Tag: Executive Order

LAW YOU CAN USE: ALL-STAR PROFESSOR LINDSAY MUIR HARRIS TELLS US HOW TO STOP THE TRUMP, SESSIONS, NIELSEN PLAN FOR A “NEW AMERICAN GULAG:” “CONTEMPORARY FAMILY DETENTION AND LEGAL ADVOCACY” — 136 Harvard Latinx Law Review Vol. 21 — “This is our time to act and proudly join the brigade of “dirty immigration lawyers” to ensure protection and due process for the most vulnerable!”

FULL ARTICLE:

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ABSTRACT:

Abstract

This essay explores the contemporary practice of detaining immigrant women and children — the vast majority of whom are fleeing violence in their home countries and seeking protection in the United States — and the response by a diverse coalition of legal advocates. In spite of heroic advocacy, both within and outside the detention centers from the courts to the media to the White House, family detention continues. By charting the evolution of family detention from the time the Obama Administration resurrected the practice in 2014 and responsive advocacy efforts, this essay maps the multiple levels at which sustained advocacy is needed to stem crises in legal representation and ultimately end family detention.

Due to a perfect storm of indigent detainees without a right to appointed counsel, remote detention centers, and under-resourced nonprofits, legal representation within immigration detention centers is scarce. While the Obama Administration largely ended the practice of family detention in 2009, the same administration started detaining immigrant families en masse just five years later. In response to the rise in numbers of child migrants seeking protection in the United States arriving both with and without their parents, and with the purported aim of deterring future flows, the Obama administration reinstituted the policy of detaining families. The Ad- ministration calls these detention centers “family residential centers,” while advocates use the term “baby jail.”

The response from the advocate community was swift and overwhelming. Lawyers and law students from all over the country traveled to the detention centers, in remote areas of New Mexico and later Texas, to meet the urgent need for representation of these asylum-seeking families. This essay calls for continued engagement by attorneys throughout the nation in filling the justice gap and providing representation to these asylum-seeking families and other detained immigrants.

The crisis in representation for detained immigrants is deepening. Given the success of intensive representation at the family detention centers discussed in this article, advocates are beginning to experiment with the same models in other locations. For example, at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, the Southern Poverty Law Center, in conjunction with four other organizations, launched the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative in 2017. This initiative enlists and trains lawyers to provide free legal representation to immigrants detained in the Southeast who are facing deportation proceedings. The American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council have partnered to create the Immigration Justice Campaign, where pro bono attorneys are trained and mentored when providing representation to detained immigrants in typically underserved locations. Given the expansion of the volunteer model of providing legal services to detained immigrants, opportunities will continue to arise for lawyers, law students, and others to engage in crisis lawyering and advocacy. This article provides the background to understand the government’s practice of detaining families, to the extent that it can be understood, and to emphasize a continuing need for legal services for this population.

The introduction explains the population of asylum seekers and the law and procedure governing their arrival, detention, and release into the United States. The essay then traces the evolution of the U.S. government’s most recent experiment in detaining families from the summer of 2014 to present. The next part outlines the access to counsel crisis for immigrant mothers and children in detention and highlights the difference that representation makes. The article concludes with a call to action to attorneys and non-attorney volunteers nationwide to commit and re-commit to providing services to detained immigrant families and individuals.

MY FAVORITE QUOTE:

We are in an era of incredible need for immigration legal services. That need is most acute within detention centers located outside of major metro- politan areas, including within the family detention centers.

Ultimately, neither the Trump nor the Obama administration can claim to have won or be “winning” with the policy of family detention. The vast majority of women and children still receive a positive result during their credible fear interviews, because they are indeed individuals fleeing persecu- tion under the Refugee Convention. It is a poor use of resources, then, to continue to detain this population. Instead, tax-payer dollars, government energy, and resources, should be invested in providing representation and case management for this population to ensure that they appear in court and follow all required procedures to pursue their claims for protection.125 In the current era of intense immigration enforcement, combined with the Trump Administration’s plans to increase detention bed space and Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Session’s clear attacks on asylum-seekers,126 family de- tention is, however, likely here to stay.

In light of this reality, crowdsourcing refugee rights, as Stephen Man- ning articulates, is more important than ever.127 It is heartening to see the expansion of the model of lawyering within immigration detention centers expand to centers in Georgia and Louisiana, where asylum grant rates are dismal, conditions of detention dire, with a historical extreme lack of access to counsel. Lawyers are needed to ensure that individuals can properly ac- cess their due process rights and to help the immigration court system run more smoothly.128

Lawyers, specialized in immigration or not, must arm themselves with the knowledge and tools to join this fight. Just as non-immigration lawyers quickly rose to a call to action in January at the airports,129 lawyers must again rise, and continue rising, to provide representation for families and individuals held in immigration detention. This is our time to act and proudly join the brigade of “dirty immigration lawyers” to ensure protection and due process for the most vulnerable.

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Lindsay is “one of the best.” We were colleagues at Georgetown Law when I was an Adjunct Professor and she held the prestigious “CALS Fellowship” working with  Professors Andy Schoenholtz and Phil Schrag (of “Refugee Roulette fame”). Lindsay was a guest lecturer in my Refugee Law & Policy class, and I have since returned the favor at both George Mason Law and UDC Law where she now teaches with another of my good friends and superstars, Professor Kristina Campbell. Indeed, my friend Judge Dorothy Harbeck and I are “regulars” at their class and are in the process of planning another session this fall.

Lindsay and Kristina “talk the talk and walk the walk.” They appeared before me frequently at the Arlington Immigration Court with their clinical students.  The have also gone “on site” at some of the worst immigration detention facilities in the country to help refugees in need.

In a truly unbiased, merit-based, independent, Immigration Court system (of the future) they would be ideal judges at either the trial or appellate level. They possess exactly the types of amazing scholarship, expertise and “hands on” experience representing actual individual clients before our Immigration Courts that is sorely lacking in, and in my view has largely been systematically banished from, the 21st Century immigration judiciary, to the detriment of our Immigration Courts, Due Process, and the entire American justice system. That’s one reason why our Immigration Courts are functioning so poorly in basic areas like efficiency, deliberation, quality control, and fundamental fairness!

Some important “take aways” from this article:

  • Contrary to Administration propaganda and false narratives, most of the recent arrivals who have lawyers are found to have credible claims for protection under our laws.
  • Similarly, if given fair access to competent counsel and time to prepare and present their claims in a non-coercive setting to a truly unbiased decision-maker, I believe that majority would be granted asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).
  • This is the truth that Trump, Sessions, & Company don’t want revealed: most of the folks we are so cavalierly mistreating are, in fact, legitimate refugees, even under current legal rulings that have been intentionally and unfairly skewed against asylum applicants from Central America for years!
  • Even those who don’t currently fit the arcane legal categories for protection probably have a legitimate fear of harm or death upon return. They certainly are entitled to fully present and litigate their claims before being returned to life-threatening situations.
  • Finally, a better country, with better, wiser, more humane leaders, would devise ways of offering these individuals fleeing the Northern Triangle at least temporary protection, either here or in another stable country in this hemisphere, while doing something constructive to address the severe, festering, chronic human rights problems in the Northern Triangle that are sending us these refugees.
  • The “enforcement only” approach has failed over and over in the past and will continue to do so until we get better political leadership in the future.
  • In the meantime, join Lindsay, Kristina, and the other “Charter Members of the New Due Process Army” in resisting the evil, immoral, and illegal policies of the Trump Administration.
  • Due Process Forever! Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

06-02-18

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  2. 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”
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  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?” 

“DUH” OF THE DAY: Official Policies Of Child Abuse, The “New American Gulag,” & Routinely Denying Constitutional Due Process Fail To Stem Refugee Tide On Southern Border!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/illegal-border-crossings-remained-high-in-may-despite-trumps-crackdown/2018/06/01/aab543ae-65a9-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.3943d1d60e43

Nick Miroff reports for WashPost:

The number of migrants attempting to cross illegally into the United States remained high last month, according to administration officials and Border Patrol agents, an early indication that “zero tolerance” measures separating parents from their children and President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops have not had an immediate deterrent effect.

The Department of Homeland Security is expected to publish its closely watched monthly arrest totals in coming days, and Trump administration officials are bracing for a new eruption from the president. He has treated the statistics as a gauge for the success of his hard-line immigration policies, and when border arrests fell to historic lows in the months after his inauguration last year, Trump touted the decrease as a personal triumph.

Since then, migration trends have reversed. In March and again in April, border arrests exceeded 50,000, the highest monthly totals of Trump’s presidency, sending him into fits of rage, aides say. Trump unloaded on DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen during a Cabinet meeting May 9, scorching her for nearly 30 minutes over the spike in illegal crossings, while demanding she “close” the border.

The Trump administration is preparing to renew its push for an $18 billion border wall plan that would also tighten asylum procedures and overhaul other laws Trump officials say are encouraging illegal behavior. Trump has threatened to shut down the government this fall if Democrats don’t provide the funds.

But with midterm elections approaching and the president preparing to campaign on his border crackdown, Nielsen and other Homeland Security officials do not appear to be satisfying his strict enforcement targets. May’s arrest totals are expected to be at least as high as the previous two months, administration officials and Border Patrol agents said.

Large groups of Central American migrants have been taken into custody in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas in recent weeks, according to Border Patrol agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss operations. During one 24-hour span last month, 434 migrants were processed at the Border Patrol station in McAllen, agents said.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and President Trump have had a contentious relationship as illegal border crossings increase. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

“The numbers have been very high,” said one agent assigned to the Rio Grande Valley, the nation’s busiest corridor for illegal migration. “It’s to the point that we have had to bring in buses to come out and load these folks up, or send four of five vans at a time.”

 

 

Another agent said so many migrants were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley last month that many were diverted to other sections of the border for processing. The Justice Department has reassigned additional prosecutors to the border region to increase the number of migrants it charges with federal crimes, but one veteran border agent said it was “too early to tell” if the tougher enforcement measures were giving pause to migrants thinking of making the journey from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

“It’s going to take longer for the message to get back to those countries,” the agent said.

On Friday, Homeland Security officials would not say whether the tougher enforcement measures were meeting their goals. They said the May border arrest totals were not ready for publication, and they would not confirm whether the figures have been sent to the White House.

“The bottom line is Congress needs to act and close loopholes that serve as a tremendous pull factor for illegal immigration,” said Tyler Houlton, a DHS spokesman. “The Trump administration is restoring the rule of law by increasing prosecutions of illegal border crossers.”

According to a Trump adviser, the president was warned this spring that illegal border crossings were likely to increase. Trump said at the time he would not be satisfied with any such surge and everything needed to be done to block it. That led to the decision to deploy the National Guard.

The number of illegal border crossings “is going to go higher and higher yet,” said the adviser. “You’re going to see a line that goes up all summer long.”

Trump has not been briefed on the May arrest numbers yet, two advisers said.

In a statement late Friday, Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller blamed Democrats for blocking the president’s immigration overhaul.

“The illegal migrant crisis is the exclusive product of Democrats’ shameless refusal to close catch-and-release loopholes that cartels exploit to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States at great cost in taxpayer dollars, jobs and, too often, lives,” Miller said.

Weak border enforcement remains the biggest incentive to illegal migration, according to Miller. “We must end catch-and-release by reforming our asylum laws, and establishing expedited removal, to stop the smuggling and defend the nation,” he said.

As in recent years, many of those taken into custody last month were teenagers or parents traveling with children, and the administration has triggered broad condemnation for separating more families with its push to prosecute anyone who crosses illegally.

More than 10,800 migrant children were in federal custody as of May 31, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, up 21 percent since the end of April. The agency’s shelters are 95 percent full, and HHS officials say they are preparing to add thousands of additional beds to cope with the increase.

A Border Patrol agent in South Texas said the family separation measures were not being applied as broadly as assumed. Some parents who face federal charges are apart from their children for only several hours, then released and assigned a court date, the agent said.

“To us, that’s still ‘catch-and-
release,’ ” the agent said. “People are going to continue to come.”

Arrests along the Mexican border peaked at more than 1.6 million in 2000, then fell sharply during the Obama administration. During the government’s past fiscal year that ended in September, U.S. agents made 303,916 arrests, the lowest total since 1971.

Trump’s fixation is driven, in part, by a view that border security is paramount to his most fervent supporters and that immigration is a winning issue for Republican candidates in November’s congressional elections.

“I’m very proud to say that we’re way down in the people coming across the border,” Trump said in January. “We have fewer people trying to come across, because they know it’s not going to happen.”

The arrest numbers began shooting upward soon after that, from 36,682 in February to 50,296 in March. The yearly total for 2018 is on pace to approach or exceed 400,000, a level more consistent with migration patterns of the past five years, DHS statistics show.

[Trump ‘zero tolerance’ at the border is causing child shelters to fill up fast]

During a visit Thursday to the Nogales border crossing in southern Arizona, Nielsen called the increase in illegal migration a crisis and said Homeland Security officials were working to “end this lawlessness.”

The country’s borders are being violated “by criminals, by smugglers and by thousands of people who have absolutely no respect for our laws,” she said.

“This is changing, it will change, and we will do all that we can to change this,” Nielsen added, emphasizing that the “zero-tolerance” approach announced in April will be applied as aggressively as possible.

“If you come here illegally, whether you’re single, whether you have a family, whether you’re a smuggler or whether you’re a trafficker, you’ve broken the law, so we’re prosecuting,” she said.

On Friday, Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding information on the administration’s enforcement efforts, including the number of children who have been separated from their parents and whether there are formal procedures to reunite them.

Border arrests typically rise during spring months, when seasonal labor demands increase. Farms across the Midwest are becoming desperate for workers, with the U.S. unemployment rate at the lowest level since 2000. Lawmakers from both parties have told Nielsen that worker shortages are squeezing an array of industries in their states, and the DHS said last week that it will issue 15,000 seasonal guest-worker visas.

But border agents said much of the increase this spring seems to be driven by the same groups — families and teenagers traveling alone — who have been straining Homeland Security capacity since the 2014 crisis that left Border Patrol stations overflowing.

Photos of recent mass arrests provided by one agent show migrants of all ages walking through willow groves along the Rio Grande or lined up in federal custody along the river levees, waiting to board government buses.

Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.

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No surprises here. “Toldja so” back when Trump unwisely declared “Victory at Sea” after a few months of reduced border apprehensions. Since Trump is proudly ignorant of history, he apparently didn’t study what happened to Bushie II after he declared “Victory in Iraq” or his “Heck of Job, Brownie” moment. Nor does he have any idea of the actual dynamics driving human migration. That’s the problem with policies driven by racism, bias, xenophobia, and White Nationalism.

Also, trying to rewrite the Constitution and international protection law, as Trump, Sessions, Miller, Cotton, and the rest of the White Nationalist Gang would dearly like to do, to deny established legal rights won’t work either. In fact, it would make things 10X worse.

The laws aren’t the problem!  The problem is the people charged with implementing them.

We can diminish ourselves as a nation, (and in fact, we are diminishing under Trump) but it won’t stop human migration!

 

PWS

06-02-18

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  2. 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!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories

A DESPERATE CRY FOR HELP FROM DEEP WITHIN OUR BROKEN U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM: “Yesterday as I left court after an individual hearing for a 237(a)(1)(H) waiver, my client told me she felt like she was not a human being because of the way she was treated during the trial.” – JOIN THE “NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY” & STOP THE DEHUMANIZATION OF INDIVIDUALS SEEKING DUE PROCESS!

Here’s what a practicing immigration attorney has to say about what’s really happening in our broken U.S. Immigration Court system:

I was at the FBA conference in Denver and your keynote speech made me feel like someone actually understands the tragedies that are unfolding in our immigration court system, and is trying to do something about it. Each time I go into court I try to look at the system with new eyes and refreshed hope that today’s trial will be different. Each time I leave court I am reminded of how blatantly biased the judges can be, how the government attorneys are given special treatment, how our clients are badgered and treated inhumanely, and how the “dirty immigration lawyers” such as myself are treated with disdain. I know that I will be ok, but worry to the point of losing sleep over how my clients are treated. Yesterday as I left court after an individual hearing for a 237(a)(1)(H) waiver, my client told me she felt like she was not a human being because of the way she was treated during the trial. I consider myself a part of the due process army and want to know what else I can do to advocate for serious changes, including a complete overhaul, of the EOIR system. I thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Here’s my response:

You can:
1) Take cases to the Article III Courts. They still have no idea of how Due Process is being mocked every day in the Immigration Courts. They need to be forced to accept responsibility for this travesty which they have the power to end.
2) Make a record of how the IJs are ignoring facts of record and applicable law because they have prejudged cases.
3) Get out the vote for candidates who put Dreamer relief, an independent  Immigration Court, and an end to unnecessary and expensive immigration detention at the top of their legislative “to do” list. (Something that the Dems conspicuously failed to do when Obama was elected in 2008).
4) Actively support candidates for state and local office who are pledged to resist the divisive and racially motivated immigration policies of this Administration to the extent possible under the law.
5) Support efforts for universal representation.

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It’s both telling and disturbing that most of us who understand the system’s failings and are committed to fixing them are now outside the system — where our voices actually can be heard, our views are taken seriously, and the truth about the national disgrace taking place in our U.S. Immigration Courts under Trump & Sessions can be spoken. 

Yes, there are many conscientious, courageous, and hard-working Immigration Judges still in the system. But, they have been “muzzled, degraded, and disrespected.” Instead, those Immigration Judges who are biased against respondents, particularly asylum seekers, willing to cut corners, and oblivious to what Constitutional Due Process actually means for individuals are being empowered and encouraged by Sessions.

How is it fair or reasonable to have a so-called “court system” where conscientious attorneys like this are “losing sleep” over the unfair, degrading, and dehumanizing treatment that they are receiving at the hands of supposed Federal Judges in what purports to be a Federal Court system? Totally outrageous!

Attorneys — particularly those appearing pro bono and “low bono” — are the undisputed heroes of this system, the only ones standing between the Immigration Courts and unimaginable chaos and injustice at the hands of Jeff Sessions. Indeed, notwithstanding this reprehensible mistreatment, private attorneys are leading the battle for true judicial independence in the Immigration Courts over the objections of the DOJ and EOIR. What does that tell you about this system?

A “real” Attorney General, who took his oath of office seriously, would slow down this entire farce and direct retraining of every judge in the system in what “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all,” carrying out the generous standards for asylum seekers set forth by the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca, the BIA in Mogharrabi, and actually reflected in the current regulations really mean in practice!

If Due Process, asylum law, withholding law, and the CAT were properly and fairly applied, the vast majority of applicants and recent arrivals could be competently represented and granted some type of protection either by the DHS or in “short block” Immigration Court hearings. That would both fulfill the law and help reduce the backlog pressure on Immigration Courts, as well as reducing the number of needless petitions for review being filed in the Courts of Appeals to correct basic errors committed by the BIA and the Immigration Courts!

Instead, we are stuck with a “scofflaw” Attorney General who intends to establish and reinforce “worst practices.” It will take a concerted effort on the part of the New Due Process Army to halt the Trump Administration’s attack on human decency and our constitutional rights in the Immigration Court system!

Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

05-31-18

Related posts:

  1. NY TIMES: Trump Mocks & Dehumanizes Vulnerable Refugees & His Administration Claims It’s OK To Return Them to Honduras; BUT The Facts Say The Opposite: Honduras Is An Armed Conflict Zone Where Gangs Exercise Quasi-Governmental Control & Those Who Resist Are Severely Punished, Often Maimed, Tortured Or Killed!
  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. 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’”
  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! 

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: “Cruelty and unconstitutionality: the platform of today’s Republican Party.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-inhumanity-at-the-border-reveals-their-grand-scam/2018/05/28/b3b18d9c-62b0-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.38485dbb9b85

Republicans’ inhumanity at the border reveals their grand scam

By Catherine Rampell

Since October, more than 700 minor children have been separated from their parents at the border. More than 100 have been under 4 years old.

Some, like an 18-month-old Honduran boy torn from his mother in February, are just toddlers.

“The immigration officers made me walk out with my son to a government vehicle and place my son in a car seat in the vehicle. My son was crying as I put him in the seat,” the boy’s mother said in a sworn statement. “I did not even have a chance to try to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat. I was crying, too. I cry even now when I think about that moment when the border officers took my son away.”

This mom was not trying to “sneak across” the border, by the way. She had crossed an international bridge into Brownsville, Tex., and presented herself to immigration authorities to request asylum from political violence.

Instead of receiving refuge, she lost her child. It was months before they were reunited.

Such stories are enraging and shameful. They also put the lie to sacred principles that Republican politicians have long claimed to stand for, chiefly: family values and rule of law.

For decades, Republicans have championed traditional family values and having parents, rather than the state, take responsibility for their children.

This Republican administration’s inhumane treatment of helpless children — who are ripped from their mothers’ arms, detained in human warehouses and drop-kicked into “foster care or whatever” — reveals such rhetoric to have been a scam.

The Trump administration’s goal is to inflict pain upon these families. Cruelty is not an unfortunate, unintended consequence of White House immigration policy; it is the objective.

After all, if forced separations are sufficiently agonizing, fewer families will try to come here, no matter how dangerous their home countries are. Administration members have argued as much.

Last year, then-Homeland Security secretary John F. Kelly acknowledged he was considering separating children from their parents at the border “to deter” potential border-crossers. Again this month, he said “a big name of the game is deterrence.”

This vile and unpopular policy has been roundly condemned, including by prominent conservatives. So President Trump did what he always does when facing backlash for using children (remember the “dreamers” and children’s health insurance?) as a bargaining chip: Blame the Dems.

“Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.,” Trump tweeted Saturday.

Got that? Our law-and-order-obsessed president is merely enforcing an evil Democratic law!

There is, however, no statute — supported by Democrats or otherwise — that requires immigrant families to be torn apart.

The most cogent possible point Trump could have been making is one that other Republicans have made: that crossing the border unlawfully is a crime. If you prosecute every border crossing criminally — as Trump’s administration says it now does, even for asylum seekers — that means parents will go to jail.

And as Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen put it, when parents go to jail, whether for unlawful entry or another crime, that requires separating them from their children.

Which is true, to a point; prisons generally can’t house children.

But here’s the part Trump apologists neglect to mention: The government is keeping immigrant families forcibly separated even after criminal proceedings are over and the parents get released from jail.

Take the case of a Brazilian family that also crossed the border to seek asylum.

The mother, named in court documents as “Ms. C.,” was prosecuted for entering the country illegally in August 2017, a misdemeanor for which she spent 25 days in jail. Her 14-year-old son was sent to a facility in Chicago.

After she was released, she passed a “credible fear interview” and began the process of applying for asylum. She was sent first to an immigration detention center, then released to a nonprofit shelter in El Paso. This shelter is willing to take in her son.

But the government still refuses to release him. She has been out of detention for five weeks and still hasn’t been allowed to see her boy.

“What they’re really basically saying is that these people don’t have a due-process right to remain with their child,” says American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt, who is representing Ms. C. and other asylum-seeking immigrants challenging Trump’s family separation policy. The Constitution, of course, guarantees due process for all, regardless of immigration status.

Cruelty and unconstitutionality: the platform of today’s Republican Party.

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Yup.

PWS

05-30-18

 

 

Related posts:

  1. CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: Trump & His GOP’s Cowardly “War On Children” Should Outrage Every American! — Join The “New Due Process Army” & Fight To Save Humanity!
  2. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”
  3. KAREN TUMULTY @ WASHPOST: Trump Is The Ugliest American – Amazingly, He Keeps Getting Uglier!
  4. 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!

GONZO’S WORLD: Ann Telnaes: Where Cruelty, Immorality, & Intellectual Dishonesty Rule!

Opinions

The evil of separating children from their parents

By Ann Telnaes May 29 at 6:13 PM

Just because Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that every illegal immigrant crossing the border would be prosecuted (resulting in parents being separated from their children), that doesn’t mean it’s morally defensible.

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Yup! Captures the essence of the man.

 

PWS

05-30-18

Related posts:

  1. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  2. EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST ADMINISTRATION DEHUMANIZES MIGRANTS OF COLOR — “All of this is happening because Trump has no respect for law or due process and no sense of empathy. He was reportedly upset this spring by a rise in border crossings by asylum-seekers, who by law had to be allowed to stay pending resolution of their claims. He and Sessions seized upon the pretext — for which they have not provided evidence — that children were being “trafficked” into the country for some reason.”
  3. KAREN TUMULTY @ WASHPOST: Trump Is The Ugliest American – Amazingly, He Keeps Getting Uglier!
  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?” 

HON. JEFFREY CHASE: MORE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF POLITICIZED HIRING AND UNNECESSARY DELAYS UNDER SESSIONS AS EOIR APPEARS TO JOIN TRUMP’S “WAR ON THE CAREER CIVIL SERVICE” BY ATTACKING THE CAREER PROMOTION SYSTEM FOR BIA ATTORNEY ADVISORS!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/5/27/eoirs-hiring-practices-raise-concerns

EOIR’s Hiring Practices Raise Concerns

In response to a whistleblower’s letter from within EOIR, ranking Senate Democrats have requested an investigation into improper political influence in EOIR’s hiring criteria for immigration judges and members of the Board of Immigration Appeals.  https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/news/press-releases/top-dems-request-inspector-general-investigation-allegations-illegal-hiring.  Following up on an April 17 letter to Attorney General Sessions, the Democratic leaders on May 8 stated that in subsequent weeks, more whistleblowers have come forward to corroborate the delaying or withdrawal of IJ appointments to candidates whose political views are not believed to align with those of the present administration.

There seems to be little if any doubt among EOIR employees that this is in fact happening.  The resulting slowdown in IJ hiring is further exacerbating the huge backlog of cases plaguing the immigration courts.  There are presently no judges sitting in the Louisville, Kentucky immigration court; other courts are simply understaffed.  In what my friend and fellow blogger Hon. Paul W. Schmidt has termed “ADR” (Aimless Docket Reshuffling), sitting IJs are being detailed to hear cases in courts with vacancies, forcing the continuance of cases on their own dockets, some of which have been waiting two or more years for their day in court.

It was just under 10 years ago that a 140 page report of the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General found similar wrongdoing in the hiring of IJs under the Bush administration.  https://oig.justice.gov/special/s0807/final.pdf That report noted at p.135 that “both Department policy and federal law prohibit discrimination in hiring for career positions on the basis of political affiliations.”  That investigation found that such policy and law had been violated, and included recommendations to prevent a future recurrence of such improper conduct. Then as now, the slowdown in IJ hiring caused by the improper political screening of candidates compromised EOIR’s mission (in the words of the agency’s Director at the time, at p.96), and contributed to the growing case backlog.

In another employment-related development that has drawn little public notice, the Department of Justice on May 17 posted a hiring ad for 38 vacant staff attorney positions at the BIA.  The twist is that for the first time, the positions were advertised as being entry level grade positions with no potential for promotion.

EOIR Director James McHenry had hinted since his appointment that he believed BIA attorney positions should be downgraded.  There is something disingenuous about such statement. I can think of at least three immigration judges who were appointed to the bench directly from their positions as non-supervisory BIA staff attorneys.  Two of the four temporary BIA Board Members at present are long-term BIA staff attorneys. The present BIA chairperson, David Neal, previously served as a Board staff attorney for 5 years, a position that apparently qualified him to directly become chief counsel to the Senate Immigration Subcommittee.  Nearly all of the BIA’s decisions, including those that are published as precedent binding on the agency and DHS, are drafted by its staff attorneys. Some of those attorneys have accumulated significant expertise in complex areas of immigration law. A number of Board staff attorneys have participated as speakers at the immigration judge training conferences.

The question thus becomes: how are experienced attorneys who are deemed qualified to move directly into immigration judge and BIA Board Member positions, to craft precedent decisions and to train immigration judges only deemed to be entry level, non-career path employees?

There has been much attention paid to the nearly 700,000 cases pending before the nation’s immigration courts.  As the agency moves to hire more judges and limit continuances, and recently had its power to administrative close cases revoked by the AG, the number and pace of cases appealed to the BIA will speed up significantly.  It would seem like a good time for the BIA to be staffed with knowledgeable and experienced staff attorneys. Instead, the agency’s move essentially turns new BIA attorney hires into short-term law clerks.  New attorneys undergo a full year of legal training to bring them up to speed to handle the high volume and variety of complex legal issues arising on appeal. However, attorneys are unlikely to remain in such positions for much more than a year without the possibility of promotion.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

 

 

 

JEFF CHASE
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Jeffrey S. Chase is an immigration lawyer in New York City.  Jeffrey is a former Immigration Judge, senior legal advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals, and volunteer staff attorney at Human Rights First.  He is a past recipient of AILA’s annual Pro Bono Award, and previously chaired AILA’s Asylum Reform Task Force.

As an Attorney-Manager and Government Senior Executive, I always had high expectations for the professionals working for me, which they achieved in the vast, vast majority of cases. My experience told me that everyone had their strengths and weaknesses and that it was the job of a good manager to find ways for everyone to succeed whenever possible.
If I do say so myself, I believe that I was good at finding the right “sweet spots” for folks to “be the best that they can be.” And, I’ll freely acknowledge getting some of my ideas from watching the late “Legacy INS” General Counsel Mike Inman operate. Whatever else one might think or say about “Iron Mike,” he did have an “eye for talent.” He also could take people who seemed to be “bouncing along” in their careers and position them to be outsized contributors and “superstars,” in his lingo.

At the same time, I saw the importance of insuring that folks working for me had the maximum number of career advancement opportunities and a fair chance to be recognized and move up the “career ladder.” Indeed, former EOIR Director Anthony “Tony” Moscato and I finished the work begun by my predecessor as BIA Chair, the late Judge David Milhollan and his then “Chief Attorney Advisor” now retired BIA Appellate Immigration Judge David B. Holmes in creating a career ladder where all qualified BIA Attorney Advisers could eventually reach the full DOJ career level for attorneys of GS-15.

Additionally, with the support of Tony and then Attorney General Janet Reno, I created various supervisory and leadership positions for senior Attorney Advisors that allowed them to assist in the management of the BIA staff while preparing themselves for other senior-level careers both at EOIR and elsewhere. Indeed a significant number of todays Appellate Immigration Judges, Immigration Judges, and senior EOIR managers, and managers in other divisions of the DOJ  got their start in management at the BIA.
Disappointingly, under Sessions, EOIR appears to have joined the fight against the career civil service by “dumbing down” in various ways both the Immigration Judge and BIA Attorney Advisor position by making them less attractive to those seeking a career in public service.
I recently was discussing the politicized hiring process with a retired colleague who had worked elsewhere in the DOJ but had knowledge of both the past and current problems at EOIR. She said “It’s happening again, Paul. Just wait till it all comes out — ‘you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!'”
It’s time for EOIR to be removed from the DOJ and its politicized policies and practices! In this instance, “past performance predicts future results!” And, that’s not a good thing!
PWS
05-28-18

Related posts:

  1. HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: The History Of A Flawed Judiciary; The Intentional Tilting Of Asylum Law Against Asylum Seekers; The Farce Of Justice In The Immigration Courts; The Need For An Independent Article I Court!
  2. NEW EOIR MEMO ENCOURAGES IMMIGRATION JUDGES TO DUMP ON UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN (“UACS”) – “When In Doubt, Kick ‘em Out” New Motto Of Gonzo’s “Captive Courts!” — We’ve Come A Long Way From “Guaranteeing Fairness And Due Process For All” In A Short Time!
  3. DAG ROSENSTEIN INADVERTENTLY MAKES COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT IN SPEECH TO NEW JUDGES — Places Emphasis On Executive, Fealty To Attorney General, Not Independence. Impartiality, & Insuring Due Process! — REAL “Courts” Don’t Answer to Prosecutors!
  4. TRUTH MATTERS: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: AILA Blasts EOIR’s False & Unethical Anti-Asylum Screed! — “Together, the document’s deceptive information and polarizing rhetoric further undermines the court system’s ability to be a neutral arbiter of justice and comes at a time when there is a severe lack of public confidence in its capacity to deliver fair and timely decisions. EOIR’s skewed portrayal only demonstrates the urgent need for Congress to create an independent court, separate from DOJ.”

MASHA GESSEN IN THE NEW YORKER: THE GREAT MORAL DILEMMA OF THE TRUMP ERA: Total Resistance Or “Damage Control?” — “In our case, stepping outside the lie means refusing—stubbornly, consistently, incrementally—to lend credence to the opposite of politics, the opposite of diplomacy, and the opposite of sanity. That would require thinking, reading, and speaking critically: not treating an outburst as though it were politics, a tantrum as though it were diplomacy, and a delusion as though it were aspiration.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/in-the-trump-era-we-are-losing-the-ability-to-distinguish-reality-from-vacuum

Gessen writes:

The Trump Presidency is an age of unanswerable questions and lose-lose propositions. How is one to maintain sanity, decency, and a measure of moral courage? In a pair of thoughtful essays in Slate, Dahlia Lithwick tackles the problems of dealing with the everyday nature of our current political disaster and of deciding on the best way to try to save the country from Donald Trump: by staying close to him, or by walking away. The latter is a question for members of the Administration and for congressional Republicans. “This is the time,” Lithwick writes, to “think about what combination of exit and voice can make a meaningful difference if a real crisis were to happen. Or rather, when the real crisis happens—if we are not there already.”

This is not a new question. Many people will continue posing it to themselves and others with ever more frustrating results, because it cannot be answered. Is the possibility of moderating the damage done by this Administration worth sacrificing one’s moral principles? Should one protect one’s individual integrity by sacrificing the chance to moderate damage done by this Administration? We can’t possibly know. We don’t have the information necessary to evaluate these options in the short term. Did H. R. McMaster, during his tenure as Trump’s national-security adviser, prevent an unknown number of disasters? If he did, was it worth whatever psychic and intellectual price he paid? It’s likely that he himself doesn’t know. For those who have so far decided to stay, whether in the Administration or in the Republican Party, small daily sacrifices of personal integrity become part of their sunk cost in the project of staying in; these people inevitably grow more committed and less critical. The landscape keeps shifting, the stakes keep changing, and the crises keep mounting.

The overstimulation of the age of Trump, meanwhile, makes us lose track of time and whatever small sense humans normally have of themselves in history. We forget what happened a month ago. If we look away for a day, we miss news that seems momentous to others—only to be forgotten, too, in a week. Living in a shared reality with our fellow-citizens is an endless triathlon of reading, talking, and panicking. It creates the worst possible frame of mind for answering vexing moral questions, especially ones that require a choice between two desperately unsatisfying options.

Thinking morally about the Trump era requires a different temporal frame. It requires a look at the present through the prism of the future. There will come a time after Trump, and we need to consider how we will enter it. What are we going to take with us into that time—what kind of politics, language, and culture? How will we recover from years of policy (if you can call it that) being made by tweet? How will we reclaim simple and essential words? Most important, how will we restart a political conversation? Political discourse was in crisis before Trump—no wonder Americans of all stripes have become accustomed to using the words “politics” and “political” to denote substance-free transactions in the electoral arena. But, under Trump, it is nearing complete destruction.

Consider the last month’s worth of conversation about Trump and North Korea. Forgetting the President’s “little rocket man” remarks and building on months of denial that Trump had brought the world as close to the brink of nuclear annihilation as it has ever been, politicians, bureaucrats, policy wonks, and journalists have been speaking as though Trump were engaged in actual negotiations with Kim Jong Un. Some deliriously joined him in contemplating the prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize. The voices of a few experts who dared say that nothing had been accomplished yet and expressed doubt that the summit would actually occur were quickly drowned out. The ritual of analysis and anticipation that normally accrues to diplomacy was accruing instead to Trump’s flailing gestures, in the same way that the normal rituals of punditry have accrued to Trump’s tweets, harangues, and inconsistencies, all of which are the opposite of politics. On Friday, the Times’ morning podcast, “The Daily,” offered up a thoughtful analysis of Trump’s summit-cancelling missive, which was written in the language of a sulking, lovelorn seventh grader. But no sooner was the podcast posted than Trump told the media that he might hold the summit after all.

We are losing the habit, and perhaps the capability, of distinguishing reality from vacuum. This is disorienting in the present and disastrous for the future—it is the one factor that will make post-Trumpian recovery, when it comes, so difficult. We must pose a bigger question than whether Administration members or congressional Republicans should stay or go, for it’s not only Trump’s appointees or fellow party members who are implicated in the daily insults and damage to our perceptions. We should be asking what each one of us can do to assert a fact-based reality at any given time. The great French thinker and activist Simone Weil had a prescription that she wrote down in her journal in 1933: “Never react to an evil in such a way as to augment it.” A few days later, she added, “Refuse to be an accomplice. Don’t lie—don’t keep your eyes shut.”

Throughout the twentieth century, writers and thinkers who faced reality-destroying regimes kept producing similar recipes. “Live not by lies,” the Russian dissident novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote. The Czech dissident playwright and future President Václav Havel pondered the predicament of living, unquestioningly, “inside the lie”—and the uncanny power of stepping outside of it. In our case, stepping outside the lie means refusing—stubbornly, consistently, incrementally—to lend credence to the opposite of politics, the opposite of diplomacy, and the opposite of sanity. That would require thinking, reading, and speaking critically: not treating an outburst as though it were politics, a tantrum as though it were diplomacy, and a delusion as though it were aspiration. The good news is that this is not an entirely impossible task.

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Any individual with a sense of morality, decency, values, and a commitment to fundamental fairness, and Constitutional Due Process can’t afford to “sit this one out.” Don’t “normalize” Trump and his vile lies, bullying, mysoginy, and racism! Join the “New Due Process Army” and stand up for the REAL America (never to be confused with the scary and bogus “MAGA Pervision”)!

PWS

05-27-18

Related posts:

  1. 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!
  2. 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!
  3. 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!
  4. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!

LA TIMES: JUDICIAL BURNOUT: Unjust Failed Laws That Congress Ignores; Morally Corrosive Policies Of The Obama & Trump Administrations; & An Overwhelming Workload Combine to Demoralize Even Article III Judges! — “I have presided over a process that destroys families!”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=9f85955b-8f63-4c72-a322-e89f2d83b70b

Lauren Villagran reports for the

‘I have presided over a process that destroys families’

Judge can’t reconcile values and the law

Crackdown on illegal immigration takes its toll on a federal judge with an unparalleled sentencing record.

By Lauren Villagran

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Day in, day out, immigrants shuffle into Judge Robert Brack’s courtroom, shackled at the wrist and ankle, to be sentenced for the crime of crossing the border.

The judge hands down sentences with a heavy heart. Since he joined the federal bench in 2003, Brack has sentenced some 15,000 defendants, the vast majority of them immigrants with little or no criminal record.

“See, I have presided over a process that destroys families for a long time, and I am weary of it,” said Brack one day in his chambers in Las Cruces. “And I think we as a country are better than this.”

Brack’s court in rural southern New Mexico is swollen with immigration cases, the migrants brought to his courtroom by the dozen. They exchange guilty pleas for “time served” sentences, usually not more than two months on the first or second offense. They leave his court as felons.

For years, federal authorities in this area along the New Mexico border have taken a distinctively hard-line approach to enforcing immigration law, pursuing criminal charges rather than handling cases administratively.

Essentially, authorities here have already been carrying out the “zero tolerance” policy Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions unveiled in April, when he announced that all immigrants who cross the border will be charged with a crime.

Together, the Border Patrol and U.S. attorney’s office in New Mexico bring charges against nearly every eligible adult migrant apprehended at the state’s border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That amounted to 4,190 prosecutions last fiscal year.

Vigorous enforcement in New Mexico is a result of ample bed space in the state’s border county jails and a fast-track system that prosecutes nonviolent migrants quickly. The state also doesn’t face the volume of illegal crossings that south Texas does, for example.

“It is an efficient process,” says U.S. Atty. John Anderson of the District of New Mexico. “That is one of the key features that allows us to implement 100% prosecutions.”

For Judge Brack, it’s a punishing routine. And it has been building for a long time. Back in 2010, the judge had been on the federal bench for seven years, his docket overloaded with immigration cases, when “at some point I just snapped,” he said.

He sat down to compose a letter to President Obama to call for a more compassionate approach to immigration, one that would keep families together and acknowledge that the demands of the labor market drive immigration:

I write today because my experience of the immigration issue, in some 8,500 cases, is consistently at odds with what the media reports and, therefore, what many believe.

I have learned why people come, how and when they come, and what their expectations are. The people that I see are, for the most part, hardworking, gentle, uneducated and completely lacking in criminal history. Just simple people looking for work.

He didn’t get a reply.

No other federal criminal court judge comes near Brack’s sentencing record.

In the five years through 2017, Brack ranked first among 680 judges nationwide for his caseload, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks court data. He sentenced 6,858 offenders — 5,823 of them for felony immigration violations.

It’s a dubious honor for a man who is a devout Catholic and makes plain his moral dilemma in public hearings. He takes seriously his oath to uphold the laws of the United States. But he is a cog in a system he believes is unjust.

Johana Bencomo, director of organizing with the Las Cruces immigrant advocacy group Comunidades en Acción y Fe — Communities in Action and Faith — calls criminal prosecution of migrants “dehumanizing.”

“We’re just this rural community with some of the highest prosecution rates,” she said. “That is Brack’s legacy, no matter how you spin it.”

Advocates of stronger immigration enforcement counter that prosecutions are a crucial element of border security and have contributed to today’s historically low rates of illegal immigration.

“Criminal charges turn out to be one of the most effective tools for dissuading people from trying [to cross] again,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for tougher border enforcement.

The effects of this enforcement play out at the five-story, copper-colored federal building in Las Cruces, about 47 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Brack’s chambers are on the top floor.

In windowless cellblocks on the bottom floor, migrants from Mexico, Central America and Brazil wait to make their initial appearance in a federal magistrate courtroom.

The same scene repeats again and again: The immigrants crowd five broad benches, the juror’s box and the swivel chairs meant for attorneys. They wear the jumpsuits of the four county jails where they are being held: a sea of orange, navy, dark green, fluorescent yellow.

They hear their rights and the charges against them. They eventually plead guilty, to benefit from New Mexico’s fast-track process. Within a month or so, they will find themselves in Brack’s court for sentencing and within days they’ll be deported.

The border used to be wide open, but now it is closed, Brack tells each migrant at sentencing. There are more Border Patrol agents than you can count. Immigration used to be handled as a civil offense, but now it is criminal: a misdemeanor on the first attempt, a felony on the second.

“Everyone gets caught and what’s worse, everyone goes to jail,” he told one migrant, a Mexican woman named Elizabeth Jimenez Rios. “That is not how it has always been, but that is how it is now.”

Their fate is sealed, but Brack still asks the public defenders to tell each migrant’s story.

Elías Beltran, an oil field worker from Mexico, with no criminal history, tried to return to his wife and two kids, U.S. citizens in eastern New Mexico. He lived there for 15 years before he was deported.

Andres Badolla Juarez, a farmworker from Mexico, wanted to pick strawberries in California to support his wife, toddler and new baby — all U.S. citizens — in Arizona. He lived in the U.S. for 16 years and got deported after an aggravated DUI. It was his fourth failed attempt to cross the border.

Rosario Bencomo Marquez, a 52-year-old maid from Mexico, with no criminal history, hoped to return to her daughter and grandchildren in Santa Fe. She lived in the U.S. for 19 years before she was deported.

Brack also sees migrants charged with drug offenses or long criminal records and is unsparing in their punishment. But they are a minority, he said.

“I get asked the question, ‘How do you continue to do this all day every day?’ I recognize the possibility that you could get hard-edged, you could get calloused, doing what I do,” he said. “I don’t. Every day it’s fresh. I can’t look a father and a husband in the eye and not feel empathy.”

Brack, 65, is the son of a railroad-worker father and homemaker mother and earned a law degree at the University of New Mexico. He served as a state judge before being named to the federal bench by President George W. Bush.

In his chambers, above a shelf stacked with books on jurisprudence, Bible study and basketball, hang framed pictures of his forefathers: men who immigrated to the U.S. from England and Prussia. Brack grew up in rural New Mexico, where immigrants — whatever their status — were viewed as “valuable co-workers,” not a threat, he said.

After that first letter to Obama in 2010, he wrote another. And another. As the nation periodically heaved toward the possibility of immigration reform, only to leave the issues — and lives of millions — unresolved, Brack continued to write letters to the White House.

He told more heart-wrenching stories about families divided. He kept it up for four years. He pleaded for a civil debate: “See what I see, hear what I hear. Be wary of the loudest, angriest voices.”

He signed each letter with prayer: “May God continue to bless all those who serve our great nation.”

He never got a response. He stopped writing.

And now, after so many grueling years and thousands more immigration cases, Brack has decided enough is enough. He takes “senior status” in July, effectively stepping aside to serve part time. President Trump will name his replacement.

Villagran writes for Searchlight New Mexico.

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Imagine what the stress levels are like for U.S. Immigration Judges! They often have pending dockets in excess of 2500 cases; are expected to “grind out” so-called “oral decisions” in “life or death” cases without time to reflect or the assistance of judicial law clerks; lack the job tenure, independence, and status of an Article III judge; operate in an out of control court system largely without rules; have been stripped of effective control of their dockets; and are constantly subjected to disingenuous attacks, “production quotas”  and a “bogus blame game” by their so-called “boss” Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions — who has a well-earned reputation for lacking any moral sensitivity or responsibility for his statements and actions, having a biased and one-sided view of the law, and being totally unqualified and incompetent to administer a major court system that is supposed to be providing Due Process for migrants.

PWS

05-27-18

 

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  2. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  4. PROFESSOR FITZ BRUNDAGE @ WASHPOST: Can We Regain Our Humanitarian Values In The Age Of Trump? — “We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.”

SPLC ON THE POLITICS OF HATE & BIGOTRY: 1) SESSIONS DISSES DUE PROCESS BY TRASHING ADMINISTRATIVE CLOSING; 2) TRUMP’S NATIVIST RHETORIC “OVERLAPS” HATE CRIMES AGAINST MINORITIES!

SPLC STATEMENT ON SESSIONS’ DECISION TO CURTAIL ‘ADMINISTRATIVE CLOSINGS’ OF IMMIGRATION COURT CASES

By Dan Werner, Senior Supervising Attorney

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ ideologically driven decision today to bypass the immigration courts and decide himself to remove another avenue of relief for immigrants undermines due process and the rule of law.

It will add thousands more cases back into the huge backlog of the immigration courts, and will result in the imprisonment and deportation of immigrants who now have a clear path toward legal immigration status.

This decision is just further evidence of Sessions’ anti-immigrant agenda, which separates families, creates fear in communities, and punishes vulnerable people who may be fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries. Though President Trump may call them “animals” to justify his administration’s inhumane policies, these immigrants are friends, neighbors, and members of our families and communities.

With every new hate-driven policy emerging from this administration, we must rededicate ourselves to speaking out and taking action to preserve our nation’s fundamental values.

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How Trump’s nativist tweets overlap with anti-Muslim and anti-Latino hate crimes

Words matter. Heated political rhetoric, especially derogatory language toward groups of people, can create all kinds of unintended consequences, including sometimes physical violence.

When individuals of influence, including political candidates and heads of state use such words, the consequence can be especially pronounced.

In the run-up to, and since his election as President of the United States, Donald Trump’s words have attracted a lot of attention. Many commentators and activists have charged that Trump’s rhetoric has fueled hate crimes in the United States against minorities. Until recently, many individuals voicing such concerns pointed to high-profile individual cases, rather than systematic data. Now that’s changing as new research is emerging.

Hatewatch spoke with Karsten Muller and Carlo Schwarz, two researchers at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom who have been studying the impact of hate speech on social media and how that translates to hate crimes in the real world. Muller and Schwarz discuss their latest study, “Making America Hate Again? Twitter and Hate Crime Under Trump”

Their study used Twitter and FBI hate crimes data to come to a stark conclusion: hate crimes against Muslims and Latinos occurred shortly after Trump made disparaging tweets about Muslims and Latinos. Moreover these anti-Muslim and anti-Latino hate crimes were physically concentrated in parts of the country where there is high Twitter usage.

Karsten and Carlo, can you give us an overview of your research interests and your recent study on President Trump’s tweets and Muslim hate crimes?

Carlo: We are economists working in slightly different areas, but we both have an interest in what people usually call political economy. What we try to do is to apply modern quantitative methods to study political outcomes and the role of social media. In our most recent study, we find that the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. has increased quite markedly under Trump. We show that this increase started with the beginning of Trump’s presidential campaign and is predominately driven by U.S. counties where a large fraction of the population uses Twitter. The data also show that this increase cannot be easily explained by differences in demographics, votes for Republicans, crime rates, media consumption or other factors.

Karsten: The second thing we do in the paper is to look at the correlation between Trump’s tweets about Islam-related topics and hate crimes that target Muslims. And what we find is that this correlation is very strong after Trump had started his campaign, but basically zero before. We also find that when Trump tweets about Muslims, hate crimes increases disproportionately in those areas where many people use Twitter. It is also important to note that hate crimes against Muslims were not systematically higher in those areas during previous presidencies, so it seems unlikely we are simply capturing the fact that people in some areas dislike Muslims more than in others.

Are you claiming Trump’s tweets have caused hate crimes?

Karsten: We are very careful not to make that claim in the paper because I think it is extremely hard to tell based on our data. After all, we are not looking at a controlled laboratory experiment so there is always room for other drivers. But if you look at the results, some point in that direction, for example that Trump’s tweets are particularly correlated with future hate crimes in counties where many people use Twitter.

Carlo: A simple thing to do here is to think about what alternative stories could explain our findings. For example, one could imagine that people who Trump himself follows (such as Fox & Friends or Alex Jones) are the real driving factor. Or that people have recently become more radicalized in rural areas, or where the majority votes Republican. But a careful look at the data reveals that Twitter usage is in fact lower in counties where people tend to vote Republican and in rural areas, and we use some survey data to show that Twitter users generally prefer CNN or MSNBC over Fox News. These factors also cannot easily explain why the increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes should occur precisely with Trump’s campaign start and not before or after.

Karsten: So overall, we take our findings as suggestive of a potential connection between social media and hate crimes. But at the end of the day, readers have to make up their own minds.

What were some of the other key findings that stood out with regard to Muslims?

Karsten: What really stands out to me is just how strong the correlation of Trump’s tweets is with future anti-Muslim hate crimes. So, for example, one might be worried that Trump simply tweets about Muslims when people are generally very interested in everything related to Islam. But what we find is that Trump’s tweets are correlated with hate crimes even if we first even if we control for the effect of general attention to Islam-related topics (as measured by Google Searches). Although there are other explanations, I also found it striking that you see a spike in hate crimes against Muslims in the week of the Presidential election, but only in areas where many people use Twitter.

Carlo: Another thing I found quite interesting is that Trump’s tweets about Muslims are not correlated with other types of hate crimes. The reason this is important is because one could easily imagine that people just happen to be particularly angry at minorities in some weeks compared to others, and that Trump is just part of that. But if this was true, we would also expect there to be more hate crimes against Latinos, or LGBTQ people or African Americans, which does not seem to be the case at all. We also do not find any evidence that other types of hate crimes increased in areas with many Twitter users around Trump’s campaign start — except a small shift for anti-Latino crimes.

Your study also noticed a statistically significant association between anti-Latino tweets and hate crimes. Why do you think there has been a similar, but less robust set of results?

Karsten: When we started our study, we only had data on hate crimes until the end of 2015 — after Trump’s campaign started in June 2015, but before his election. And what you see in the data is a very strong correlation between Trump’s tweets about Latinos and subsequent anti-ethnic hate crimes starting with the beginning of his campaign until December 2015, while there is virtually no correlation before. After the 2016 data were released, we found that the effect becomes substantially weaker from around mid-2016 onwards.

Carlo: When we looked at that more closely — and we think that is consistent with the media coverage during that time as well — Trump toned down his anti-Latino rhetoric quite a lot in the run-up to the campaign. There was, for example, his tweet with a taco bowl on Cinco de Mayo 2016. If you go through Trump’s Twitter feed in the pre-election period, you will see only a handful tweets about Latinos at all during that time. And while hate crimes against Latinos remained slightly elevated in areas with many Twitter users during that time, that means the correlation with the timing of Trump’s tweets became weaker. A potential interpretation is that it is not that the results are so much weaker than those for anti-Muslim hate crime, it’s just that Trump essentially stopped tweeting negative things about Latinos.

How does this study compare and contrast with your earlier investigationinto the online activities of the far-right and nativist political party Alternative for Germany (AfD)?

Carlo: In our study on Germany, we found a very similar correlation between posts about refugees on the AfD’s Facebook page and crimes targeting refugees. We look at these two studies as complementary, even though they use somewhat different methodologies. In the German setting, we have very granular data on internet and Facebook outages that we can use as “quasi-experiments” to get at the causal effect of social media. And what we found there is that, even if you compare neighboring cities, refugees are more likely to be victims of violent attacks where many people use social media, particularly when tensions are high. Importantly, these are relative effects.

What is different for the U.S. is that we find this link between Trump’s campaign start and the increase in the absolute number of hate crimes against precisely those minorities in his verbal crosshairs (e.g. Muslims and Latinos), making the link by using Trump’s tweets. and FBI hate crimes dataset. By using the FBI hate crimes statistics, it also allow us to compare the recent change in hate crimes to those under presidents since 1990s.

For civically conscious users of the internet, what are the most important takeaways and implications from your research?

Carlo:  On one hand, our goal is to suggest that politicians should not ignore social media, because the correlation with real-life hate crimes seems to be pretty strong. We think that this discussion should be taken seriously. On the other hand, we want to caution against any attempts at censorship. Some countries have an outright ban on certain social media platforms, and these states are usually not known for their open political discourse and freedom of speech. The challenge is to come up with solutions that can help protect citizens from violent extremists without imposing drastic limits on freedom of expression. In the end, the people who actually commit hate crimes are the ones we have to hold accountable.

Karsten: I want to give a somewhat different perspective here. Many people talk about a potential “dark side” of social media, but the number of studies that have actually looked at this issue with data is surprisingly small. One of the most important takeaways for me is that as a society we should be spending more time and resources to support researchers working on this area. It is clearly something that many people care about, and it matters tremendously for policymakers as well.

What do you plan to do next in your research?

Karsten: We think a big open question is to come up with more concrete ways of measuring whether “echo chambers” on social media really exist, and how they differ from echo chambers in other domains. If social media is indeed different, the question is what can be done to get people to consider information from outside of their bubble. Our data for Germany in particular will hopefully also allow us to show how exactly online hate on Facebook is transmitted in practice.

Illustration credit: zixia/Alamy Photo

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Trump is certainly the wrong man for the job at this point in our history.

PWS

05-26-18

 

Related posts:

  1. 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! 
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  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. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

FOLLOWING WEEK OF FOREIGN POLICY BLUNDERS, TRUMP AND GOP RIGHT TARGET A NEW “ENEMY” – AMERICA! – KAKISTOCRACY SEEKS TO DESTROY MERIT-BASED CIVIL SERVICE & RE-ESTABLISH SPOILS SYSTEM, POLITICAL CRONYISM, AND TOADYISM AS HALLMARKS OF “GOVERNMENT BY THE WORST” — Trump’s Latest Lies About “Improving Morale” Fail The “Straight Face” Test! — Grifters Rejoice At Demise Of Professional Civil Service That Once Allowed America To Become A World Leader!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-takes-aim-at-federal-bureaucracy-with-new-executive-orders-altering-civil-service-protections/2018/05/25/3ed8bf84-6055-11e8-9ee3-49d6d4814c4c_story.html?utm_term=.0416d74b09ff

Lisa Rein reports for the Washington Post:

By Lisa ReinMay 25 at 4:40 PM

President Trump issued three executive orders Friday aimed at overhauling the federal bureaucracy by making it easier to fire poor performers, sharply curtailing the amount of time federal employees can be paid for union work and directing agencies to negotiate tougher union contracts.

The orders could result in the biggest changes in a generation to civil service protections long enjoyed by federal workers.

White House officials said the goal of the executive orders is to make the workforce of two million federal employees more efficient and responsive to the public and to improve morale.

In a briefing with reporters, Andrew Bremberg, the White House’s director of the domestic policy, said that a survey of federal employees has found that many do not believe their agencies adequately address poor performers.

“These executive orders make it easier for agencies to remove poor performing employees and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used,” he said.

One of the executive orders, which allows employees accused of misconduct to be fired more easily, expands on legislation that Congress passed last year to bring more accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“President Trump is attempting to silence the voice of veterans, law enforcement officers, and other frontline federal workers through a series of executive orders intended to strip federal employees of their decades-old right to representation at the worksite,” the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, said in a statement.

Joe Davidson contributed to this report.

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An honest, apolitical, expert career Civil Service has been the main difference between America and many of the dictatorships, one-party states, and failed states from which we once distinguished ourselves. Once destroyed, it won’t easily be rebuilt. That could well spell the end of America as an economic superpower and world leader.

Can the “Trump Kakistocracy” and his co-opted “Party of GOP Grifters” be stopped before it’s too late? Only time will tell.  But, the clock is ticking!

PWS

05-26-18

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  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. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  3. PROFESSOR ERIC S. YELLEN IN WASHPOST: TRUMP & GOP’S MOST OUTRAGEOUS WHITE NATIONALIST RACIST PROPOSAL TO DESTROY AMERICA MIGHT NOT EVEN HAVE BEEN HIS RESTRICTIONIST IMMIGRATION PLAN — DESTROYING THE CAREER CIVIL SERVICE PROMISES RETURN TO CORRUPT POLITICAL SPOILS SYSTEM WE ABANDONED NEARLY 150 YEARS AGO! — “Calls for government accountability have long merged racism and anti-government rhetoric but have traditionally stopped short of resurrecting the spoils system.”
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!

FULL FRONTAL: SAMANTHA BEE ICES ICE! (WARNING: Video Clip Contains Explicit Language)

https://youtu.be/AiBtPy0EOno

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Most of the ICE folks that I met during my career (including with the “Legacy INS”) were hard-working, dedicated civil servants performing a very difficult and often thankless job. In particular, the attorneys in the Office of ICE Chief Counsel in Arlington were not only talented lawyers but had strong senses of justice that often went beyond the most narrow constructions of the law.

They also had strong senses of being part of the  larger “justice system team” working cooperatively with both the Immigration Judges and the private bar to keep the dockets moving while dispensing justice with humanity that reflected legal knowledge, the willingness to exercise their discretion, and the courage to do what was necessary to make a broken system function in something approaching a fundamentally fair manner.

For those of us involved the creation of the forerunner of the “Modern Chief Counsel System” at INS in the 1980’s, it’s exactly what we had in mind. According to my sources, that important attitude and the values upon which it was based (which, admittedly, might never have existed in some ICE offices) has now largely disappeared in light of the Trump Administration’s mismanagement and “gonzo” enforcement policies.

I don’t see how I could have done my job as a judge without the thoughtful assistance and professionalism of the ICE Office of Chief Counsel in Arlington. Working with them, our private bar, and our dedicated court support team as a group was a daily pleasure and probably extended my career by a number of years.

The main problem with ICE these days appears to stem from extraordinarily poor leadership from the top down, starting, but by no means ending, with Trump himself. As a result, ICE is now well on its way to becoming the most hated and least trusted law enforcement agency in America. While it might not require abolition of ICE, it will require fundamental changes to ICE structure, culture, and policies in the future under more talented, practical, and humane leaders.

Unfortunately, and not necessarily thorough the fault of individual employees at the “working” level, today’s ICE is a national disgrace and an embarrassment — for American justice, the Constitution, and our national values.

PWS

05-25-18

 

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  2. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!
  3. AMEN: A PRAYER IN THE TIME OF KAKISTOCRACY!
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

TAL & FRIENDS REPORT @ CNN: DACA TALKS HUNG UP ON CITIZENSHIP – TRUMP’S LATEST SCOFFLAW IMMIGRATION IDEA: Deal With Self-Created Bogus “Crisis” By Ignoring Statute, Treaties, & U.S. Constitution!

Citizenship a key sticking point on immigration as 2 more Republicans sign petition to force votes

By Lauren Fox and Tal Kopan, CNN

Talks between Republicans across the political spectrum trying to find middle ground on a potential immigration deal that would unite the conference have reached a crossroads — and one again it has to do with citizenship.

At the moment leaders are trying to find a sweet spot between moderates and conservatives in the conference on what would be a permanent solution for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Donald Trump has ended but whose ultimate fate has been tied up in the court system. Conservatives have long argued that they are opposed to any kind of “special path” to citizenship for DACA recipients with some opposed to any path to citizenship at all. Meanwhile, moderates — who are just a handful of signatures from forcing a wide-ranging immigration debate next month — are pushing to ensure that DACA recipients can have a path to citizenship eventually.

On Thursday, two more moderate Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Tom Reed of New York, became the 22nd and 23rd GOP signature on the petition to force a vote on a series of immigration bills next month. If Republicans get at least 26 signatures, combined with 192 of 193 Democratic signature, the petition would force the votes. Only one Democratic House member has said so far that he will not sign the petition.

According to sources familiar with the negotiations, during a meeting with leaders Wednesday, GOP leaders were still trying to gauge whether the House Freedom Caucus would support a plan that would offer a bridge for DACA recipients to apply for green cards. Then, once a DACA recipient had a green card they could eventually apply for citizenship like other immigrants.

Talks are unlikely to move forward substantially before that issue is resolved, and it is unlikely that a decision will come before lawmakers return from their Memorial Day break, which started Thursday.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/05/24/politics/discharge-petition-immigration-daca-congress/index.html

 

Trump calls for sweeping changes to US immigration legal process

By: Allie Malloy and Tal Kopan, CNN

President Donald Trump suggested in an interview that sweeping changes to what he described as a “corrupt” immigration legal system were necessary, while also questioning the need for a legal process for people apprehended trying to cross into the US illegally.

“How do you hire thousands of people to be a judge? So it’s ridiculous, we’re going to change the system. We have no choice for the good of our country,” Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday on Fox News.

“Other countries have what’s called security people. People who stand there and say you can’t come in. We have thousands of judges and they need thousands of more judges. The whole system is corrupt. It’s horrible,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade. He didn’t explain what he meant by “corrupt” and Kilmeade didn’t press him about the comment.

Trump also questioned the process of immigrants going through the court system at all.

“Whoever heard of a system where you put people through trials? Where do these judges come from?” he said.

The suggestion of eliminating the courts and judges, however, is contrary to the policies currently being carried out by his own administration, and would likely violate the Constitution and international law in addition to federal law. The Justice Department declined to comment on the remarks.

Asked by a reporter about Trump’s comments, California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a former immigration attorney who is now the top Democrat on the main immigration law subcommittee in the House, said they run counter to US values and law.

“I guess he has no belief in due process and the Constitution,” Lofgren said.

Comments run counter to Justice policies

At odds with Trump’s comments is his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has made overhauling the immigration courts a top priority, including in the support of hiring more immigration judges. The Justice Department has touted Sessions’ efforts as essential to combating illegal immigration and making the system stronger.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/05/24/politics/donald-trump-immigration-courts/index.html

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To state the obvious, there is no “immigration crisis” in America today other than that created or aggravated by Trump and his toxic scofflaw policies! On the other hand, Trump is a Constitutional crisis unfolding  in real time!

PWS

05-24-18

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  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. TAL @ CNN: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT POLICIES LIKELY TO FAIL AND ACTUALLY AGGRAVATE FORCES DRIVING UNDOCUMENTED MIGRATION!
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: THIS IS WHY HE STAYS: UNDERNEATH ALL THE “TRUMP NOISE” SESSIONS IS METHODICALLY ERADICATING DUE PROCESS, PERVERTING THE LAW, & TURNING ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL COURT SYSTEMS INTO A “KILLING FLOOR” TARGETING OUR MOST VULNERABLE & DESERVING REFUGEES! — “[Sessions] is dumbing down the judges and treating them like assembly-line workers whose only job is to stamp out final orders of removal.”
  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! 

SARA RAMEY @ THE HILL: To Achieve Justice, We Must Get The U.S. Immigration Courts Out Of The Department Of Justice!

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/388876-doj-shouldnt-be-in-charge-of-immigration-courts

On April 18 the Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on strengthening the Immigration Court system. Several organizations, including the American Bar Association and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, recommended that Congress make the immigration courts independent courts under Article I of the Constitution. Congress should do so without delay, especially in light of the attorney general’s May 17 decision in Matter of Castro-Tum eliminating administrative closure.

People on both sides of the political divide agree that the immigration courts are overburdened. The approximately 350 immigration judges who work in about 60 courts around the country are currently tasked with reviewing close to 700,000 cases. The Trump administration has made several, mostly misguided, attempts to fix this backlog. However, as Former Chairman of the BIA Paul Schmidt stated recently ‘‘Nobody… can fix this system while it remains under the control of DOJ.’’

Because the immigration courts, along with the Board of Immigration Appeals, are currently part of the Department of Justice, the attorney general, and others in the executive, not least of all the president, are in charge of agency regulations, case procedures, the hiring and firing of judges, and decision-making.

 

In recent months the administration has made unprecedented attacks on the judicial independence of immigration judges, including policy changes that are in direct contradiction to the recommendations of an April 2017 Booz Allen Hamilton report commissioned by the Department of Justice.

On March 30 the administration instituted a case completion quota of 700 a year for a “satisfactory” performance rating. This amounts to each Immigration Judge needing to complete on average three cases every working day. For judges who have dockets with a high number of asylum cases, for example, this arbitrary requirement will push them to expedite cases in ways that are extremely dangerous to due process.

As the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, Judge Tabaddor, testified at the congressional hearing, there has been ‘‘no quota ever, in any court; somehow implicit in [designating a quota] is that judges are not doing enough… [However, w]e should focus on [is] how we can support our judges.’’

Over the last six years I have directly or indirectly litigated over a hundred asylum cases, and in 95 percent of the cases the hearing takes about 3.5 hours, or the equivalent of one working morning or afternoon. This does not include the time a judge needs in camera to review the hundreds of pages of evidence in the record. In reality, a judge who completes one asylum case a day, and not three, is already extremely efficient.

The real problem is not with how hard-working the immigration judges are. As I explained in a 2016 article, part of the problem lies with understaffing. Instead of hiring a reasonable number of judges and law clerks, and otherwise investing in supporting the work of our Immigration Judges, the Administration is eliminating administrative closure and calling for administratively closed cases to be put back on the docket, actions that only serve to raise the number of pending cases.

If, for example, the Department of Justice puts all the administratively closed cases back on the docket, it would increase the court backlog to over 1,000,000.  These are cases of crime victims and DACA recipients and others where an immigration judge has already determined that it would not be a good use of judicial resources, or in the public interest, to litigate, usually because the person is eligible for some non-judicial form of immigration relief and has a case pending with USCIS. Re-calendaring these cases would not only unnecessarily increase the work of taxpayer-funded DHS Trial Attorneys but it would add more pressure to the already overworked immigration judges.

The attorney general has also stepped into managing the immigration courts by restricting the use of continuances, which in the fast-paced detention context where my organization works are often necessary in order to have time to obtain crucial pieces of evidence and otherwise prepare for trial.

While the attorney general is the boss and is responsible for the judges’ performance, he should have a little more faith in the good judgement of his immigration judges, who, unlike the attorney general, are looking at the situation-specific issues in the individual case before them.

While the helpfulness of the attorney general’s methods for carrying out his job are questionable at best, the underlying problem remains that, regardless of our political opinion on the administration’s policies, those policies are affecting the judicial independence of our immigration courts and putting due process in jeopardy.

What the attorney general says matters to the immigration judges working under him. In one recent case, the immigration judge cited him as saying there is a lot of fraud in the asylum process as evidence that the asylum seeker was lying. Not only was the attorney general’s statement not based on facts — at least not on facts made publicly available, or that anyone even claimed exist, and which statement runs in stark contrast to my six years of on-the-ground experience — but that statement had nothing to do with the truthfulness of the individual asylum seeker present before the court.

Additionally, as stated by the former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges Dana Marks, there is a ‘‘conflict of interest between the judicial and prosecutorial functions [of the Department of Justice that] creates a significant (and perhaps even fatal) flaw to the immigration court structure.’’

It appears that the administration is looking for specific outcomes in cases with little regard to the merits of the claim. The attorney general has certified an unprecedented number cases to himself for review with the idea that he might change the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals. This extraordinary power of one political-appointee to overturn the decision of trained immigration judges is fundamentally at odds with judicial independence.

Unfortunately, it appears that not only the review and firing of judges has become political, but their hiring too. Information has surfaced that the Department of Justice is asking candidates questions about their political party affiliation, their position on same-sex relationships, and their opinion on abortion; preparing internal memos on those whose immigration views that do not align with the administration’s policies; slowing down review of applications where there are ideological differences; and withdrawing employment offers or delaying start dates by up to a one and a half years.

Making judicial decisions subject to the political whims of the times, and not dependent on the accurate execution of the law, is a serious risk to the checks-and-balances system underlying our democracy. The need for independent immigration courts has never been clearer.

Sara Ramey is an immigration attorney and the executive director at the Migrant Center for Human Rights in San Antonio, Texas. The views in this article are not intended to reflect the official position of the organization.

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As this article shows, inappropriate anti-asylum statements and knowingly false narratives from Jeff Sessions do affect the fairness of results.  Yes, there are many courageous judges in the system who continue to treat respondents fairly and grant relief in appropriate cases.

But, numerous reports have established that there are Immigration Judges with anti-asylum and anti-migrant biases similar to Sessions’s. They now feel “empowered” to ignore the law, fairness, and Due Process to deny most applications and remove more migrants.

Moreover, some of the more experienced judges are retirement eligible and therefore largely immune from Sessions’s power because they are immediately eligible to retire. But, as they grow frustrated with the Aimless Docket Reshuffling and growing backlogs created by this Administration’s irresponsible actions and retire, they will be replaced by inexperienced judges. These new judges, in addition to being hand-picked by Sessions, without public input, are subject to removal at will during a two-year “probationary period.” Therefore, new judges are more likely to be influenced by Sessions’s xenophobic, anti-Due-Process views.

Additionally, Sessions  is hard at work misusing his “certification” authority to overturn or limit established interpretations and procedures that implement protection and further Due Process and fairness for migrants.

Another important part of Sara’s article — giving lie to the concept that Immigration Judges can complete more than tow “full merits” asylum hearings per day consistent with Due Process.

Over the last six years I have directly or indirectly litigated over a hundred asylum cases, and in 95 percent of the cases the hearing takes about 3.5 hours, or the equivalent of one working morning or afternoon. This does not include the time a judge needs in camera to review the hundreds of pages of evidence in the record. In reality, a judge who completes one asylum case a day, and not three, is already extremely efficient.

Given the tendency of the current Administration not to settle or otherwise reasonably negotiate Immigration Court cases, the number of “full merits” hearings and appeals is likely to increase dramatically, thus adding to the already overwhelming backlog!

Time to end this farce!

PWS

05-24-17

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TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LARGELY IGNORES POPULAR PROGRAM FOR REDUCING UNDOCUMENTED EMPLOYMENT!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-is-very-weak-on-this-one-popular-way-to-curb-illegal-immigration/2018/05/22/adf5f85e-399b-11e8-acd5-35eac230e514_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.236543271dc2

Tracy Jan reports for the Washington Post:

In President Trump’s many vocal pronouncements about stopping illegal immigration, one solution he promoted during the campaign has been conspicuously missing — a requirement that employers check whether workers are legal.

Eight states require nearly all employers to use the federal government’s online E-Verify tool for new hires, but efforts to expand the mandate to all states have stalled, despite polls showing widespread support and studies showing that it reduces unauthorized workers.

The campaign for a national mandate has withered amid what appears to be a more pressing problem — a historic labor shortage that has businesses across the country desperate for workers at restaurants, on farms and in other low-wage jobs.

The urgency around that shortage was clear at a congressional hearing last week when senators pressed Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on additional visas for seasonal foreign workers.

“There’s not one manufacturing plant in Wisconsin, not one dairy farm, not one resort that can hire enough people,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

With the unemployment rate at a 17-year low and the Trump administration cracking down on foreign workers, lawmakers are reluctant to champion a measure that could exacerbate the labor shortage and hurt business constituents — even one that is popular among a broad swath of Americans.

House Republicans are forging ahead with a debate over the future of young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, but the fate of an E-Verify provision remains in limbo.

Despite his administration’s “Hire American” stance, Trump and the GOP leadership have gone quiet on mandating E-Verify, draining momentum from a top policy goal of grass-roots Republicans.

. . . .

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Two problems that I can see:

  • The Trump/GOP bogus position that we don’t need more immigrant labor, which would point toward a program both a) legalizing undocumented workers already here; and 2) expanding (not contracting) future legal immigration opportunities;
  • “E-Verify” depends heavily on timely action by USCIS to grant extensions of stay and renew work authorizations. But, under Trump, Cissna, Nielsen, and Sessions, USCIS has eliminated customer service to both migrants and U.S. employers from their mission and joined the “mindless enforcement bureaucracy.”
  • When immigration policy decisions are based on bias and prejudice rather than facts, bad things are going to happen. Whatever might be done to fix our broken immigration system is highly unlikely to happen under the Trump White Nationalists.

PWS

05-24-18

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. WALL? WHAT WALL? – BUREAUCRATIC BARRIERS BEST BAR TO (NEEDED) IMMIGRATION (Hey, I Could’ve Told ‘Em That!) – But, White Nationalist Goal Of Returning To A “White America” Ultimately Doomed — “You can slow the rate of Latino and Asian immigration, but it won’t make the population whiter,”. . . “It will just become less white at a slower pace.”
  3. WASHINGTON POST: GONZO’S IMMIGRATION COURT “REFORMS” WILL CREATE “KANGAROO COURTS!” —Recent “moves to evaluate judges based on the speed with which they handle dockets that typically exceed 2,000 cases, rather than on fair adjudication, is a recipe for assembly-line injustice.”
  4. WASHPOST EDITORIAL: TERMINATION OF SALVADORAN TPS IS GRATUITOUS CRUELTY ON PART OF ADMINISTRATION – All Pain, No Gain (In Fact, A Net Loss For Everyone)!

TAL @ CNN: HOUSE GOP SIFTS THROUGH WRECKAGE OF THEIR OWN IMMIGRATION POLICIES; TRUMP CRITIC AIMS TO BE NEXT GOV. OF NEW MEXICO!

Republican leaders search for a path amid immigration civil war

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Last September, Paul Ryan had an idea.

The House speaker gathered together a group of Republican thought leaders on immigration and border security and gave them a mission: agree on something.

They couldn’t.

Almost exactly eight months later, on Friday, he stood in the back of the House floor, resting his chin on his hand and leaning against a rail as he watched an unrelated farm bill — which would have achieved one of his legacy goals of welfare reform — go down in flames, a casualty of the still-unresolved immigration debate.

Now, still staring down the barrel of a rebellion from his typically staid, centrist colleagues, Ryan and leadership is tasked with trying to find a way forward for his members, ahead of the looming midterm elections and following the public airing of dirty laundry that has been dividing the GOP conference for months.

The dramatic implosion of an agriculture policy legislation nicknamed the “farm bill” on Friday came after days of tense negotiations regarding immigration — unrelated to the bill but an issue that has become so fraught for Republicans that the fight over it has now consumed all matters. The bill failed after a group of conservatives withheld their support as they demanded a vote on a hardline immigration bill that does not have the votes to pass.

Conservatives’ actions were prompted by the momentum of a rare rebellion from the other side of the ideological spectrum within the party — a group of moderates who will continue their efforts to bypass leadership this week.

Monday marks the return of lawmakers to the House and the next chance for at least five Republicans to sign on to an effort that would force an immigration floor vote despite repeated pleas from GOP leadership to not resort to the rarely-used, and rarely-successful, procedural step.

As of Monday morning, 20 Republicans and 176 Democrats have signed the so-called discharge petition. If a minimum of 25 Republicans and all 193 Democrats sign it, it will automatically trigger a vote on four competing bills to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, including one to-be-determined bill of Ryan’s own choosing.

Much, much more: http://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/politics/gop-immigration-republican-house-leaders-daca-farm-bill/index.html

 

 

 

Trump’s top immigration critic could become the governor of a key border state

By Tal Kopan, CNN

President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda has few more outspoken opponents than Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who, as chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has served as the voice of Hispanic and Democratic members of Congress in condemning the administration’s policies.

The New Mexico Democrat is hoping to take that message to a new platform next year, leaving Congress to run to be governor of her border state, where a win would position her to square off directly with Trump on everything from National Guard deployments on the border to his policies affecting legal and illegal immigration.

Signs of what could be to come are obvious on the campaign trail. At a pep talk for volunteers headed out to canvas on a recent Saturday at her Albuquerque campaign office, Lujan Grisham was introduced by two young undocumented advocates, one of whom, Ivonne Orozco, is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient and was New Mexico’s teacher of the year.

Lujan Grisham dedicated part of her remarks at that event to an update on efforts in Congress to force a vote on preserving DACA on the House floor — and slammed what she called “racist” and “bigoted” recent remarks about immigrants from Trump chief of staff John Kelly, which were met with boos and hisses from her supporters.

“So we called him out, we’re going to keep calling him out, and while we do that, what they’ve done is now 50 Republicans are fighting with their speaker, and … that is a big deal,” Lujan Grisham said, crediting the local advocates with keeping the pressure on to force the vote. “Can you imagine the power we have as New Mexicans if we take that attitude and we bring it to every single neighborhood, every single community, we take it statewide and we show the rest of the world what New Mexicans are made of?”

More from NM: http://www.cnn.com/2018/05/20/politics/michelle-lujan-grisham-new-mexico-trump/index.html

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The GOP restrictionists are often the own party’s worst enemy. If the Dems could get just a little electoral leverage, they should be able to hold off the restrictionists’ anti-immigrant program.

PWS

05-22-18

 

 

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  2. TAL & FRIENDS REPORT @ CNN: DACA TALKS HUNG UP ON CITIZENSHIP – TRUMP’S LATEST SCOFFLAW IMMIGRATION IDEA: Deal With Self-Created Bogus “Crisis” By Ignoring Statute, Treaties, & U.S. Constitution!
  3. TAL @ CNN – TOP “KAKISTOCRAT” JEFF SESSIONS ENTHUSIASTICALLY IMPLEMENTS TRUMP’S IMMORAL, OFTEN LAWLESS, AND PROBABLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA – This Should Disabuse Everyone, Including Federal Article III Courts, Of The (Fictional) “Independence” Or “Professional Responsibility” Of The USDOJ!
  4. TAL @ CNN: DREAMERS, DEMS FACING UP TO HARD POLITICAL REALITY – NO PRESIDENCY, NO LEGISLATIVE MAJORITY = LITTLE LEVERAGE – Acceptable Compromise Appears Doomed To Remain “Dream” – For Now!