists say doesn’t exist.
The government has for decades rejected visa requests and green card applications from people who are likely to become “public charges,” defined since 1999 as “ primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” That has usually been interpreted, reasonably, to mean people who rely on cash support or people who would require institutional care. Furthermore, the Clinton-era welfare reforms already put major aid programs out of reach for most legal immigrants until they’ve been here for five years; undocumented immigrants are barred from nearly all public support.
Now, however, the administration wants to consider a legal immigrant a “public charge” if he or she receives government benefits exceeding $1,821 (15% of the federal poverty guidelines) over 12 months. The net effect, advocates for immigrants argue, will be a self-purging of people living and working here legally from the rolls of Medicaid, food subsidies and housing support, among other programs.
The government estimates that the new regulations would negatively affect 382,000 people, but advocates say that is likely an undercount. And the rules would keep people from coming to the country who economists say are vital for the nation’s economic growth . President Trump’s xenophobic view of the world stands in sharp contradiction not only to American values, but to its history. We are a country of immigrants or their descendants, and as a maturing society we will rely more and more on immigration for growth. Research shows that even those who start out in low-wage jobs, and thus are likely to get some financial help from the government, often learn skills that move them into higher income brackets and help the overall economy .
These proposed regulations would force immigrants in low-paying jobs to reject help to which they are legally entitled — and which could speed them along the path to financial security — or to jeopardize their ability to remain here. That’s a cruel Solomon’s choice.

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The “Trump GOP” has clearly abandoned the pretense that they are only against illegal immigration. By attacking refugees and other legal immigrants they are making it clear that immigrants no longer are welcome in our “Nation of Immigrants.” Sounds pretty stupid, not to mention unrealistic. But, that’s the essence of “Trumpism.”

PWS

09-25-18

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ICE BRINGS MINDLESS CRUELTY TO THE HEARTLAND – Badger State Feels The Sting Of Trumpist Xenophobia!

https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/they-re-basically-destroying-our-family-madison-leaders-react-to/article_692096c3-556a-58b5-a2e5-9ac77f3f76d4.html

Abigail Becker reports from Madison, WI for The Capital Times:

Gissell Vera was on her way to school Friday morning, but turned around when she received a text message from her aunt informing her that someone had knocked “aggressively” at her door.

Vera, 18, is the strongest bilingual speaker in her family and her language skills were needed at home to get information from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who came to detain her uncle, Erick Gambao Chay.

“They’re basically destroying our family,” Vera said at a press conference Monday at Centro Hispano. “Why are they doing that? It’s just chaos.”

Gambao Chay, a father of three children under the age of 10, was one of approximately 11 individuals known to be detained by ICE agents in the Madison area starting Friday, according to Voces de la Frontera, an immigrants rights advocacy group based in Milwaukee.

Over the weekend, reports of co-workers, employees and family members surfaced on social media, heightening tension in the community.

“It may seem a small number, but these are the breadwinners from the families,” Dane County immigration affairs specialist Fabiola Hamdan said. “They are the ones that are (leaving) behind kids, moms, wives and the community … it’s a super hard day for us, not only Latinos but all immigrants.”

Kazbuag Vaj, the co-executive director of Freedom Inc., reminded those at the press conference that the issue of immigration does not only affect the Latino community. Vaj works with Hmong and Cambodian refugees who could also be vulnerable to ICE.

“As a community that’s already heavily policed because we live in low-income housing and we live right around this area … having ICE, an additional militarism, in this community adds additional stress to the families,” Vaj said. “We are in crisis also.”

‘They are not police’

Voces de la Frontera also reported that ICE agents arrested 15 people in Arcadia, three people in Milwaukee and five in Green Bay as of Monday morning. In some cases, including the arrest of Vera’s uncle, ICE agents are “falsely identified themselves as police,” they said.

Vera explained to a packed room of reporters, local and state officials, and dozens of community members that her family is used to working with local police officers.

“We live in a very unsafe neighborhood, so it’s normal for law enforcement to come and ask questions,” she said. “We always cooperate because we live in a really united community.”

The agents identified themselves with ICE and arrested Gambao Chay as his children clung to him. Gambao Chay’s three children and wife were previously hiding in the attic for fear of deportation.

“Once my uncle walked up to the door, they said, ‘We’re ICE police and you have to come with us because you haven’t been behaving well and you don’t have the right to be here,’” Vera said.

Mayor Paul Soglin said the tactic is a lie used by ICE to “create confusion and worsen an already bad situation.”

“We are going to continue to protest the use of police in regards to ICE’s activities,” Soglin said. “They are not police. They are federal agents who are using their authority to come into a local situation.”

Soglin said the city’s priority is to identify the individuals who have been detained and get them access to legal services. He also requested a meeting with mayors from across the nation and ICE officials to discuss the lack of communication with local agencies.

“We do not need you making your determination that someone who may have some traffic violations, someone who may only be undocumented or have some other minor offenses is someone who is of danger to our community,” Soglin said, directing his comments to the federal agency.

Madison Police Chief Mike Koval and Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney have reiterated their commitment to the Madison and Dane County community and not to enforcing immigration law.

Koval said Friday that he was not informed that ICE would be in the area even though the MPD has a standing agreement with the agency to be notified when agents will be in the community. Koval has reiterated that enforcement of immigration laws remains primarily with the federal government.

“To this end, MPD will not self-initiate contact, detain, arrest, or investigate any person(s) solely for a suspected violation of immigration status laws,” according to the department’s code of conduct.

MPD cooperates with ICE when the operation deals with “serious crimes directly relating to public safety” including the following situations as listed in the MPD’s standard operating procedure on the enforcement of immigration laws:

  • The individual is engaged in or is suspected of terrorism or espionage.
  • The individual is reasonably suspected of participating in a criminal street gang.
  • The individual is arrested for any violent felony.
  • The individual is a previously deported felon.

Mahoney has refused to cooperate with ICE and rejected requests by ICE to hold people for 48 hours after they post bail or serve their sentences so ICE officials can arrange to detain them.

“Raiding our community without notifying local law enforcement puts our community at risk,” Mahoney said.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan called ICE an “increasingly rogue agency” and has strayed from what said is the agency’s original purpose, which was to “protect domestically from terrorism.” Pocan said the agency would publish a list online of individuals who have been detained within the next two days.

“To not tell the sheriff you’re coming in and doing raids, to not tell the Madison police, to not talk to your federal representatives along the way, is exactly what’s wrong with the agency,” Pocan said.

Those who have been affected by ICE can call Hamdan, the Dane County’s immigration affairs specialist, at 608-242-6260.

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Meanwhile, up in Green Bay, things are no better:

https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2018/09/24/ice-making-arrests-green-bay-madison-milwaukee-immigration-rights-group-says/1414936002/

, report for the Green Bay Press-Gazette:

GREEN BAY – A father of eight children, and a man preparing for his children’s baptism, were among at least six people arrested in Green Bay this weekend in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation carried out in more than a dozen Wisconsin counties.

No one from ICE could say Monday who had been arrested, or what charges they might face.

“Yesterday, ICE knocked on my door and took my ex-husband and the dad of my kids,” Cruz Sedano said through a translator at a community meeting Monday.  “… we were all preparing for my (children’s) baptism.”

The ICE operation was unusual in that Green Bay authorities had no notice that an operation was planned. The agency in the past has alerted police when they’ve planned an operation, and sometimes asks for assistance, city Police Chief Andrew Smith said.

Police officials and a representative from the mayor’s office met with members of the Hispanic community Monday night at Peace United Methodist Church, which hosted a community meeting with the hope of answering questions and calming fears about the arrests.

RELATED: Protests around Wisconsin denounce separation of immigrant families

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RELATED: Immigrant communities fearful after hundreds arrested in ‘surge’

As children played outside the meeting, Smith and Celestine Jeffreys, chief of staff to Mayor Jim Schmitt, tried to reassure people that the city wants to protect community residents within the bounds of the law. But they also acknowledged that ICE has the authority to enforce federal immigration statutes.

“Unfortunately, this is the ugly balance that we have to strike as a municipality in between the community and the federal government,” Jeffreys said. “So we cannot inform the community that ICE is here … I know that’s an answer you don’t want to hear.”

‘Very afraid’

The arrests clearly sent ripples of fear through the Hispanic community, whose members worry a loved one or neighbor could be arrested and deported.

Maria Plascencia, director’s assistant at the Green Bay-area Hispanic resource center Casa ALBA Melanie, said her group fears “many more” arrests are possible.

“This community is very afraid to send their kids to school, because they do, it (might be) the last time they will see them,” Plascencia said.

She said her agency has fielded questions since Friday from community members who had family members arrested.

Smith said the arrests were part of an ICE operation in 14 counties. Milwaukee, Dane and Trempealeau counties also saw similar arrests by Immigration and Customs agents, the group Voces de la Frontera reported.

An ICE spokesman wouldn’t discuss details of the Green Bay arrests Monday afternoon, but said in a statement the agency focuses on people “who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

‘Targeted arrests’

“ICE officers are out in the community every day conducting targeted arrests,” the statement said. “ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy. While looking for those specific individuals, ICE officers sometimes encounter others who have violated U.S. immigration laws.

“However, as leadership has made clear, ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. All of those in violation of U.S. immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States.”

Police chief Smith said this ICE visit was different. “It’s been their standard operating procedure to let local law-enforcement know,” Smith said. “They did not call us this time.”

ICE will typically inform police about who the group is looking for, and inform the department about specific individuals if they are wanted for felony crimes, Smith said.

He said Green Bay police do not ask people they arrest about citizenship, saying that remains a federal issue and that the department’s priority remains keeping the city’s residents and visitors safe.

“I understand there’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot anxiety, there’s lot of apprehension,” he told the group. He reminded them that police are here to protect “anybody who’s been a victim of a crime … who’s being extorted (because they might be worried about their citizenship status) … or being used by their landlord or their bosses.”

At least two of the people arrested this weekend were in the U.S. as part of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, said the Rev. Ken DeGroot, co-founder of Casa ALBA.

DACA allows some people who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children to receive deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a U.S. work permit in the U.S.

‘Tearing apart families’

At Monday night’s meeting, Sedano told the audience about the arrest of her former husband, Antonio Juarez. She said ICE officers arrested Juarez, father of her two children, allowed other family members to remain inside the house.

“I do have to say that ICE behaved well with us,” she said in Spanish. “… they returned all of his belongings, and gave us phone numbers so that we could be in contact with them.”

DeGroot, though, said the arrests are bad for the community.

“They’re tearing apart families, they’re arresting good people. They’re causing tremendous suffering and trauma,” he said. “They are also depriving families of being supported.”

He said his group is advising people not to open their doors for people they don’t know. If someone says he or she is part of law enforcement, DeGroot said, the person should insist on seeing a warrant from a judge.

President Donald Trump has declared cracking down on illegal immigration to be one of his priorities. The crackdown, which includes discussion of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, has proven controversial, particularly among advocates for immigrants from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries.

‘Same fears, same dreams’

Witnesses in Green Bay said one man was convinced to come outside his house to answer questions about ownership of a car parked outside, and one of the men arrested is a father of eight.

Smith said the people who were arrested were taken to Dodge County. Dodge’s sheriff, Dale Schmidt, said the jail has a contract with the federal government to house prisoners and houses federal inmates daily.

Schmidt wouldn’t say if any prisoners were from this weekend’s ICE arrests.

Voces de la Frontera said 11 people had been arrested in the Madison area, three in Milwaukee and 15 in Trempealeau County, north of La Crosse. The group said arrests were made at workplaces, during traffic stops and in homes.

“Many of us are great people, hard-working, with the same fears and same dreams as anyone else,” said Plascencia, the Casa ALBA official.

In Madison, Mayor Paul Soglin planned to meet with law enforcement officials and community organizers to get a better idea of the number of people detained by ICE officials, the Associated Press reported.

Madison officials say ICE detained immigrants without prior communication with the police department. Police Chief Mike Koval says the department has an agreement with ICE to know when and where arrests are made.

Shelby LeDuc contributed to this story.

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Tearing families apart and spreading terror in American communities. Small wonder that the “Sanctuary Cities” movement is growing and that “Abolish ICE” is gaining steam.

Remember, I predicted early on that under the inhumane, senseless, and ultimately ineffective leadership of Trump, Sessions, Homan, and Nielsen, ICE would become the most despised law enforcement agency in America.  They are ahead of schedule.

PWS

09-25-18

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  2. THE GIBSON REPORT — 08-13-18 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Featuring Atlantic’s Franklin Foer & The Case For Ending The Current “ICEAge”
  3. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

DUE PROCESS MOCKED, COURT SYSTEM IN CHAOS! — NAIJ President A. Ashley Tabaddor Speaks Out Against Sessions’s Bias & Politicization Of U.S. Immigration Courts!

https://www.voanews.com/a/immigration-judges-say-new-quotas-undermine-independence/4582640.html

From VOA News:

Immigration Judges Say New Quotas Undermine Independence

WASHINGTON —

The nation’s immigration court judges are anxious and stressed by a quota system implemented by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that pushes them to close 700 cases per year as a way to get rid of an immense backlog, the head of the judges’ union said Friday.

It means judges would have an average of about 2½ hours to complete cases — an impossible ask for complicated asylum matters that can include hundreds of pages of documents and hours of testimony, Judge Ashley Tabaddor said.

“This is an unprecedented act, which compromises the integrity of the court and undermines the decisional independence of immigration judges,” she said in a speech at the National Press Club, in her capacity as head of the union. Tabaddor said the backlog of 750,000 cases was created in part by government bureaucracy and a neglected immigration court system.

“Now, the same backlog is being used as a political tool to advance the current law enforcement policies,” she said.

Signature issue

Curbing immigration is a signature issue for the Trump administration, and the jobs of the nation’s more than 300 immigration judges are in the spotlight.

They decide whether someone has a legal basis to remain in the country while the government tries to deport them, including those seeking asylum. Tabaddor presides in Los Angeles, where she oversees 2,000 cases, including many involving juveniles.

The judges are employees of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is overseen by the attorney general — unlike the criminal and civil justice systems where judges operate independently.

Immigration court judges have repeatedly asked for independence, and Tabaddor brought it up again Friday, calling the current structure a serious design flaw.

A Justice Department spokesman said the union has repeatedly tried to block common-sense reforms that would make the judges’ jobs better, and that the proper home for the courts is where they are right now, under DOJ.

FILE - The Arlington Immigration Court building in Arlington, Virginia. The courtrooms inside are plain, and cases are dispatched quickly, each one settled in five to 10 minutes. (A. Barros/VOA)
FILE – The Arlington Immigration Court building in Arlington, Virginia. The courtrooms inside are plain, and cases are dispatched quickly, each one settled in five to 10 minutes. (A. Barros/VOA)

Earlier this year, the Justice Department sent a memo to immigration judges telling them they would need to clear at least 700 cases a year in order to receive a “satisfactory” rating on their performance evaluations. Sessions has pushed for faster rulings and issued a directive that prevents judges from administratively closing cases in an effort to decrease the backlog by 50 percent by 2020.

This month, he appointed 44 new judges, the largest class of immigration judges in U.S. history, and has pledged to hire more. He said in a speech to the judges that he wouldn’t apologize for asking them to perform “at a high level, efficiently and effectively.”

Tabaddor wouldn’t say whether the quotas were also putting pressure on judges to deport more people — not just decide cases faster.

“There’s certainly no question they’re under pressure to complete more cases faster,” she said. “I think I would just say listen to the attorney general’s remarks and you can decide what messaging is going to be sent.”

Asylum qualifications

Earlier this summer, Sessions tightened the restrictions on the types of cases that can qualify someone for asylum, making it harder for Central Americans who say they’re fleeing the threat of gangs, drug smugglers or domestic violence to pass even the first hurdle for securing U.S. protection.

Immigration lawyers say that’s meant more asylum seekers failing interviews with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to establish credible fear of harm in their home countries. They also say that immigration judges are overwhelmingly signing off on those recommendations during appeals, effectively ending what could have been a yearslong asylum process almost before it’s begun.

President Donald Trump hasn’t been behind the move to bolster the roster of judges. “We shouldn’t be hiring judges by the thousands, as our ridiculous immigration laws demand, we should be changing our laws, building the Wall, hire Border Agents and Ice,” he said in a tweet in June, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Watch the C-Span replay here:

https://archive.org/details/CSPAN2_20180921_170200_Federal_Immigration_Judge_Discusses_Court_System

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We need an Article I independent US Immigration Court now!

Congress seems to be tied up in knots. Will the Article IIIs step up and begin enforcing the Due Process clause of the Constitution?

The solutions — remand every case for a new hearing  in which: 1) Jeff Sessions shall not be involved, and 2) all precedents issued by Jeff Sessions are considered null and void. Jeff Sessions shall, however, be allowed to appear and make arguments as the attorney for DHS.

The Immigration Court System is collapsing. The lives of hundreds of thousands are at risk. We need less talk and more action to enforce Due Process!

Some historical perspective: EOIR once illegally tried to bar Judge Tabaddor from hearing Iranian cases because she attended a reception with other prominent Iranian Americans!  Compare that the with the overt, unethical anti-immigrant bias that Jeff Sessions spews out on a regular basis. His bias affects justice for every respondent appearing in Immigration Court.

Is 21st Century America going to permit “political show trials” every day in Immigration Court?

PWS

09-24-18

Related posts:

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

HISTORY: THOSE OF US WHO CAME OF AGE IN THE 1960’S THOUGHT THAT OUR COUNTRY HAD LONG AGO MOVED BEYOND THE HATEFUL, DIVISIVE, RACIST MESSAGE OF GEORGE WALLACE — We Didn’t Anticipate The 21st Century GOP & Their White Nationalist Wallace Revival! — “Transcending racism is essential if our government is to break out of its current paralysis. If we do not succeed and Wallace’s legacy of dividing us by race continues to shape American political life, then perhaps he won after all.”

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-carter-stekler-wallace-racial-language-20180923-story.html

Dan Carter and Paul Stekler write in the LA Times:

George Wallace stoked the fire of racial division that Trump carried all the way to the White House
Then Alabama Gov. George Wallace, wearing suit at left, is shown on June 11, 1963, standing at the door of Foster Auditorium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., as he tries to block the admission of two black students to the then- all-white University of Alabama. (Calvin Hannah / Associated Press)

In late September 1968, presidential election polls showed that third-party candidate George Wallace’s campaign was surging. With the support of a quarter of white voters, Wallace was within single digits of the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Wallace’s dominance in Southern states threatened to prevent any candidate from securing an electoral college majority, throwing the November election into the House of Representatives.

His was an extraordinary rise. In his inaugural speech as Alabama governor just five years earlier, Wallace had promised “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” He then gained national attention by personally standing in a schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama to block the admission of two black students.

By 1968, he seldom used explicitly racist language, but instead demanded “law and order” and railed against “crime,” “drugs,” “welfare mothers,” “forced busing” and “big city thugs.” He created the racially encoded language that still haunt our politics.

So when President Trump whips up rallies with his thinly veiled racist attacks on brown-skinned immigrants, Muslims and unpatriotic blacks, it is not a new development. The racial divide has been a political tool for those willing to use it for 50 years. As former President Obama pointed out in his Sept. 7 speech, “It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years.”

In 1968, the white backlash to the Civil Rights movement and the ’60s urban riots drew voters to Wallace. But others took note — particularly Richard Nixon’s campaign advisor Kevin Phillips, who, in his book “The Emerging Republican Majority,” saw the potential of a major partisan realignment. Over the next six years, President Nixon adapted a more subtle version of the Wallace message, appealing to what he called “the silent majority.” In the years that followed, white voters in the once solidly Democratic South became the bedrock of the Republican Party.

The Republican Party’s Southern Strategy initially focused on shifting voters with a segregationist bent to the party, but it proved adaptable to other whites uneasy with the increasing role of minorities in American life and politics. These appeals resurfaced many times over the years, most memorably in the infamous Willie Horton ad during George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign, but also in the symbolism of Ronald Reagan’s decision to make his first 1980 campaign appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss. — where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. With the election of Obama and a growing awareness that whites will eventually be a minority in America, the ground for such appeals has stayed quite fertile.

When Trump descended from Trump Tower in 2015, he immediately set himself apart from the gaggle of GOP presidential contenders by replacing the coy racial language of his predecessors with an unfiltered bullhorn. He has railed against prominent black leaders and athletes, talked about brown-skinned immigrants as murderers and rapists, and insisted dark-skinned Muslims constitute such a threat that we need to ban travel from entire countries.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion »

Wallace’s bid for the presidency faltered in its final weeks, but a very small shift of voters in four states would have deadlocked the race. Wallace poured gasoline on the fire of racial division first, but Trump managed to carry that flame all the way into the White House. Who would have predicted that 50 years after the 1968 election, polls would show that more than half of Americans think their president is a racist?

Many factors have contributed to today’s tribalistic politics, but race remains the bedrock of that division. Transcending racism is essential if our government is to break out of its current paralysis. If we do not succeed and Wallace’s legacy of dividing us by race continues to shape American political life, then perhaps he won after all.

Historian Dan Carter, author of the George Wallace biography “The Politics of Rage,” and University of Texas filmmaker Paul Stekler collaborated on the PBS documentary “George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire.”

 

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

Folks like Trump, Sessions. Miller, Bannon, and the GOP enablers, are not “Making American Great Again.” No, they’re bringing back one of the darkest chapters in our post-WW II history: “Making America Racist Again.”

“Just Say No” to the Trump White Nationalists!

PWS

09-23-18

 

Related posts:

  1. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”
  2. CHARLES M. BLOW @ NYT: TIME TO START CALLING IT WHAT IT IS:  “It is time for us to simply call a thing a thing: White supremacy is the biggest racial problem this country faces, and has faced. It is almost always the cause of unrest around race. It has been used to slaughter and destroy, to oppress and imprison. It manifests in every segment of American life.”
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮👎🏻THE TRUMP REGIME & A CORRUPT SOLICITOR GENERAL HAVE CONDUCTED A WAR OF ATTRITION AGAINST AMERICAN LAWYERS ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE BATTLE TO SAVE DEMOCRACY — John Roberts & His GOP Buddies On The Supremes Have Aided, Abetted, & Encouraged It! — Constant Improper & Ethically Questionable Interference With Thoughtful, Legally Correct Lower Court Rulings Holding The Regime Accountable Have Demoralized The Profession’s Best & Bravest! — The Answer Is Better Judges For A Better America!
  4. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!

HOW UNELECTED WHITE NATIONALISTS HAVE SEIZED CONTROL OF AMERICA’S IMMIGRATOIN AND REFUGEE SYSTEM – Racist Restrictionists Stephen Miller and L. Francis Cissna Are Destroying America’s Immigration Laws & Stomping On The Heart & Soul Of Our Nation!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/stephen-miller-wins-again-haley-other-foes-excluded-immigration-meeting-n910776

 

Julia Edwards Ainsley and Dan DeLuce report for NBC News:

WASHINGTON — Days before the Trump administration announced plans to slash the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. to its lowest level in 40 years, Trump senior adviser and immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller made his case for fewer refugees to a room of senior officials at the White House.

His sales job was made easier by the absence of top officials who disagree with his stance. They weren’t there because they weren’t invited, according to two people briefed on the discussions. Missing from the room last Friday were U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mark Green, both of whom have promoted a more generous policy toward refugees fleeing poverty, famine and persecution, the two sources said.

The planned cut in the refugee cap, now just 30,000 for the coming fiscal year, is the latest win for Miller, who has outmaneuvered opponents in and outside the administration to push through a crackdown on all forms of immigration.

Miller’s victories on the Muslim travel ban, limiting legal immigrationand separating migrant families at the border show his skill in pulling bureaucratic levers, blocking opponents from key meetings, restricting the flow of information and inserting his allies in key positions, said current and former officials.

In the administration’s internal discussions, Defense Secretary James Mattis — who was also absent from the Friday meeting — and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had consistently opposed reducing the ceiling for how many refugees could be allowed into the country next fiscal year, former officials, humanitarian experts and congressional staffers from both parties told NBC News.

But after the meeting of top officials at the White House, Pompeo unveiled plans Monday to scale back the cap for refugees in 2019 to its lowest level since 1980. The secretary gave no explanation as to why he had changed his position, or how that number was arrived at during the closed door “principals” meeting.

Lawmakers from both parties, and some Christian charities, had urged Pompeo to stand firm against yet another reduction in refugee admissions, arguing it would undermine relations with allies, fuel instability in volatile regions and damage America’s image.

In a joint statement Wednesday, Republican Rep. Randy Hultgren of Illinois and Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts expressed “extreme disappointment at the administration’s proposal,” and added, “We cannot turn our back on the international community in a time of historic need.”

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Monday he was “very concerned to see Secretary Pompeo was either not willing or unable to be a voice of reason in the room when the president was told he should continue grinding the U.S refugee program to a halt.”

Former officials said it appeared the top diplomat bowed to Miller and others pressing for scaling back refugee resettlement.

Image: Mike Pompeo
CIA Director Mike Pompeo speaks in Washington on Oct. 19.Carolyn Kaster / AP

“Pompeo got rolled,” said one former official familiar with the deliberations who served under Republican and Democratic administrations. The secretary “got manhandled by a kid who knows nothing about foreign policy,” said the source, referring to the 33-year-old Miller.

The State Department did not respond directly to questions about why Pompeo apparently altered his stance. But a spokesperson said the recommendation, which still must be approved by the president, takes into account additional security vetting procedures for refugee applications as well as the need to manage nearly 300,000 asylum cases.

Over the past several months, former officials and humanitarian organizations say, Miller restricted who would take part in the deliberations, while ensuring like-minded associates were in key positions at the State Department.

Unlike last year’s deliberations on refugees, Haley and her office were excluded from the inter-agency discussions on the issue and did not attend last Friday’s meeting where the cap was set, even though her staff argued she should be included, current and former officials said.

Although Haley’s office was not invited into the discussions, the ambassador “provided our views during the process,” a spokesperson for the U.S. mission at the UN told NBC News.

Haley had previously opposed drastic reductions in refugee resettlement numbers.

Paving the way for Miller, an official at the National Security Council, Jennifer Arangio, a political appointee who worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign, was fired and escorted from her office in July after clashing with Miller over refugee-related issues. And two refugee skeptics aligned with Miller are now in senior positions at the State Department: Andrew Veprek at the Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration and John Zadrozny at the policy planning office.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

The State Department declined to disclose which agencies or officials attended the final interagency discussions, but a spokesperson said the plan was arrived at “in consultation with all appropriate government agencies.”

It was not clear if the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services and provides cash payments and medical assistance to newly arrived refugees, was invited to the inter-agency process. A spokesperson said ORR took part in “the discussion” on the issue but did not say specifically if the office had a seat at the table in the inter-agency deliberations.

The White House meeting last Friday was classified and limited to only a small number of senior officials and cabinet members. Those restrictions are usually reserved for more sensitive issues involving military action or intelligence, former officials said. The limits played in Miller’s favor, as cabinet members and their deputies could not divulge details of the discussion.

Mattis did not attend the meeting in person and provided his opinion in writing, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said. She added that “as the information and discussion were classified, I cannot provide further comment.”

Based on the administration’s public statements on the issue, Miller also appeared to succeed in framing the refugee issue on his terms.

Image: Jeff Sessions Joins Sean Spicer For Daily Press Briefing At The White House
Senior adviser to President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, watches as Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks during the daily White House press briefing in Washington on March 27, 2017.Win McNamee / Getty Images file

When Pompeo announced the plan to reporters at the State Department this week, he echoed arguments that Miller and his supporters have often employed to defend drastic restrictions on refugees. Pompeo said that the government lacked the manpower to handle more refugees, that the U.S. was focused on providing aid abroad where refugees are located and that refugee numbers needed to be limited to safeguard the country’s national security.

“He was using Miller’s talking points,” another former official who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations said.

With the world facing the worst refugee crisis since World War II, the recommendation to slash refugee numbers was widely condemned by humanitarian organizations and rights groups. Pompeo’s announcement is “appalling, and it continues this administration’s rapid flight from the proud U.S. tradition of providing refuge to those fleeing persecution around the world,” said Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International, who oversaw refugee policy at the State Department.

Those who share Miller’s views on immigration say he is portrayed unfairly by his critics. They maintain he is merely a successful advocate for Trump, who promised as a candidate to clamp down on immigration and temporarily halt Muslims from entering the country.

“As I understand it, Miller is zealously promoting his boss’s agenda within the administration, and running up against people who are less committed to that agenda,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which has backed the administration’s stance on immigration.

“He seems to be pretty effective at navigating bureaucratic politics, which is an essential skill if you want to get anything done.”

In a tumultuous White House, Miller is one of a handful of original Trump loyalists who has survived and thrived, exerting an outsize influence over immigration decisions and rhetoric.

One administration official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said it should not be surprising that so many of Miller’s ideas have come to fruition.

“Miller has survived and people who think like Miller have survived because the president agrees with these policies. He is not running a rogue operation,” the official told NBC News.

Miller was once part of a small group of outsiders working as staffers on Capitol Hill who backed an aggressive line on immigration but often found themselves out of favor with the Republican Party establishment.

Many of those former colleagues are now deployed throughout the administration and have helped design and carry out some of Miller’s most sweeping and contentious policies, including a ban on travel from certain countries, a higher bar for proving asylum, a reduction in refugee admissions and the separation of migrant parents from their children at the border.

Miller and his allies have even promoted the creation of a denaturalization task force, which is supposed to ferret out people who lied on their applications and to strip them of their citizenship.

Critics say Miller is overseeing a systematic attack on all forms of immigration, illegal and legal, by promoting an underlying idea that foreign-born citizens or immigrants represent a dangerous threat to the country.

“I think he’s going to go down in history having a lot of blood on his hands. He is driving the most nativist agenda we have seen in 100 years,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigration reform advocacy group in Washington. “But he has had mixed results.”

Some of those mixed results include the legal blowback on the travel ban, which went through three versions before finally holding up in federal court. Miller also pushed for the end of DACA, the program designed to help children brought to the country illegally by their parents to remain in the U.S. But courts have stopped the administration from taking away those rights.

The most hard-line measures have also proved politically unpopular, according to opinion polls, with large majorities of American voters voicing opposition to ending DACA or detaining children separately from relatives entering the country illegally.

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

Meanwhile, over at Jezebel.com, Esther Wang gives us the skinny on the guy who implements an anti-immigrant agenda with a smile and has taken the word “Services” out of “United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.”

https://theslot.jezebel.com/meet-the-man-whos-making-life-shit-for-immigrants-thats-1829192394

Meet the Man Who’s Making Life Shit for Immigrants That’s NOT Named Stephen Miller

Esther Wang

It’s often the architects of our nation’s monstrous immigration policies (cough Stephen Miller cough) who are the subject of dramatic news headlines and the target of our much-deserved vitriol. But, as a new Politico profile of Lee Francis Cissna, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, reminds us, the bureaucrats who willingly and happily follow the dictates that come from above are equally as appalling (if not more so in their unthinking devotion to carrying out orders).

Politico describes how Cissna, the son of an immigrant from Peru and husband to the daughter of a Palestinian refugee who has steadily worked his way up the ranks of different federal agencies, has been dramatically—and quietly—reshaping immigration policy:

Much less visible than Miller or Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Cissna has quietly carried out Trump’s policies with a workmanlike dedication. From his perch atop USCIS, he’s issued a steady stream of policy changes and regulations that have transformed his agency into more of an enforcement body and less of a service provider. These changes have generated blowback from immigrant advocates, businesses and even some of his own employees. Leon Rodriguez, who served as USCIS director under President Barack Obama, said the agency is sending a message “that this is a less welcoming environment than it may have been before.”

While the travel ban and family separations grabbed headlines, Cissna has waged a quieter war,tightening and reworking regulations and guidance that make it harder to come to the U.S. as an immigrant or temporary worker.

In February, Cissna rewrote the mission statement of the agency which he heads, eliminating a passage that proclaims the U.S. is “a nation of immigrants,” a symbolic move that nonetheless signaled a worrisome shift.

A few months later, Cissna announced the creation of a new denaturalization task force, which would investigate naturalized Americans whom the agency suspected of lying on their citizenship applications. As Masha Gessen wrote in The New Yorker, “It’s the apparent underlying premise that makes this new effort so troublesome: the idea that America is under attack by malevolent immigrants who cause dangerous harm by finding ways to live here.” Gessen continued: “Indeed, the creation of the task force itself is undoing the naturalization of the more than twenty million naturalized citizens in the American population by taking away their assumption of permanence. All of them—all of us—are second-class citizens now.” One of the people Cissna wished to strip citizenship from? A 63-year-old Peruvian-American grandmother, over her minor role in a fraud scheme perpetrated by her boss.

He has also spearheaded other changes, many of which have largely flown under the radar and failed to generate widespread outrage outside of those whose lives will be impacted by them—from new rules that empower USCIS officials to initiate deportation proceedings for a wider number of immigrants to policies that allow USCIS officers to deny visa and green card applications over small errors, without giving applicants an opportunity, as the Obama administration did, to fix them.

And as Politico and others have reported, Cissna plans on pushing through a new regulation—described as “the most controversial regulation to come out of his agency under Trump”—that would prevent people from immigrating to the United States if they’re expected to use public benefits. As Politico writes, “The proposed regulation, which is expected before the midterm elections, would effectively gentrify the legal immigration system, blocking poorer immigrants from obtaining green cards or even from entering the country in the first place.”

People who have known Cissna for years expressed surprise at the turn that he has taken as head of USCIS.

“We’re pretty stunned that a guy who is compassionate, funny, proud of his immigrant mother from Latin America, that he would now be one of the key architects of the seemingly heartless policy of separating families,” Dan Manatt, who attended Georgetown Law School with Cissna, told Politico.

Cissna himself disputes that he bears any animosity towards immigrants.

“I just feel a strong commitment to the law, and to the rule of law,” Cissna told Politico. “None of the things that we’re doing, as I’ve said on numerous public occasions, are guided by any kind of malevolent intent.”

Good to know—he doesn’t hate immigrants, he just loves laws that make their lives as difficult as possible. What a relief.

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No, the law doesn’t require that we bend the rules to harass and make it difficult for individuals who qualify for legal immigration and refugee status to actually get into the country.  In addition to being complete jerks, Miller and Cissna are liars.

Get out the vote! Inspire your friends who oppose White Nationalism to get out and vote. These Dudes are pure evil, and America’s future is on the line! If decent people don’t stand up for humane values, evil can prevail! Time to restore the real “rule of law” which requires us to admit legal immigrants, refugees, and asylees without throwing up bogus White Nationalist roadblocks.

PWS

09-21-18

Related posts:

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  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. THE SADNESS OF PROPHECY WITHOUT POWER: Two Years Ago, I Gave A Speech Warning Of The Consequences Of “1939 Germany” — Now, We’re In “Germany 1938” With 1939 Just An Election Away! — Moscow Mitch, Lindsey The Toad, Texas Ted & The Rest Of The GOP Fellow Travelers & Cultists Would Be Right At Home With Franz van Papen!

THE KILLERS AMONG US – The Lies, False Narratives, Cowardice, & White Nationalism Of The Trump Administration Will Kill Refugees We Should Be Saving & Make Us All Complicit In Evil!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/19/people-will-die-obama-official-warns-after-trump-slashes-refugee-numbers?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Amanda Holpuch reports for The Guardian:

A former senior government official who oversaw refugee resettlement under Barack Obama warned that the Trump administration’s decision to slash the refugee admissions cap to a record low could have fatal consequences.

Bob Carey, the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under the Obama administration from 2015 to 2017, told the Guardian the new limit of 30,000 refugees per year and the Trump administration’s justification for the cap was “a new low in our history”.

“People will be harmed,” Carey said. “People will die.”

Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, announced on Monday that in the fiscal year that begins 1 October, the US will only allow up to 30,000 refugees – a sliver of 1% of the more than 68 million people forcibly displaced across the globe.

Carey and other refugee advocates said the new limit is part of a systematic effort by the US government to dismantle humanitarian protections for people fleeing violence, religious persecution and armed conflict. And they are concerned other countries will follow the US in dismantling refugee programs.

Pompeo’s announcement followed a six-month period where the US forcibly separated more than 2,600 migrant children from their parents, ended its commitment to funding the United Nations’ program for Palestinian refugees and was scrutinized by its own military officials for denying entry to Iraqis who assisted US troops.

Carey left his posting at ORR, an office in the health department, when Trump took office in January 2017. He said the refugee program – which is overseen by the health department, department of homeland security and state department – is being “managed to fail”.

“It’s really disturbing and tragic,” said Carey, who is now a fellow at the Open Society Foundations. “I think it will ultimately make the world less secure.”

Resettlement is what happens after people flee to one county and are then given a chance to start new lives in a third country. Resettlement is not what happens to most refugees: there were 19.9 million people who had fled their home country at the end of 2017, but less than 1% were resettled that year, according to the UN refugee agency.

An additional 40 million people are internally displaced and 3.1 million are seeking asylum, according to UNHCR.

With two weeks to go in the 2018 fiscal year, the US has admitted 20,918 refugees for resettlement – 46% of the current 45,000 refugee cap.

To justify the lower cap, Pompeo cited a backlog of outstanding asylum cases for draining resources. In doing so, he linked two groups that are processed differently – refugees and asylum seekers – and overstated how many asylum cases are in the backlog.

“Some will characterize the refugee ceiling as the sole barometer of America’s commitment to vulnerable people around the world,” Pompeo said. “This would be wrong.”

But humanitarian groups allege that targeting a population that is vetted more than any other immigrant group is a key indicator of the US’s humanitarian priorities under Trump.

“There is no question that from the very beginning this administration had a goal to shut down or extremely limit the refugee program,” said Michelle Brané, director of the migrant rights and justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

Brané said low refugee admissions, coupled with the Trump administration’s slate of policies and directives that limit legal and illegal immigration, has created a “pressure cooker” in the most unstable regions in the world.

“You lock people in, you don’t let them out,” Brané said. “You don’t provide them an avenue to safety. What does that mean in the end? It feels like we’re leading to a bigger crisis.”

People in the refugee resettlement community are worried that the rapid, dramatic dismantling of the program means it will be difficult to rebuild if the cap is raised in the future.

This is because with fewer refugees coming in, there is less need for refugee resettlement agencies who work as nonprofits contracted by the US government to manage the resettlement process by finding refugees housing, jobs and schools. This year, at least 20 were set to close and 40 others have cut operations, according to Reuters.

Paedia Mixon is CEO of New American Pathways, an Atlanta resettlement agency that provides assistance to all types of immigrants. “Our fears are in a short period of time you can destroy something that’s worked really well,” Mixon said.

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

Yes, it took generations to build up the current NGO resettlement system. But, it has taken the Trump Administration less than two years to largely dismantle, and totally demoralize, it. Once destroyed, that system will not easily be rebuilt, if at all.

American is hurtling down a dark corridor. We must use our democratic processes to remove Trump, his White Nationalists, and their GOP enablers and supporters before it’s too late for America and the world, and most of all for the human beings whose lives depend on the international refugee protection system.

As Jake Sullivan, former senior national security adviser to Hillary Clinton told the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin: “It’s been a long time in this country since there was such a big moral gap between a big-hearted American people and their small-minded leaders.”

Once, those who picked on widows, orphans, women, and children were rightly considered to be immoral bullies and cowards, the butt of jokes. Now, we have somehow let them govern our country. That’s the very definition of a kakistocracy — government by the worst among us. Time for a change!

PWS

09-20-18

Related posts:

  1. SPRINT TO THE BOTTOM: Trump Administration Trashes Refugees & Human Rights In A Despicable Return To “1939-Style Fascism Lite!” — America’s Rancid Conduct & Negative Leadership Presages Another Worldwide Refugee Tragedy — This Time The Blood Will Be Directly On Our Hands!
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. 😰NO HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR FAMILIES IN “THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG”☠️⚰️ — As Kakistocracy Of War Criminals 🤮🏴‍☠️ Departs, Will President Biden Have The Wisdom & Guts To Move Beyond “The Dem Border Alarmists” & Get The Progressive Leaders 🦸🏽‍♂️⚖️ From The NDPA In Place To Bring Due Process & Order To The Border?🗽🇺🇸
  4. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!

SESSIONS PLANS TO EXPAND “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” BY ELIMINATING BONDS FOR THOSE WITH A CREDIBLE FEAR OF PERSECUTION – AG Now Intends To Overrule Matter of X-K-, 23 I&N Dec. 731 (BIA 2005) – Matter of M-G-G-, 27 I&N Dec. 27 I&N Dec. 469 (A.G. 2018)

MGG-Bond3938

Here it is in all of its in-glory:

Cite as 27 I&N Dec. 469 (A.G. 2018) Interim Decision #3938

Matter of M-G-G-, Respondent

Decided by Attorney General September 18, 2018

U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General

The Attorney General referred the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals to himself for review of issues relating to the authority to hold bond hearings for certain aliens screened for expedited removal proceedings, ordering that the case be stayed during the pendency of his review.

BEFORE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h)(1)(i) (2018), I direct the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) to refer this case to me for review of its decision. The Board’s decision in this matter is automatically stayed pending my review. See Matter of Haddam, A.G. Order No. 2380-2001 (Jan. 19, 2001). To assist me in my review, I invite the parties to these proceedings and interested amici to submit briefs on points relevant to the disposition of this case, including:

Whether Matter of X-K-, 23 I&N Dec. 731 (BIA 2005), which held that immigration judges may hold bond hearings for certain aliens screened from expedited removal proceedings under section 235(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1), into removal proceedings under section 240, 8 U.S.C. § 1229a, should be overruled in light of Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018).

The parties’ briefs shall not exceed 15,000 words and shall be filed on or before October 9, 2018. Interested amici may submit briefs not exceeding 9,000 words on or before October 16, 2018. The parties may submit reply briefs not exceeding 6,000 words on or before October 16, 2018. All filings shall be accompanied by proof of service and shall be submitted electronically to AGCertification@usdoj.gov, and in triplicate to:

United States Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General, Room 5114 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530

All briefs must be both submitted electronically and postmarked on or before the pertinent deadlines. Requests for extensions are disfavored.

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

More reductions in the authority of U.S. Immigraton Judges on tap. They are rapidly being reduced to the status of “Robed Deportation Officers.” If Sessions were around long enough, I’m sure he eventually would have them disrobed and dressed in DHS Uniforms to represent their true function.

This is sure to “tee up” some big-time Fifth Amendment Constitutional litigation in the Article IIIs regarding the Government’s authority to detain indefinitely without bond. And, those who have passed credible fear and their children probably present the “best conceivable” plaintiffs for those challenging the indefinite detention authority. Moreover, since bond cases initially are reviewed in U.S. District Courts, rather than in Courts of Appeals, Sessions will be setting up the possibility of lots of different U.S. District Judges getting into the act, as well as the possibility for other nationwide injunctions.

The Administration will also face a strong Fifth Amendment challenge to its proposed “kiddie detention” regulations. Moreover, Jennings v. Rodriguez is actually on remand for the Ninth Circuit to consider the plaintiffs Constitutional challenge to indefinite detention without bond hearings.

So, in addition to artificially “jacking up the Immigration Court backlogs” Sessions has found a way to keep the Federal Courts occupied with avoidable Constitutional litigation on many fronts. At some point, that should impair the Federal Courts ability to hear anything except immigration disputes and start “jacking up” their backlogs of other types of cases.

Given the total fiasco of his “zero tolerance policy,” more mindless detention of asylum seekers and their families doesn’t seem to be a national priority to anybody except the Trump/Sessions White Nationalist Cabal.

As I’ve observed before, knowing that his time in office is likely to end after the November midterms, Sessions is working furiously to inflict as much permanent damage on the U.S. justice system and to harm as many migrants, particularly refugees and asylum seekers, as possible before Trump throws him out.

Whether intentionally or not, Sessions is focusing attention on three things that a future more responsible Congress must address:

  • Getting the Immigration Courts out of the Executive Branch so that never again can they be co-opted by a White Nationalist extremist like Sessions;
  • Severely curtailing both the authority and the funding for civil immigration detention by the Executive;
  • Amending the asylum law to serve its original generous protection purposes by codifying the “benefit of the doubt” standard and specifically stating that “gender” shall be considered a “particular social group” under the refugee and asylum laws. 

Until then, expect lots of unnecessary pain and suffering to be gratuitously inflicted on the most vulnerable among us.

Obama and the Democrats had the chance to make these changes, as well as to protect Dreamers, back in 2009. They blew it! Now refugees and immigrants are paying the price.

PWS

09-19-18

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories
  2. REPORT # 2 FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “APPELLATE LITIGATION IN TODAY’S BROKEN AND BIASED IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM: FOUR STEPS TO A WINNING COUNTERATTACK BY THE RELENTLESS ‘NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY’”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

TAL @ CNN REPORTS ON THE LATEST ACT IN ADMINISTRATION’S ONGOING “IMMIGRATION THEATER OF THE ABSURD” – DHS’s Matthew Albence Uses Congressional Hearing To Double Down On Ridiculous Claim That The “New American Gulag” Is Like A ”Summer Camp” — One Where Neither He Nor Anyone Else In their Right Minds Would Send Their Kids!

ICE official stands by comparing detention centers to ‘summer camp,’ won’t say if he’d send his kids to one

By Tal Kopan, CNN

A senior Trump administration official on Tuesday stood by his controversial comments comparing the detention centers for immigrant families to “summer camp,” but declined to answer whether he’d send his own children there.

The remarks came at a congressional hearing where immigration and border security officials struggled to answer foundational questions from senators about the administration’s push to expand the detention of immigrant families and children.

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s chief of arrests and deportations, Matthew Albence, if he stood by his comments earlier this summer that family detention centers are like “summer camp.”

“Absolutely I do,” he said.

But he demurred when asked whether he’d send his own children, or those of people he is close to, to the centers.

“Would you send your children to one of these detention centers?” she asked.

“That question’s not applicable,” he said.

Albence did say the standards for family centers are “very safe” and “humane,” and that at one he had visited, families had access to TVs, food and video games and other activities.

“The point is, the parent made the illegal entry,” Albence said when pressed further. “The parent put themselves in this position.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing topic was ostensibly a court settlement that governs how immigrant children can be treated by the US, including limiting the length of time a family can be involuntarily detained to 20 days. The administration is seeking to nullify that settlement and allow itself to detain far more immigrant families for far longer.

Harris’ line of questioning was one of a series from Democrats, who pressed the officials on why they’d want to expand family detention and child detention despite widely held beliefs among medical professionals that even short periods of detention can inflict permanent and devastating trauma on children. Though the hearing did not include the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the government’s program for immigrant children who are in the US on their own, senators also asked about the ongoing fallout over family separations and unaccompanied child detention.

Members of both parties pressed as to why the agencies were not pursuing other measures with bipartisan support that could streamline the immigration court system over an expensive effort to vastly expand family detention.

More from the hearing: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/18/politics/ice-albence-family-detention-summer-camp/index.html

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

Ever doubt that we currently have idiots in charge of our Government’s immigration policies? Matthew puts those to rest.

PWS

09-19-18

 

Related posts:

  1. [BUREAU] ‘CRATS CONTINUE TO FLEE SINKING DHS SHIP AS ABUSES, LIES, COVER-UPS MOUNT — John Sanders Latest To Exit — Trump Taps Mark Morgan, Eager Architect Of Administration’s Temporarily Aborted “Community Reign of Terror” (A/K/A/ “Operation Wetback ‘19”) Program As Next Acting CBP Chief — Expect More Mindless Cruelty, Lies, False Narratives, White Nationalist Racism, Violations Of Law & Human Rights!
  2. DUE PROCESS UPDATE: COULD ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CONSTITUTIONAL SCOFFLAWS SESSIONS & NIELSEN BE ON THE HORIZON? – US District Judge Finds “At a minimum, the facts alleged are sufficient to show the government conduct at issue “shocks the conscience” and violates Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to family integrity. Accordingly, Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ due process claim is denied.”
  3. INSIDE THE CHILD ABUSE CONSPIRACY: LIKE MANY CRIMINALS, TRUMP’S “GANG OF SIX” CAN’T KEEP THEIR STORIES STRAIGHT — But, There Is One Consistency — Everything These “Kakistocrats” Say Is A Lie!
  4. LISTEN TO TAL KOPAN AND CATHERINE SHOICHET OF CNN DISCUSS SEPARATION OF MIGRANT FAMILIES ON THIS PODCAST!

HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PUTS MIGRANTS IN HARM’S WAY!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/opinion/trump-has-it-backward-many-migrants-are-victims-of-crime.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Contributors

By Stephanie Leutert in the NY Times:

In June, Josue, a 21-year-old Honduran, reached a safe house in the Mexican border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas. He was there with 11 other Central American migrants. His family had spent the previous year scraping together the $3,800 necessary for this last part of his journey to the United States.

But the “safe” house was not so safe. Only miles from the border, his migration was interrupted as armed men burst into the house, kidnapping the migrants and demanding an additional $1,800 for their release. If their families couldn’t raise the money, the armed men warned, the migrants would be killed.

Every day, dramas and tragedies like this play out for the Honduran, Salvadoran and Guatemalan migrants traveling through Mexico. The Trump administration’s rhetoric has repeatedly linked migrants to gangs, violence and crime, and cast undocumented immigrants as a threat to public safety. But in fact, a majority of the Central Americans arriving at the United States-Mexico border are not perpetrators but rather victims of violence, both in their home countries and during their fraught transit through Mexico.

Over the past three decades, the risks and dangers on the journey from Central America to the United States border have increased — ramped-up United States and Mexican migratory enforcement has pushed migrants onto more invisible, risky paths, and impunity in Mexico for criminal perpetrators has kept them on the streets.

Yet however daunting the risks and challenging the policies, they have not significantly put a dent in the number of Central Americans traveling north. What has changed is that hundreds of thousands of migrants make the journey to the United States along more clandestine and treacherous routes.

For Central American migrants, there is no single transportation method or route to travel through Mexico to reach the United States. Travel experiences are influenced by a migrant’s nationality, gender, age and income. If a Central American migrant hires a smuggler for transiting through Mexico — and 60 percent report hiring these guides in surveys conducted by the Colegio de la Frontera Norte — then the routes will also be determined by the smugglers’ contacts and methods. But they all have at least one thing in common: Not one is safe, and each comes with a series of risks.

As soon as migrants near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, the dangers begin. To reach Mexico’s southernmost cities, migrants with a bit of money can take local buses or hire taxis. Those with empty wallets must walk. This may include hiking for days on the sides of highways, often at night to avoid detection and the strong tropical sun. Mexican officials have focused their enforcement attention less at the physical border and more at highway checkpoints set up around 30 or 100 miles into Mexican territory, where migration authorities attempt to identify individuals transiting through the country without the appropriate documents.

Migrants fleeing violence in Central America may travel distances equivalent to that between Chicago and Miami (about 1,400 miles) or Chicago and the West Coast (more than 2,000 miles). Many are subject to crime along the way. The map shows some of the most-traveled routes.

In these desolate areas in the south of Mexico, migrants may be set upon by criminals like corrupt authorities, opportunistic local groups and members of the gangs MS-13 or Barrio 18 — the very groups that migrants may be fleeing and who have a presence in this part of Mexico.

That was the case for Josue, who was robbed by local criminals as he hiked the 40-mile stretch of remote highway between a Guatemala border city, El Ceibo, and Tenosique, a southern Mexican city. The thieves slipped out of the nearby ranch land and stripped him of his possessions, even taking his sneakers and leaving him with one of the robbers’ decrepit, fungus-covered pair. According to prosecutors in the southernmost states of Chiapas and Tabasco, these robberies and assaults are fairly common. Women are also singled out for other forms of violence, with Doctors Without Borders reporting that one-third of female migrants suffer sexual abuse while in Mexico.

To advance north, the poorest Central Americans climb aboard Mexico’s train cars (nicknamed “La Bestia,” or the Beast) and ride exposed through rain, heat and frigid wind, and with the constant fear of slipping off the sides. They also travel on high alert for the gang members or train security guards who sometimes board the trains to extort or rob the riders. Given these extreme risks — along with Mexican officials’ 2014 crackdown on migrants riding the train through the Southern Border Plan (Programa Frontera Sur) — only 12 percent of Central American migrants in 2017 reported to Colegio de la Frontera Norte researchers that they had taken the trains at any point in their journey.

Migrants with a little more money use private cars, buses or trailers and move along Mexico’s major north-south highways; they pass through the Mexican migration checkpoints by passing as locals or paying off corrupt officials. Some avoid the checkpoints altogether and hike around them. Traveling in vehicles is generally safer for migrants, but there may still be hardships from the varying quality of food, abysmal sleeping arrangements or mistreatment from their guides or fellow migrants.

At the United States border, patrol agents and a range of radars, sensors and other technology seek to block the migrants’ irregular crossing into the United States. In response, some Central Americans may attempt to cross in the remote areas in the vast California or Arizona deserts or near the border city of Ciudad Juárez. Others ask for asylum at ports of entry. But most travel up Mexico’s Gulf Coast to reach Reynosa, Tamaulipas. This city shares a border with McAllen, Tex., within the southern Rio Grande Valley. In fiscal 2017, the United States Border Patrol reported that it apprehended two-thirds of all irregular Central American migrants (104,305 in total) in this 320-mile section of the border.

On the Mexico side of the border near Reynosa, drug trafficking organizations, particularly the Gulf Cartel and the splinter groups of the Zetas, control the territory and the smuggling routes and act as unofficial tax agents. These groups offer the Central American migrants’ final security challenge and engage in their signature crime, kidnapping. Their presence gives this area the nefarious distinction of having the highest number of migrant kidnappings. Since 2011, data from Mexico’s National Migration Institute has documented 1,034 kidnapping victims in Tamaulipas — 75 percent of all migrant kidnapping victims in the country. Women and minors each account for more than a quarter of the victims.

But official numbers barely scratch the surface of the crimes committed against migrants in Mexico. Central Americans rarely report the crimes to Mexican authorities because of a lack of trust, fear of repercussions or limited knowledge of the country’s justice system. Josue is a good example. He was able to escape his captors after the Federal Police intercepted a car that was taking him to a second safe house, but he decided not to report the kidnapping given concerns over his safety.

When migrants do report these crimes, few are ever investigated or prosecuted. In July 2017, the Washington Office on Latin America reportedthat only 1 percent of crimes against migrants in Mexico ever reach a conviction.

What could push people to knowingly face these conditions or, worse, to bring their children along? For Central Americans, there is a deep chasm between migrants’ desires for safety, work and family reunification and their ability to fulfill these dreams within their own countries or legally in the United States.

In Reynosa, Josue was gearing up to try to make the hike from the border to Houston. Along with hundreds of thousands of other Central American migrants taking these same routes and escaping violence at home or in transit, he was confident that the journey would be worth it. The hope of a better and safer life in the United States was stronger than the fear of any dangers along the way.

Stephanie Leutert is the director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion).

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

As I always say, “we can diminish ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration.”

And, that’s doubly true when you have a disingenuous Administration that intentionally misrepresents the causes of human migration. Of course, “doubling down” on “doomed to fail” policies is going to fail and produce more chaos without materially diminishing “extralegal migration.” And, slashing refugee programs and other avenues of legal immigration are sure to compound the problem.

But, then the Trumpsters try to shift the blame for their predictable failures to the victims — if walls, cruelty, detention, family separation, denials of Due Process, and hate speech won’t stop them, let’s have more walls, crueller and more inhumane detention, more family separation, less Due Process, and spew forth more hateful xenophobic rhetoric. It’s destroying our country and our reputation; but it isn’t having any real long-term effect on migration. Almost anybody outside the Administration and their White Nationalist cheerleaders could have told them that.

PWS

09-18-18

 

Related posts:

  1. OUR FEAR-MONGERING LEADERS WANT YOU TO BE SCARED OF REFUGEES ARRIVING AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER – DON’T BE! – Here’s What The Overhyped “Caravan” Actually Looks Like! — “Who wants to leave their country, the comfort of their home, their families?” she asked. “It’s a very difficult thing.”
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

AMERICA THE MINUTE: AS WORLD REFUGEE CRISIS DEEPENS & IN THE FACE OF CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT REFUGEES ARE GOOD FOR AMERICA, OUR WHITE NATIONALIST REGIME TURNS ITS BACK ON REFUGEES – Fabricated Statistics & Bogus Attempt To Blame Asylum Seekers Highlight Disgraceful Actions – Sec. Mike Pompeo Joins White House “Racist Cult!” – Advice Of Experts Spurned!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/pompeo-trump-refugee-asylum-levels/index.html

Refugee levels are surging worldwide. Trump is slashing the number the US will let in

By Zachery Cohen and Elise Labott, CNN:

White House slashes refugee cap to new low 02:16

Washington (CNN)As the number of people displaced by war and famine surges, the Trump administration is capping refugee admissions at the lowest level since 1980, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday. It’s the second year in a row the administration has set the cap at a record low.

The US will cap refugee admissions at 30,000 in 2019, a 33% drop from 2018’s record-low ceiling of 45,000.
Pompeo said the number should not be considered as “the sole barometer” of the United States’ commitment to humanitarian efforts around the world, adding that the US would “focus on the humanitarian protection cases of those already in the country.”
As evidence, Pompeo cited the number of asylum applications expected next year, saying the US will process up to 280,000 such applications in 2019.

The US is on track to admit the fewest number of refugees since the resettlement program began

The US is on track to admit the fewest number of refugees since the resettlement program began
“The ultimate goal is the best possible care and safety of these people in need, and our approach is designed to achieve this noble objective,” Pompeo said. “We are and continue to be the most generous nation in the world.”
Refugee resettlement agencies, immigrant rights groups and religious leaders had been pushing for the administration to increase the cap, noting that the number of refugees who need help around the world is larger than ever.
But Monday’s announcement isn’t a surprise. Administration officials have been moving to scale back refugee resettlement in the US since President Donald Trump took office.
Last year, officials lowered the cap to 45,000, a dramatic decrease from the ceiling of 110,000 that President Barack Obama’s administration had set for the 2017 fiscal year.
And the US isn’t even going to admit that many. CNN reported in June that the US is on track to admit the fewest number of refugees since its resettlement program began in 1980, tens of thousands below the cap amount.
Monday’s announcement was met with swift condemnation from refugee resettlement organizations.
“The United States is not only abdicating humanitarian leadership and responsibility-sharing in response to the worst global displacement and refugee crisis since World War II, but compromising critical strategic interests and reneging on commitments to allies and vulnerable populations,” the International Rescue Committee said.
Pompeo’s assertion that the US will process up to 310,000 refugees and asylum seekers also makes a false equivalence between the two issues.
Asylum and refugee protections are designed on similar grounds to protect immigrants who are being persecuted. Refugee protections are granted to immigrants who are still abroad, whereas asylum is reserved for immigrants who have already arrived on US soil.
There is no cap on asylum numbers, and in recent years, roughly 20,000 to 25,000 asylum seekers have been granted protections annually, according to the latest available government statistics.
BY THE NUMBERS: HOW BATULO AND HER FAMILY FIT IN

Total refugees:

22.5 million around the world

3 million living in the US

Refugees recently admitted to the US:

96,874 in 2016

33,368 in 2017

4,978 so far this year

Somali refugees recently admitted to the US:

10,786 in 2016

2,770 in 2017

73 so far this year

Sources: Pew Research Center, International Rescue Committee, US State Department, United Nations

There are two resource and funding streams each for refugees and asylum cases.
They also apply differently — with the State Department handling refugee admissions and the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice handling asylum claims. The interviewers who conduct screenings, however, can be deployed to handle either kind of interview.
But immigration hardliners and the administration have sought to curtail to the growing number of asylum claims each year, driven in large part by immigrants arriving at the southern border.
The number announced Monday reflects a compromise between hardliners in the Trump administration, such as Stephen Miller, who favored capping the ceiling at 20,000, and Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton and US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who argued to keep it at 45,000, according to several senior administration officials.

Senior NSC official out at White House

Senior NSC official out at White House
Miller personally has lobbied Cabinet officials to support the President’s desires to focus on border security, officials told CNN, and the issue was discussed at a secret Principals Committee meeting on Friday.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum applications are pending between the immigration courts, run by the Department of Justice, and applications to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, run by the Department of Homeland Security.
Depending on how a person is applying for asylum, and where in the process the application is, the case could be pending before either body.

CNN’s Catherine Shoichet, Tal Kopan, Michelle Kosinski and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting

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

“A Horrible Day For The Future Of America” [You Betcha!]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/18/its-great-day-restricting-access-america-horrible-day-future-america/?utm_term=.3c8a5b9bce55

Here’s what Professor Daniel W. Drezner of Tufts University had to say about the latest racist scam from the White Nationalist Administration:

There was never much coherence to Donald Trump’s foreign policy statements as a candidate, but there was a theme: The rest of the world is dangerous, and the United States needs to be walled off from it. In some cases, that meant Trump preferred a literal wall. In other instances, the walls have been more figurative but with real consequences, in the form of visa restrictions and trade barriers and whatnot.

On Monday, the Trump administration raised those walls higher.

The first move came on trade. Trump made his beliefs on this subject well-known early in the morning, tweeting: “Tariffs have put the U.S. in a very strong bargaining position, with Billions of Dollars, and Jobs, flowing into our Country – and yet cost increases have thus far been almost unnoticeable. If countries will not make fair deals with us, they will be ‘Tariffed!’” In the real world, the effects of tariffs have hurt some American sectors very badly, there have been no appreciable concessions from other countries, and it is far from obvious that this administration knows what it is doing in this area.

. . . .

What is truly impressive, however, is that this was not the dumbest and most embarrassing move made by the Trump administration on Monday. No, that honor must go to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose announcement demonstrated exactly how little swagger he possessed within the administration:

The United States will admit no more than 30,000 refugees in the coming fiscal year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday, the lowest number in decades and a steep cut from the 45,000 allowed in this year.

The new number is a small fraction of one percentage point of the almost 69 million displaced people in the world today. But Pompeo said the United States remains the most generous nation when other U.S. aid to refugees is taken into account, including funds to shelter and feed refugees in camps closer to their home countries.

Pompeo said the lower cap should not be the “sole barometer” of American humanitarian measures, but “must be considered in the context of the many other forms of protection and assistance offered by the United States.”

You know what’s a sign that you know you are announcing a dumb move? Explaining that it is not the “sole barometer” of something and then leaving the podium without taking any questions. There is no way in which the optics of reducing refugee acceptance (except if you’re European) makes the United States look like the leader of the free world.

This announcement accomplishes nothing beyond making Stephen Miller happy. The time to cut back on refugee admissions is not the moment when the number of refugees is hitting an all-time high. There is zero swagger in this play. All it will do is continue to eviscerate the last remaining tendrils of U.S. soft power.

Donald Trump is the president, and as currently constituted, neither Congress nor the courts are able or willing to constrain his moves in this area. Heck, Trump is so unconcerned about legislative constraints that Pompeo announced the refugee restrictions without consulting Congress at all, as he is obligated to do by law. It is worth pointing out, however, that these moves are unpopular with the American people, rest on bad economics, and will foster anger and backlash across the rest of the world.

So, in other words, yesterday was a normal day in the life of the Trump administration.

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Cruelty, stupidity, inhumanity, ignorance, bigotry, lies, false narratives, White Nationalism, overt racism — ah, it’s just another “day at the office” for the Trumpsters.

If you’re tired of these noxious fools ruining our country and destroying our position in the world, get out the vote to throw the GOP out this Fall. Otherwise, we might all be living in the “Third World” of a “Banana Republic” pretty soon!

PWS

09-18-18

 

Related posts:

  1. SPRINT TO THE BOTTOM: Trump Administration Trashes Refugees & Human Rights In A Despicable Return To “1939-Style Fascism Lite!” — America’s Rancid Conduct & Negative Leadership Presages Another Worldwide Refugee Tragedy — This Time The Blood Will Be Directly On Our Hands!
  2. THE KILLERS AMONG US – The Lies, False Narratives, Cowardice, & White Nationalism Of The Trump Administration Will Kill Refugees We Should Be Saving & Make Us All Complicit In Evil!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

SCOFFLAW SESSIONS SLAMMED AGAIN BY FEDERAL JUDGE! — WHITE NATIONALIST OBSESSION WITH PUNISHING “SANCTUARY CITIES” UNLAWFUL AS WELL AS STUPID — “For a federal officer charged with upholding the law, Jeff Sessions seems to need an awful lot of reminding of what the law says. It’s time he took the lessons he’s getting from federal courts to heart.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-sessions-sanctuary-20180917-story.html

Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist Michael Hiltzik reports for the LA Times:

Another judge slaps down Jeff Sessions for trying to punish ‘sanctuary’ cities like L.A.

By
SEP 17, 2018 | 2:55 PM
Another judge slaps down Jeff Sessions for trying to punish 'sanctuary' cities like L.A.
Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions just can’t win in his attempts to punish local communities for “sanctuary” laws. (Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images)

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions must be getting tired of so much winning in his campaign to punish cities and states with the temerity to challenge his attempted crackdown on immigration.

In the latest episode, U.S. Judge Manuel L. Real of Los Angeles enjoined him from withholding more than $1 million in federal law enforcement assistance funding from L.A. because the city declared itself a “sanctuary” community. Real ruled that Sessions was way out of line in attempting to add conditions to a federal grant program designed to be based strictly on a community’s population and crime rates.

Real’s injunction tracks a nationwide injunction issued in April by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. In that case, brought by the city of Chicago, the appellate panel ruled 2-1 that Sessions’ actions “evince … a disturbing disregard for the separation of powers” principle enshrined in the Constitution.

The Attorney General repeatedly characterizes the issue as whether localities can be allowed to thwart federal law enforcement. That is a red herring.

7TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
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“The power of the purse does not belong to the Executive Branch,” the majority reminded Sessions. “It rests in the Legislative Branch,” which in this case didn’t delegate to Sessions the authority to impose conditions on the law enforcement grants.

Several federal courts have slapped down Sessions’ efforts to bludgeon local communities into doing the federal government’s dirty work of immigration enforcement, so it’s proper to take a quick look at Sessions’ viewpoint.

Sessions started throwing conniptions about sanctuary communities in March 2017, a couple of months after President Trump issued an executive order calling for federal funds to be withheld from communities that he said were out to thwart immigration agents. “Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States,” Trump asserted.

  • COLUMN
Here’s what Atty. Gen. Sessions got wrong about the law in his attack on sanctuary cities
MAR 28, 2017 | 3:00 PM

Trump’s order recognized that the law might constrain how the Department of Justice might act, so Sessions attempted to gin up a legal rationale. He asserted that jurisdictions across the nation were actively violating federal immigration laws, pumping undocumented immigrants back onto the streets even after their convictions for serious crimes. Sessions has cited two provisions of federal law, “Section 1373” and immigration detainers.

The first, enacted in 1996 under Bill Clinton, prohibits anyone from interfering with the exchange of information with federal authorities about the immigration status of any person. The law says merely that once local officials have that information, they can’t be stopped from trading it to the feds. Nothing in the law, however, requires local officials to collect information about the immigration status of anyone they have in custody in the first place.

“Detainers” are requests by immigration officials that local police hold immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and suspected or accused of a serious crime for 48 hours, or until the immigration authorities can decide if they want to take further action themselves. The Congressional Research Service found in 2015 that local policies vary widely about when to honor detainers, with many honoring those for people held for serious felonies but not for suspects in minor misdemeanor cases. Some require commitments from the federal government to cover the cost of detention or even the locality’s legal liability. Demanding compliance with all detainers, some experts say, raises the possibility of federal commandeering of local resources for federal purposes, which happens to be unconstitutional.

Since Sessions began griping about sanctuary laws — many of which were enacted decades before Trump became president — federal judges have recognized consistently that localities have a legitimate interest in creating a trustful relationship between the police and the communities they serve. In communities with large populations of immigrants, that relationship can be easily destroyed if the cops become viewed as immigration agents. Residents will be reluctant to report crimes, much less help police find wrongdoers or testify against them. The result is more dangerous, not safer, communities.

  • COLUMN
A punitive Trump proposal stokes panic among immigrants — even before it’s official
AUG 24, 2018 | 9:40 AM

In July, for example, Federal Judge John Mendez of Sacramento rejected the administration’s attempt to block three sanctuary laws enacted by the state Legislature in 2017. Mendez found that for the most part the laws fell squarely within the state’s authority to manage its own law enforcement resources and keep them from being “commandeered” by the federal government for its own purposes.

Nothing in the sanctuary laws “actively obstructs” federal officials, Mendez found; they only required state officials not to participate in federal immigration enforcement, except on their own terms. “Standing aside,” he wrote, “does not equate to standing in the way.”

Sessions hasn’t had any more success in trying to block federal funds for sanctuary cities. That’s the subject of the appeals court and Los Angeles cases. Both pertain to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, a federal program enacted in 2005 and named after a New York police officer slain while guarding an immigrant who had agreed to testify against drug dealers.

Congress established a strict formula for the Byrne funds, requiring that 50% be disbursed each year to states in amounts proportionate to their population and crime levels, with the remaining 50% tied to states’ proportions of violent crime. The city and county of Los Angeles, which were to receive a combined $1.9 million in the current fiscal year, planned to use the money for anti-gang programs, among other things.

  • COLUMN
In sanctuary ruling, a federal judge schools Atty. Gen. Sessions on the law
JUL 06, 2018 | 11:05 AM

Before making the disbursements, however, the DOJ said that applicants would have to certify their compliance with Section 1373 and agree to other forms of cooperation with immigration officials.

The appeals court in Chicago thought little of the DOJ’s arguments. “The Attorney General repeatedly characterizes the issue as whether localities can be allowed to thwart federal law enforcement,” the majority observed. “That is a red herring.” They ridiculed Sessions for being “incredulous that localities receiving federal funds can complain about conditions attached to the distribution of those funds.” But that was just too bad, they concluded: He simply doesn’t have the authority to attach any conditions to the program, other than those dictated by the formula.

Judge Real came to the same conclusion. Sessions’ policy faced Los Angeles with “an impossible choice: Either it must certify compliance with unconstitutional and unlawful directives that impinge on the City’s sovereignty, damage community trust, and harm public safety, or it will lose congressionally authorized Byrne JAG funding.” Real wasn’t inclined to force the city to make that choice.

For a federal officer charged with upholding the law, Jeff Sessions seems to need an awful lot of reminding of what the law says. It’s time he took the lessons he’s getting from federal courts to heart.

Michael Hiltzik
CONTACT
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik writes a daily blog appearing on latimes.com. His business column appears in print every Sunday, and occasionally on other days. As a member of the Los Angeles Times staff, he has been a financial and technology writer and a foreign correspondent. He is the author of six books, including “Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age” and “The New Deal: A Modern History.” Hiltzik and colleague Chuck Philips shared the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry.

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Once upon a time, many years ago, I worked at a U.S. Department of Justice that functioned like “America’s law firm.” Every adverse decision was carefully studied by the agency, the litigator, and the Solicitor General’s Office. When the reviewing  court appeared to have “the better view of the law,” or when the agency position was repeatedly rejected and there was no “Circuit split,” the rules, regulations, BIA interpretations, and even the statute sometimes were changed to adopt the Federal Courts’ “better-reasoned view of the law.”

Indeed, while serving in the Legacy INS General Counsel’s Office under then General Counsel Sam Bernsen, I remember drafting successfully enacted legislation (known as the “INS Efficiency Act”) that actually adopted into law some Federal Court decisions that had reversed INS and also tried to fashion some “legislative compromises” that we thought would pass muster in the Article IIIs. Amazingly, it was enacted into law with only minor modifications to my original draft.

Yup, it wasn’t always popular with the “operating divisions” of the INS. But, it was the job of “us lawyers” to “sell them” on why compliance with legal standards was important. And, indeed, I remember getting the essential support of “upper level management” — at that time the Commissioner, General Leonard Chapman, Jr., and his Deputy Jim Greene, certainly supporters of strong immigration enforcement, for the legislative changes our Office drafted.

In other words, we were trying to make Government work effectively within legal boundaries rather than continuing to bother the Federal Courts with untenable or legally weak positions. Folks committed to “Good Government.” Imagine that!

Nowadays, under Jeff Sessions, the DOJ has abandoned any semblance of good lawyering or legal excellence and has, with a few exceptions (possibly Bob Mueller’s operation and the FBI under Director Chris Wray), been turned into a “White Nationalist propaganda factory.” Today’s hollow semblance of a DOJ consistently presents “jaw dropping” legal positions that are both bad policy and supported by weak to nonexistent legal arguments that sometimes fail to pass the “straight fact test.”

That’s because Jeff Sessions doesn’t operate as a lawyer. No, he’s a “Minister of Propaganda” who spreads racially-driven bogus views, false narratives, and misleading statistics, then feigns shock and outrage when the “real” Federal Courts consistently “stuff” him and apply the actual law and Constitution. When your legal  positions are not drawn from the law, the Constitution, input from career lawyers, and consultation with experts in the field, but rather taken from “cue cards” prepared by widely discredited White Nationalist restrictionist groups, the results are bound to be ugly.

The only surprising thing is that such a stunningly biased and unqualified individuals as Jeff Sessions has been given the opportunity to destroy the integrity of the U.S. Department of Justice and to make it a subservient tool of his attack on American values and our entire justice system. Sen. Liz Warren tried to tell ’em. But they wouldn’t listen. Now, Jeff Sessions is dragging all of America down in the muck with him.

PWS

09-18-18

Related posts:

  1. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

GONZO’S WORLD: A WALL UNTO HIMSELF – SESSIONS’S RACIST-INSPIRED WHITE NATIONALIST RE-WRITING OF ASYLUM LAW IS AN ABOMINATION THAT ENDANGERS THE VERY INDIVIDUALS THE LAW WAS DESIGNED TO PROTECT – The GOP Congress Has Shown No Interest In Restoring Order — Will The Article IIIs Step In To Stop Him Before It’s Too Late For Our Country! — “The Trump administration has systematically dismantled the right to seek asylum and turned the process at our southern border into a dystopian gauntlet that few can survive.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/406734-trump-doesnt-need-a-wall-he-has-jeff-sessions

Professor Lauren Gilbert writes in The Hill:

The Trump administration has systematically dismantled the right to seek asylum and turned the process at our southern border into a dystopian gauntlet that few can survive.

This became crystal-clear on Monday when Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed a new class of 44 immigration judges. He stated that their job was to “keep our federal laws functioning effectively, fairly and efficiently” and that they were critical to the Department of Justice “carr[ying] out its responsibilities under the INA.” Sessions described the actions of immigration lawyers as “water seeping through an earthen dam to get around the plain words of the INA.”

This is ironic, because Sessions’s “zero tolerance” policy and his rewriting of asylum law are at odds with protections afforded asylum seekers under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

I have witnessed personally this administration’s disregard for the rights and human dignity of asylum seekers. Earlier this summer, I took a team of law students and trauma specialists to the Karnes family detention center in Texas, where we worked alongside RAICES, the immigration nonprofit on the front lines in representing asylum seekers in family detention. We arrived on July 28, two days after the court deadline for reunification of separated families, and got a call from RAICES stating that they urgently needed us the next day to meet with dozens of fathers and sons who had just been reunited. Just before we arrived, the women and children previously detained at Karnes were bussed to the Dilley Detention Center in Texas to make room for fathers and sons.

ICE planned to “comply” with the court order, reunify families, and then swiftly deport them.  The judge had issued a stay of removal, but RAICES feared that he was about to lift it. So we spent that first Sunday meeting with over 200 fathers and sons, ages 5-17, to sort out where they were in the process and to advise them of their rights.

Over the next days, we took their statements, and a picture of what they had suffered emerged. Many described their separation — usually within hours, often without a chance to say goodbye. Parents who had crossed without authorization were prosecuted for illegal entry. Most pled guilty on advice of their public defenders. After completing brief sentences, parents were transferred to detention centers where ICE gave them a “choice”: accept deportation and we’ll let you see your kid, or fight your case and you will remain separated.

Many of the fathers we saw had agreed to deportation. Others asked for asylum and had credible fear interviews. Parents described, in heart-wrenching detail, these interviews, many by phone without either asylum officer or interpreter physically present. They spoke of being unable to think straight, not understanding the officer’s questions, their hearts and heads pounding, losing their train of thought when the interpreter interrupted to make them slow down, not being able to tell their stories because their hearts were breaking. Under such circumstances, most were denied.

Jeff Sessions has moved quickly to impose his anti-immigrant agenda, well-aware that his time may be limited. The INA grants the attorney general broad powers. Although used sparingly in the past, regulations permit him to overturn a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) by certifying it to himself.

This year alone Sessions has overturned four such decisions.  In June, in Matter of A-B-, he vacated a 2014 precedent decision recognizing that domestic violence may be a basis for asylum and signaled that most gang-based asylum claims would similarly fail. This Monday, he claimed that his decision “restores the way the law initially was enforced for decades” and that it was the immigration judges’ duty to carry it out. In fact, he is turning the clock back over 20 years, disregarding important advances in asylum protection.

Yet despite Jeff Sessions’s claims that he is restoring “the original intent and purpose of the INA,” many of these policies are at odds with its plain language. INA § 208(a)(1) states that “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival . . . ), … may apply for asylum.” This means that asylum seekers have a right to request asylum at the border or in the United States, regardless of how or where they enter.

Sessions claims that the American people believe “that persons who want to come here should file their claims and wait their turn.” Asylum seekers, however, can only apply for asylum at the border or within the United States. There is no asylum visa. They cannot “wait their turn” and apply in their home countries. The U.N. Refugee Convention prohibits contracting states from imposing “penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees” who present themselves without delay to the authorities. It is the Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy that violates the plain language of the INA.

The 1980 Refugee Act codified our international obligations and created procedures for seeking asylum. In 1996, amendments to the INA created expedited removal for migrants without proper documents, but provided an escape valve for asylum-seekers, who got a credible fear interview before an asylum officer and, if they failed their CFIs, a brief review before an immigration judge. Congress intended this to be a low threshold to screen out baseless claims. Those who pass are placed into regular proceedings.

The Trump administration, however, is rewriting U.S. asylum law and revamping the credible fear process to prevent most Central Americans from escaping expedited removal. Sessions claims that credible fear reviews have “skyrocketed’ and that many asylum seekers are taking advantage of the process by “saying a few simple words – claiming a fear of return.” These screenings, however, are part of U.S. law. Faithfully executing the laws means following all U.S. law, not just those provisions that further the administration’s restrictionist agenda.

Lauren Gilbert, Esq., is professor of law at St. Thomas University School of Law, where she teaches immigration law, family law and constitutional law. 

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Depressingly accurate account of how Jeff Sessions is being allowed to destroy the American Justice system. Yes, “Faithfully executing the laws means following all U.S. law, not just those provisions that further the administration’s restrictionist agenda.” So is insuring that U.S. Immigration Courts are fair and impartial and perform their sole function of “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all.” That means regardless of whether the results please the President, his “base,” or anyone else in the Administration. That’s what Due Process is all about.

But, the system can’t be saved until Sessions and the DOJ are removed from control and Congress creates an independent U.S. Immigration Court. Until then, the “dystopian gauntlet” created by Sessions will continue to threaten to bring down our entire U.S. Justice system and betray our national values.

We need regime change!

PWS

09-17-18

 

Related posts:

  1. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: RECENT ARTICLES SHOW HOW SESSIONS’S SHOCKINGLY INAPPROPRIATE REMARKS TO NEW IMMIGRATION JUDGES VIOLATED EOIR CODE OF JUDICIAL ETHICS, SHOWED DISRESPECT FOR THE LAW, AND VIOLATED THE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF GOOD IMMIGRATION JUDGING BY DIRECTING JUDGES NOT TO BE SYMPATHETIC TO REFUGEES! – TURNING REFUGEE LAW AND HISTORY ON ITS HEAD!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

THE HILL: RUTH ELLEN WASEM ON HOW THE WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA IS PREVENTING US FROM HAVING REALISTIC DISCUSISONS ABOUT FUTURE IMMIGRATION!

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/406876-our-policies-on-immigration-should-be-forward-thinking

Ruth writes:

. . . .

In addition to inflating the number of immigrants, the political rhetoric coming from the right issues ominous warnings about immigrants from Mexico in particular. The nativist right fabricates a narrative that Mexican migration is a problem to be solved. While Mexico continues to be the largest single source country for immigrants, its relative share of the flow is diminishing.

In fiscal year 2000, immigrants from Mexico made up 20 percent of all people who became legal permanent residents (LPRs) of the United States. That percentage had fallen to 14.7 percent in fiscal year 2016. What characterizes Mexican immigration to the United States is that 68 percent in FY 2016 were the immediate relatives (spouses, minor children and parents) of U.S. citizens, the top priority of U.S. immigration laws since the 1920s.

A closer look at the recently released census data shows other trends that are positive for our nation. For example, foreign-born residents who are naturalized citizens have a median household income of $72,140 that compares favorably to native-born citizens’ median household income of $72,165. This income parity results in no small way from the growing number of Asian immigrants working in professional and managerial occupations and who are employed by educational and health sectors of the economy.

Although first-generation foreign-born families have higher poverty rates (15.7 percent) than the national overall rate (10.4 percent), second-generation families have lower poverty rates (9.3 percent) than the national rate.

This pattern of immigrant success, based on the talent and diligence of immigrants themselves, also has roots in the Immigration Amendments Act of 1990, which sought to increase avenues for “the best and the brightest” immigrants. By more than doubling the number of visas for persons of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researcher, or certain multinational executives and managers, and of persons with advanced degrees, immigrants with these traits have come to the United States in substantial numbers since its enactment.

The 1990 law also rewrote the H-1B visa for temporary professional specialty workers, which has been the leading pathway for immigrants to the United States and has been critical in the global competition for talent. The increased use of H-1B visas, as well as other nonimmigrant visas, has fostered much of the growth in immigrants with executive and professional occupations over the past two decades. My research offers fuller analyses of how policies directed at  global competition, employment-based immigration and temporary professional workers have constricted, as well as fostered, the flow of immigration to the United States.

If there is anything made clear by these recent demographic trends it is that our policies on immigration should be forward-thinking, rather than backward-focused. Building a wall along the border with Mexico, a nation with a declining fertility rate and purportedly a positive employment outlook, is a Maginot Line for the 21st century.  As I noted earlier, most Mexican immigrants are the immediate family of U.S. citizens.

Rather, we should be using these data to help us frame a debate about what the future of America will look like. We should be discussing policies such as: what are optimal levels of immigration? How should we balance this optimal level among family, employment and humanitarian flows?  What role does temporary migration play in shaping future flows? These are not easy policy questions, so we need to get busy discussing our way forward.

Ruth Ellen Wasem is a clinical professor of policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas in Austin. For more than 25 years, she was a domestic policy specialist at the U.S. Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service. She has testified before Congress about asylum policy, legal immigration trends, human rights and the push-pull forces on unauthorized migration.

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Read Ruth’s complete article over on The Hill at the link.

We should be discussing:

  • How best to integrate the millions of law-abiding undocumented residents currently in and contributing to the United States into our society;
  • How to increase legal immigration so that in the future these beneficial workers, family members, and refugees who are also beneficial to the United States can come thorough the legal system rather than being forced into the “extra-legal” system as has happened in the past.
  • Notably, doing the foregoing two things would not only reduce US Immigration Court dockets to manageable levels, but also would allow DHS enforcement to concentrate on the real “bad guys” rather than treating maids and gardeners like bank robbers.

Instead, we’re tied up fighting against the absurd White Nationalist restrictionist agenda that seeks to limit legal immigration to “white guys” and to wipe out our national commitment to refugees and asylees while artificially “jacking up” Immigration Court backlogs and misdirecting DHS immigration enforcement. Talk about the “worst of all worlds!”

PWS

09-17-18

 

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. “Warren Buffett on Immigration Reform: Buffett feels that immigrants (including undocumented ones) have been and continue to be a key part of our prosperity — not a part of the problem.“
  3. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  4. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

GONZO’S WORLD: A.G.’S “MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY” SPEECH TO NEW U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES CONTINUES TO DRAW FIRE! Hon. Jeffrey Chase & Others Criticize Sessions’s Inappropriate, Biased, & Unethical Demand That Judges Show No Mercy & Prejudge Asylum Cases Against Refugees! — Constitutional Crisis Brewing!!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/9/15/like-water-seeping-through-an-earthen-dam

In addressing 44 newly-hired immigration judges earlier this week, their new boss, Jeff Sessions, demonstrated not only his usual level of bias (to a group charged with acting as impartial adjudicators), but a very strange grasp of how our legal system works.

Sessions told the new class of judges that lawyers “work every day – like water seeping through an earthen dam – to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interest.  Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the Act.”

Later in his remarks, Sessions opined that “when we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation.”

To me, the above remarks evince a complete misunderstanding of how our legal system works.

In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Katzenbach v. McClung, a landmark civil rights case.  In order to find that the federal Civil Rights Act applied to a local, family-owned barbecue restaurant in Alabama, DOJ attorneys persuaded the Supreme Court that there was federal jurisdiction under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause because of segregation’s impact on interstate commerce.  I’m no Constitutional law expert, but I’m not sure that when its authors afforded Congress the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,” that this is what they had in mind.  Was creatively interpreting the Commerce Clause in order to end segregation “like water seeping through an earthen dam” to get around the clear words of the Constitution?  Did ending segregation constitute, in Sessions’s opinion, doing violence to the rule of law out of a sense of sympathy for the black victims of Alabama’s racist policies?

Every positive legal development is the result of an attorney advancing a creative legal argument, often motivated by a sense of sympathy for unfair treatment of a class of individuals in need of protection.  Many landmark decisions have resulted from such attorneys offering the court an unorthodox but legally sound solution to a sympathetic injustice.  This is actually how the legal system is supposed to operate.  Our laws are made by Congress, and not the Executive branch.  When Congress drafts these laws, they and their staffers are well aware of the existence of lawyers and judges and their ability to interpret the statutory language.

Had Congress not wanted our asylum laws to be flexible, allowing them to be interpreted in myriad ways to respond to changing types of persecution carried out by different types of actors, it could have said so.  When the courts found that victims of China’s coercive family planning policies did not qualify for asylum, Congress responded by amending the statutory definition of “refugee” to cover such harm.  In the four years following the BIA’s conclusion that victims of domestic violence qualified for asylum, Congress notably did not enact legislation barring such grants.  To the contrary, after Jeff Sessions issued his decision with the intent of preventing such grants, a Republican-led Congressional committee unanimously passed a measure barring funding for government efforts to carry out Sessions’ decision, a clear rebuke by the legislative branch of Sessions’s view that such claims are illegitimate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-led-house-committee-rebuffs-trump-administration-on-immigrant-asylum-claim-policy/2018/07/26/3c52ed52-911a-11e8-9b0d-749fb254bc3d_story.html?utm_term=.809760180e2a.

Interestingly, Sessions finds it perfectly acceptable to use unorthodox interpretations of the law when it serves his own interests.  For example,  he argues that he is upholding “religious liberty” in defending the right of bigots to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals. https://www.advocate.com/politics/2018/7/30/sessions-launches-new-lgbt-assault-religious-liberty-task-force.   The conclusion drawn from this inconsistency is that Sessions does not oppose creative interpretations of the law; he rather believes that the only proper interpretation of the law is his.

One of the problems with this approach is that Sessions doesn’t actually know anything about the law of asylum.  And yet he somehow feels entitled to belittle the analysis of the leading asylum experts in academia, the private bar, USCIS, ICE, and EOIR, all of whom have repeatedly found victims of domestic violence to satisfy all of the legal criteria for asylum.  In its 1985 decision in Matter of Acosta, (a case that Sessions cited favorably in his controversial decision), the BIA noted that the ground of “particular social group” was added to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees (which is the basis for our asylum laws) “as an afterthought.”  The BIA further noted that “it has been suggested that the notion of ‘social group’ was considered to be of broader application than the combined notions of racial, ethnic, and religious groups and that in order to stop a possible gap in the coverage of the U.N. Convention, this ground was added to the definition of refugee.”  (The full decision in Acosta can be read here:  https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2012/08/14/2986.pdf).

As a young attorney, I learned (from the late, great asylum scholar Arthur Helton) that at the last moment, the Swedish plenipotentiary to the 1951 Convention pointed out that there were victims of Hitler and Stalin in need of protection who did not fall under the other four Convention grounds of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion.  A fifth, catch-all ground was therefore proposed to serve as a “safety net” in such cases.  In other words, the reason the particular social group category was created and is a part of our laws was because the Convention’s drafters, perhaps “like water seeping through an earthen dam,” created an intentionally nebulous legal standard out of a sense of sympathy for victims of injustice.  The ground was therefore created to be used for the exact purpose decried by Sessions.

Because of the strength of such legal authority, Sessions’s decision in Matter of A-B-, in spite of dicta to the contrary, actually still allows for the granting of domestic violence and gang violence-based asylum claims.  The decision criticized the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of A-R-C-G- for reaching its conclusion without explaining its reasoning in adequate detail.  However, where the record is properly developed, a legally solid analysis can be shown to support granting such claims even under the standards cited by Sessions.

This is what makes Sessions comments to the new class of immigration judges so disturbing. Having appointed judges whom his Justice Department has found qualified, he should now leave it to them to exercise their expertise and independent judgment to interpret the law and determine who qualifies for asylum.  But in declaring such cases to lack validity, belittling private attorneys innovative arguments, and equating the granting of such claims to doing violence to the rule of law, Sessions aims to undermine right from the start the judicial independence of the only judges he controls.  EOIR’s management has demonstrated that it has no intention of pushing back; instead, it asks how high Sessions wants the judges to jump.

Knowing this, how likely is one of the 44 new judges to grant asylum to a victim of domestic violence who has clearly met all of the legal criteria?  New immigration judges are subject to a two-year probationary period.  It’s clear that a grant of such cases under any circumstances will be viewed unfavorably by Sessions.  In a highly publicized case, EOIR’s management criticized a judge in Philadelphia whose efforts at preserving due process they bizarrely interpreted as an act of disobedience towards Sessions, and removed the case in question and more than 80 cases like it from the judge’s docket.

So if a new judge, who may have a family to support, and a mortgage and college tuition to pay, is forced to choose between applying the law in a reasoned fashion and possibly suffering criticism and loss of livelihood, or holding his or her nose and adhering to Sessions’s views, what will the likely choice be?

Sessions concluded his remarks by claiming that the American people “have spoken in our laws and they have spoken in our elections.”  As to the latter, Americans voted against Trump’s immigration policies by a margin of 2.8 million votes.  As to the former, Congress has passed laws which have been universally interpreted by DHS, EOIR, and all leading asylum scholars as allowing victims of domestic violence to be granted asylum based on their membership in a particular social group.  It is time for this administration to honor the rule of law and to restore judicial independence to such determinations.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/immigration-judges-hit-back-at-sessions-for-suggesting-they-show-too-much-sympathy/ar-BBNbbLK

Tal Axelrod reports in The Hill:

A union representing the country’s 350 immigration judges slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for comments he made that suggested they were sidestepping the law and showing too much sympathy when handling certain cases.

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation,” Sessions said Monday in a speech to newly hired judges. “Your job is to apply the law – even in tough cases.”

Immigration judges, who work for the Department of Justice and are expected to follow guidelines laid out by the attorney general, said they believe Sessions was politicizing migrant cases.

“The reality is that it is a political statement which does not articulate a legal concept that judges are required to be aware of and follow,” Dana Marks, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Immigration Judges and an immigration judge in San Francisco, told BuzzFeed News. “It did appear to be a one-sided argument made by a prosecutor.”

Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, added that “we cannot possibly be put in this bind of being accountable to someone who is so clearly committed to the prosecutorial role.”

Sessions, an ideological ally of President Trump on immigration, has established additional restrictions on the types of cases that qualify for asylum and when certain cases can be suspended. He was involved in the White House’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy that led to family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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http://immigrationimpact.com/2018/09/11/speech-to-new-immigration-sessions-attacks-immigration-lawyers/

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK of the American Immigration Council reports on Immigration Impact:

Rather than encourage the new class of 44 immigration judges to be fair and impartial adjudicators in his Monday morning speech, Attorney General Jeff Sessions advocated for a deeply flawed immigration court system and directed judges to carry out the Trump administration’s punitive, anti-immigration agenda.

While many would have taken the opportunity to reinforce principles of due process and fairness to new judges, Sessions instead emphasized that judges must follow his commands and encouraged judges to ignore “sympathy” when applying the law to noncitizens in their courtrooms.  He also renewed his criticisms of immigration lawyers and the noncitizens who access immigration courts each day in order to apply for immigration relief.

Throughout his speech, Sessions framed the role of immigration judges as enforcers of the law, not as neutral adjudicators in an adversarial system. He declared that the work of the new judges would “send a clear message to the world that the lawless practices of the past are over” and railed against “the problem of illegal immigration.”

Rather than be a place where individuals ask for immigration relief and impartial judges weigh the merits of each case, Sessions seemed to argue for the courts to be turned into a deportation mill. Judges would then spearhead the fight against illegal immigration.

Despite the Attorney General’s authority to establish performance standards and create new precedent for judges to follow, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows judges to independently make decisions on individual immigrants’ cases.

Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the union representing immigration judges, reacted to Sessions’ remarks, calling them “troubling and problematic” and accused Sessions of not “appreciat[ing] the distinction” between judges and prosecutors. “We are not one and the same as them.”

Sessions also renewed his attacks on immigration lawyers, first articulated in a 2017 speech (for which he was widely condemned) when he accused “dirty immigration lawyers” of encouraging undocumented immigrants to “make false claims of asylum [by] providing them with the magic words needed” to claim asylum.

Monday’s speech returned to a similar theme, with Sessions claiming that “good lawyers … work every day—like water seeping through an earthen dam—to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the Act.”

In response to this new attack, the American Immigration Lawyers Association issued a press release accusing Sessions of expressing “disdain for lawyers who take a solemn oath to uphold the law” and showing “a complete disregard for the role of independent judges in overseeing our adversarial system.”

Sessions’ ongoing assault on judicial impartiality threatens to undermine the ability of judges to make decisions based only on the facts and law in front of them.

In addition, by attacking immigration lawyers, who every day play a vital role in ensuring that noncitizens have a fair day in court, Sessions continues to demonstrate that he has little interest in fairness or justice when it comes to immigrants. Our immigration courts should reflect our American values of fairness, compassion, and due process, rather than a rejection of them.

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https://www.newsweek.com/jeff-sessions-immigration-judges-sympathy-1115512

U.S.

JEFF SESSIONS DEMANDS IMMIGRATION JUDGES SHOW NO SYMPATHY, SAYS IT DOES ‘VIOLENCE TO THE RULE OF LAW

BY

As the Trump administration continued to struggle to reunite hundreds of migrant children separated from their parents resulting from the president’s “zero-tolerance” policy, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told dozens of incoming immigration judges Monday to show no sympathy for those who appear before them in court.

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation,” Sessions said. “Your job is to apply the law—even in tough cases.”

Sessions, the most powerful attorney in the country as head of the Justice Department, was speaking to 44 new immigration judges in Falls Church, Virginia.

He also took aim at lawyers who represent immigrants who were caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, suggesting they try to misconstrue immigration law “like water seeping through an earthen dam.” He told the judges it was their responsibility to “restore the rule of law” to the system.

. . . .
Read the rest of Ramsey’s article at the above link.
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There is a simple term for justice not tempered by mercy, compassion, and sympathy: INJUSTICE. Indeed, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which includes the essential Due Process Clause, was specifically intended to protect the populace against Executive overreach of the kind that England imposed on the Colonies prior to the Revolution. That’s exactly what we’re seeing under Jeff Sessions!
As most Immigration Judges recognize, Session’s overt White Nationalism, racial bias, and absurd claims that he is “restoring the rule of law” (when in fact he is doing the exact opposite) are totally out of control.
It’s time for a “Due Process intervention” by the Article III Courts. Sessions and the DOJ must be stripped of their untenable and unconstitutional control over the Immigration Courts. Appoint a “Special Master” — someone like retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy — to run the Immigration Court System and restore Due Process and fairness until Congress does its job and creates an independent U.S. Immigration court outside the Executive Branch.
The problems aren’t going away under the Trump Administration. And, if the Article III Judiciary doesn’t act it will find itself crushed under thousands of defective removal orders that Sessions is urging the Immigration Judges to turn out without Due Process or the “fair and impartial” adjudication that it guarantees. The Article IIIs can run, but they can’t hide from this Constitutional crisis!
Sessions’s remarks are also an insult to all of the many current and former U.S Immigration Judges who, unlike Jeff Sessions, have been deciding “tough cases” for years, within the law, but with sympathy, understanding, humanity, and compassion which are also essential qualities for fair judging under our Constitutional system that Sessions neither understands nor respects. No wonder his own party judged him unqualified for an Article III judgeship years ago. He hasn’t changed a bit.
PWS
09-17-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. EOIR TARGETS UNACCOMPANIED KIDS FOR DEPORATION RAILROAD!
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
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