COWARDLY ADMINISTRATION PICKS ON CHILDREN: “Big Mac With Lies” & Others Pushing False White Nationalist Agenda Create Largely Fact-Free Narrative To Support Their Vile Attack On Vulnerable Kids

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/24/opinions/trump-immigration-detain-migrant-families-indefinitely-reyes/index.html

Paul Reyes writes for CNN:

Raul A. Reyes is an attorney and a member of the USA Today board of contributors. Follow him on Twitter @RaulAReyes. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinions on CNN.

(CNN)When all else fails, lock up children. That’s the message from the Trump administration, which on Wednesday announced a regulation allowing it to indefinitely detain migrant families who arrive at our southern border. The new rule would replace a court agreement known as the Flores settlement, which sets minimum standards for migrant children in government custody, and limits their detention to 20 days.

<img alt=”Raul Reyes” class=”media__image” src=”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150505105146-raul-reyes-profile-large-169.jpg”>

Raul Reyes

Speaking at the White House, President Trump told reporters that his new rule will “make it almost impossible for people to come into our country illegally.”

What the rule won’t do is help solve the humanitarian crisis at the border. The new rule is legally and logistically suspect. The only thing it guarantees is that more children will suffer greatly.

For decades, the treatment of detained migrant children has been governed by the Flores settlement. Aside from limiting the length of time that the government can keep immigrant children in custody, it mandates that kids be kept in the least restrictive setting possible, and that they receive food, water and other basic services.

Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan said the Flores settlement has been the driving force behind unauthorized migration from Central America to the U.S. “This single settlement has substantially caused, and continues to fuel, the current family unit crisis… until today,” he said Wednesday.

But he has no data to back him up. On the contrary, ample research shows that the migrants are driven here by violence, gang activity, poverty and civil instability in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

As they have done throughout American history, people are fleeing for their lives from dangerous nations to seek safety, a new start and better lives in our country. They are not rushing to the US to take advantage of Flores.

<img alt=”Yes, Obama deported more people than Trump but context is everything” class=”media__image” src=”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170305143551-trump-obama-split-large-169.jpg”>

Yes, Obama deported more people than Trump but context is everything

Members of the Trump administration are fond of characterizing the Flores settlement as a “loophole” in need of fixing.

Not true.

The Flores settlement began as a 1985 class-action suit against the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor to the Department of Homeland Security, over its treatment of migrant children. It took 12 years of litigation and negotiation to reach the final agreement in 1997. The settlement was painstakingly crafted by immigrant advocates and government lawyers and has endured through Republican and Democratic administrations.

Getting rid of the Flores settlement would allow the government to lock children up for as long as their immigration cases take to resolve. This is chilling and simply inhumane, and not just because detention centers have repeatedly been found to be crowded, dirty and unsafe. Just this summer, DHS’s own inspector general found conditions at migrant detention centers to be “an immediate risk to the health and safety” of detainees.

Beyond that, doctors and child welfare experts are unanimous in their conclusion that imprisoning children harms their physical, emotional and psychological development. At least six migrant children have died in the Trump administration’s custody. Why would anyone want to place kids in detention for longer periods of time?

<img alt=”Tragic father-daughter photo is a moral stain on Trump&#39;s America” class=”media__image” src=”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/190625182031-01-father-daughter-border-drowning-large-169.jpg”>

Tragic father-daughter photo is a moral stain on Trump’s America

Replacing Flores would also amount to a logistical nightmare. The US has three family detention centers with a combined capacity of about 3,000. Contrast that with the roughly 432,000 MEMBERS OF “family units” arrested at the border between October and July, according to Customs and Border Protection. It defies reality to think that the administration could possibly come up with safe places to house such large numbers of people for long periods of time.

Instead they should be screened and processed in a timely manner, then released to family members or sponsors. The vast majority of children and families seeking asylum show up for their court dates when they receive appropriate support, like the kind they received through the Ice Family Case Management Program. Yet the Trump administration abruptly terminated this program in June 2017, indicating a lack of good faith in ensuring that migrants receive proper assistance and guidance with their immigration cases.

“No child should be a pawn in a scheme to manipulate our immigration system,” said McAleenan. He’s right. But it is the Trump administration that is using children as pawns to further its xenophobic agenda. Central Americans have the legal right to apply for asylum, and families should not face indefinite detention for exercising this right.

The administration’s new rule is sure to face significant legal challenges. In fact, a federal court judge recently affirmed that using detention as a deterrent to seeking asylum is an unconstitutional violation of due process.

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Trump’s attack on the Flores settlement is an attack on children. His administration’s lack of regard for the care and well-being of migrant kids is a betrayal of American values of fairness and compassion.

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Reyes “hits the nail on the head” here:

Instead they should be screened and processed in a timely manner, then released to family members or sponsors. The vast majority of children and families seeking asylum show up for their court dates when they receive appropriate support, like the kind they received through the Ice Family Case Management Program. Yet the Trump administration abruptly terminated this program in June 2017, indicating a lack of good faith in ensuring that migrants receive proper assistance and guidance with their immigration cases.

“No child should be a pawn in a scheme to manipulate our immigration system,” said McAleenan. He’s right. But it is the Trump administration that is using children as pawns to further its xenophobic agenda. Central Americans have the legal right to apply for asylum, and families should not face indefinite detention for exercising this right.

With all of their cruel and wasteful gimmicks, schemes, and illegal actions, the one thing the Trump Administration has been unwilling to do is just follow existing law: Allow asylum applicants of all nationalities to be fairly and timely processed through the existing system under the law as it existed before the Trump Administration twisted it for the specific purpose of discriminating against legitimate asylum seekers. Then, we’d all finally know whether or not the individuals fleeing the Northern Triangle are “refugees” or something else. But, the Trump Administration won’t allow that to happen because it fears the answer.

Moreover, we should always keep in mind that even those who don’t meet the highly technical international definition of “refugee” might still be in real danger of harm or death upon return. They consequently could be strong candidates for some other type of temporary humanitarian protection (e.g., TPS, extended voluntary departure, prosecutorial discretion) short of asylum.

Also, as Reyes correctly points out, to maintain that a 20 year old consent decree in Flores, carefully developed and agreed upon among the Government, advocacy groups, and the U.S. District Judge to implement “best practices” in lieu of having the Judge unilaterally force the Government to take corrective action to meet basic constitutional standards, is the cause of a continuing Central American migration that has been happening to some extent or another over the past four decades, is beyond absurd. Indeed, the Government undoubtedly entered into the Flores consent decree to save itself from what almost certainly would have been a major litigation defeat on the merits and a public judicial rebuke of their unconstitutional treatment of minor children (which the Solicitor General probably would have declained to appeal to the 9th Circuit).

Only someone as disingenuous and subservient to Trump as “Big Mac With Lies” could possibly put forth such a ridiculously bogus theory in public with a straight face. Judge Gee should hold Big Mac and the rest of his White Nationalist restrictionist gang at DHS, DOJ, and the White House in contempt of court for even putting forth such a pack of lies (but, she won’t).

Stand up against the Trump Administration’s cruel and cowardly attack on children and families. Join the New Due Process Army and the daily ongoing effort to force our Government to follow the law and provide full Due Process for all!

PWS

08-25-19

DRAGGING OUR COUNTRY THROUGH THE MUD: Trump Regime Seeks To Expand Kiddie Gulag, Detain Families Indefinitely, To Persecute Brown-Skinned Refugees — “Big Mac With Lies” Fabricates Rationale! — Family Detention Is Inappropriate & Unnecessary — A Hoax Being Perpetrated On The American People!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-unveils-plan-to-hold-migrant-children-in-long-term-detention-with-parents-11566394202?emailToken=4c4cef15494942e910d1a88399f30468h/KobQ7iZDpXs3+1U0UyU/6Llg8yPWOeC8NON3gVk0aHveiieP2ipZ/k5yIsdu5tOIl+M5NwqQd3m5dATQluPq4eXG90TKl9KSsbeoCCMsuuLKJlleMAX1vFUKKBEkR0pBAWATMgJ03qd2aW8xT7qIOnyXUMQs0yOmge7FJu78Q%3D&reflink=article_email_share

Michelle Hackman reports for the WSJ:

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration moved to allow the government to indefinitely detain families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and supersede a decades-old court settlement that both limits how long migrant children can be held in custody and sets standards for their care.

The new rules are the Republican administration’s latest effort to tighten immigration laws on its own, with Congress long unable to agree on any legal overhaul. Wednesday’s policy change could permit authorities to detain families through the duration of their immigration proceedings, rather than release them or separate children from their detained parents.

Immigration-rights advocates are expected to challenge the rules in federal court, where they have blocked the administration before. A legal challenge would likely keep the policy from taking immediate effect.

Administration officials say the new rules are intended to discourage family members from attempting to cross the border together in the belief that they will gain an advantage in lodging their asylum claims because of the current detention limits for children. “No child should be used as a pawn to scheme our immigration system,” said acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday.

. . . .

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Those with WSJ access can read Michelle’s complete article at the above link.

As Michelle points out, McAleenan and his corrupt DHS flunkies are simply “making it up” as they go along to justify unconstitutional, racist policies intended to target legitimate asylum seekers based on the color of their skin. By continuously doing “in your face” moves, often with little expectation of success in the in the courts, but a great expectation of rallying racial animosity for political gain, Big Mac & Co. are misusing their access to Federal Courts, constantly violating their oaths of office, and making a mincemeat out of Federal and State professional ethics rules.

Contrary to Big Mac’s false blather, the “solution” to the exodus of refugees is straightforward and not prohibitively expensive:

Release them to community placements;
Help them find pro bono lawyers;
Ask judges to schedule court cases at the earliest possible date consistent with the legitimate needs of those pro bono lawyers;
See what happens on the merits of their asylum cases in a fairer, non coercive system where applicants are encouraged to fully develop claims assisted by lawyers who understand the complexities of asylum law. (This is actually the way the U.N. Convention-based system is supposed to work, but too often doesn’t).

As I have pointed out before, even with unabashed bias and the open encouragement by the Trump Administration of blatant anti-asylum adjudications, a significant number of represented Central American applicants continue to win their claims both before the Asylum Office and in Immigration Court.

Without the effects of intentionally coercive detention, and gimmicks intended to limit access to counsel and inhibit preparation, many of those who lose in Immigration Court will have a fair opportunity to exercise their legal rights to pursue their claims before Article III Appellate Courts. While far, far too deferential to flawed agency decision makers, the Article IIIs are much closer to operating as fair, impartial, and unbiased decision-makers than are Immigration Judges working for Barr and his White Nationalist regime.

Over time, I think many more asylum seekers will win their claims. But, whether that happens or not, the process will have more legitimacy. U.S. asylum law will come to represent more than the Administration’s anti-asylum ideology. Those who lose their cases after exhausting their legal avenues for appeal can be removed in a dignified and humane manner after receiving full Due Process.

This incident also graphically illustrates the “reward” received by those Democrats who recently worked in good faith with the Administration to pass “emergency border funding.” Rather than returning that good faith by using funds to improve conditions in detention and to explore the many available options to reduce the instances of detention, the Administration is squandering money in an almost certain to be DOA attempt to expand their White Nationalist Gulag to unnecessarily punish more (Hispanic) families for asserting their legal rights to apply for protection under U.S. laws.

I have seen little or no evidence that this “emergency funding” — falsely advertised as “necessary” to put food in kids mouths and provide them medical care — has been used for those purposes. By all reliable accounts, conditions in DHS detention remain intentionally deplorable. Instead of working in good faith with public interest groups and Democrats to solve the problems with border detention, Big Mac & Co. are off wasting time and abusing their publicly funded salaries by spreading lies and insulting the intelligence of Federal Judges.

Indeed, Big Mac regularly ignores the overwhelming body of medical evidence that any amount of detention has potential lifetime adverse effects upon young people. The idea that the “Flores settlement,” which has been in effect for years prior to the Trump regime, is primarily responsible for fueling a surge of children fleeing the Northern Triangle is beyond absurd. Moreover, as Big Mac is undoubtedly aware, the increase in child refugees is part of a worldwide trend that transcends any particular U.S. court settlement. Actually, it’s the dumb policies of the Trump Administration and their insistence on using gimmicks rather than the legal mechanisms available that has fueled the profits of smugglers.

Enough! This Administration simply cannot be trusted on anything involving immigration and humanitarianism. Democrats need to demand fundamental, demonstrable changes at DHS, including a phase out of most civil detention, and a commitment to fair access to the legal system, as a condition for providing any further funding.

Due process forever; Big Mac and his lies, never!

PWS

08-22-19

DOJ NOW OFFICIALLY AN ETHICS FREE ZONE: DOJ Attorney Lies To 9th Circuit Panel – Says That Gov. That Can Afford Useless Walls, Ridiculous “Raids,” Inhumane Detention, “Grifter” Security At Trump’s Golf Courses, Can’t Provide Toothbrushes, Soap, & Blankets For Kids In DHS “Gulags!” — Judges Are Aghast, But Fail To Take Immediate Disciplinary Action Against Contemptuous Attorney For Making Audaciously Frivolous Arguments!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-detained-immigrant-children-soap-toothbrushes_n_5d0c1f37e4b07ae90d9a8b0d

Mary Papenfuss reports for HuffPost:

POLITICS

5 hours ago

Justice Department Argues Against Providing Soap, Toothbrushes, Beds To Detained Kids

“I find it inconceivable that the government would say” current conditions are “safe and sanitary,” as required, said a stunned Judge William Fletcher.

A Justice Department attorney this week argued in court that the federal government should not be required to provide soap, toothbrushes or even beds to detained children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Government lawyer Sarah Fabian argued Tuesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that forcing children to sleep on cold concrete floors in cells is both “safe and sanitary.”

Attorneys for the detained children are arguing that the government is not following the requirements of a 1997 settlement agreement in the case of Jenny Flores that established a framework for the humane treatment and release of detained migrant minors. Children must be housed in “safe and sanitary conditions” under the settlement. A district judge added the specific requirements that children be provided with soap and toothbrushes.

Members of the three-judge appellate panel appeared stunned by Fabian’s arguments, Courthouse News Service reported.

“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do something other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?” asked Judge William Fletcher. “I find it inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary.”

Judge Marsha Berzon asked Fabian: “You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of ‘safe and sanitary’ conditions?… You can’t be sanitary or safe as a human being if you can’t sleep.” (See the video below at 24:30.)

Fabian was challenging an order by U.S. District Judge Gee in Los Angeles, who appointed an independent monitor to ensure that the federal government complies with the Flores settlement and specifically required such items as soap and toothbrushes. Fabian argued that such requirements are not detailed in the original settlement. (In the video at 26:40.)

“One has to assume … parties couldn’t reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine,” Fabian argued.

Fletcher responded: “Or it was relatively obvious — at least obvious enough so that if you’re putting people into a crowded room to sleep on a concrete floor with an aluminum foil blanket on top of them, that doesn’t comply with the agreement.”

He added: “It may be they don’t get super-thread-count Egyptian linen, I get that. … I understand at some outer boundary, there may be some definitional difficulty. But no one would argue that this [current situation] is safe and sanitary.”

As for soap, it “wasn’t perfumed soap, it was soap. That sounds like it’s part of ‘safe and sanitary,’” he added. “Are you disagreeing with that?”

Judge A. Wallace Tashima said that such items are “within everybody’s common understanding that if you don’t have a toothbrush, if you don’t have soap, if you don’t have a blanket, it’s not safe and sanitary. Wouldn’t everybody agree to that?” he asked. “Do you agree to that?”

Fabian, who appeared to stumble throughout much of her presentation, responded: “Well … maybe.”

The attorney for the children argued that, although soap and toothbrushes weren’t specifically mentioned in the 1997 settlement, they must be provided because they would be “reasonably interpreted” as part of the agreement under contract law.

The “first thing you do is honor the plain meaning” of words like “safe and sanitary,” said Peter Schey. “Today we have a situation where once a month a child is dying in custody. Certainly the Border Patrol facilities are secure, but they’re not safe and they’re not sanitary.”

It’s not clear when the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, will issue a decision in the case.

The federal government earlier this month stopped English language classes, recreational programs like soccer games and legal aid for locked-up children.

Fabian’s argument before the 9th Circuit can be seen [at the above link].

Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Here’s how.

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Honestly, how does Sarah Fabian sleep at night? If she has kids, what does she tell them about what she does to other people’s kids for a living?

And, what can you say about 9th Circuit judges who accept frivolous, totally disingenuous arguments from Government counsel. A private attorney who wasted the court’s time and disrespected its integrity and functions in this matter would almost certainly be disciplined or disbarred in short order.

At one time, DOJ attorneys were expected to adhere to higher standards of ethics because of their role in protecting the public interest and aiding the courts in pursuit of justice. Why in the age of Trump, Sessions, Barr, and Solicitor General Noel Francisco are ethical standards no longer enforced against DOJ Attorneys? And that goes right up to the top, as both Barr and Sessions have clearly interfered with and participated in quasi-judicial immigration decisions after showing clear bias against migrants and in favor of DHS Enforcement, in violation of ethical standards.

Folks like Trump and his cronies always depend on complicit subordinates, as well as complicit courts, to carry out their vile and illegal programs.

PWS

06-21-19

OUR AMERICAN GULAG: As Cowardly Trump Whines About The “Threat” Posed By Individuals Exercising Their Legal Rights At Border, His Administration Continues To Illegally Hold Children In Substandard Conditions — ABA President Bob Carlson Speaks Out Against This Violation Of Human Rights!

James Hohmann reports for the Washington Post’s “Daily 202:”

— Hundreds of minors are being held at U.S. facilities at the southern border beyond legal time limits. Abigail Hauslohner and Maria Sacchetti report: “Federal law and court orders require that children in Border Patrol custody be transferred to more-hospitable shelters no longer than 72 hours after they are apprehended. But some unaccompanied children are spending longer than a week in Border Patrol stations and processing centers, according to two Customs and Border Protection officials and two other government officials. … One government official said about half of the children in custody — 1,000 — have been with the Border Patrol for longer than 72 hours, and another official said that more than 250 children 12 or younger have been in custody for an average of six days. …

“The McAllen Border Patrol station, a facility near the southern tip of Texas that is routinely overwhelmed, was holding 775 people on Tuesday, nearly double its capacity. The Washington Post this week made a rare visit inside the facility, where adults and their toddler children were packed into concrete holding cells, many of them sleeping head-to-foot on the floor and along the wall-length benches, as they awaited processing at a sparsely staffed circle of computers known as ‘the bubble.’ … Experts say transferring children out of detention facilities as quickly as possible is critical, especially for ‘tender age’ children — those 12 or younger, who face physical and mental health issues even during short periods in detention. They sleep fitfully, do not eat well and suffer anxiety, said Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist and expert witness in the Flores case.”

— Border agents apprehended 1,036 migrants in a record roundup near El Paso earlier this week. The apprehensions, which included 63 children traveling alone, reflect an uptick in the number of large groups trying to cross the border. Border agents apprehended a group of 424 migrants, the previous record, just last month. (NBC News)

Here’s the statement of ABA President Bob Carlson:

May 31, 2019

Statement of ABA President Bob Carlson, Re: Improper Detention of Immigrant Children

Share this:

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2019 — The American Bar Association is deeply disturbed by reports that hundreds of unaccompanied children seeking refuge in the United States are being held by the U.S. Border Patrol in violation of the law and federal policies.According to federal law and court orders, immigrant children generally cannot be held by law enforcement for more than 72 hours before being transferred to shelters that are better equipped to care for their physical and psychological needs. Yet news reports cite recent federal data that hundreds of children, many aged 12 and younger, have been held in Border Patrol custody for an average of six days, in facilities that are intended to be short-term processing stations.The current situation is unacceptable. Leaders at every level of the federal government, including the White House and Congress, must immediately find legal and humane alternatives that relieve the suffering of these children – and then work to create and fund comprehensive, long-term solutions.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is one of the largest voluntary professional membership organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. View our privacy statement online. Follow the latest ABA news at www.americanbar.org/newsand on Twitter @ABANews.

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How “gonzo” has our country become? Our dishonest and unqualified “President” makes idiotic threats against our “friends” because his Administration has been too maliciously incompetent to deal with a relatively predictable flow of individuals merely seeking to exercise their legal rights. Somehow, the mess in Central America, for which we share a great part of the blame, becomes Mexico’s problem to solve. But, while the vast majority of those arriving at our borders are surrendering themselves to apply under our laws, the Trump Administration is violating the law on a grand scale by mistreating children and others in detention.

In a rational country, there would be a massive, bipartisan, expedited movement to remove this unqualified demagogue from office before he does more damage to our country and our world. But not in today’s America.

Sadly, that appears to be the real meaning of “American exceptionalism.”

PWS

06-01-19

DOJ ATTORNEYS ATTEMPT SMEAR ON JUDGE CAROL KING IN CONNECTION WITH FLORES LITIGATION!!

NOTE: This story originally “broke” in a report by Suzanne Monyak at Law 360. Those with access can check it out here: https://www.law360.com/articles/1081651/gov-t-decries-pick-to-monitor-facilities-for-immigrant-kids

Link to original court filings kindly provided by Dan Kowalski at LexisNexis Immigration Community.

https://dlbjbjzgnk95t.cloudfront.net/1081000/1081651/031128961307.pdf

Defendants respectfully object to the appointment of former immigration judge (“IJ”) Carol King as the Flores independent monitor. As an initial matter, while Defendants agree that former IJ King has significant experience with immigration law, Defendants object because former IJ King appears to have little or no direct experience with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) holding and detention facilities themselves, or more specifically with the conditions at such facilities, the management of such facilities, or the legal standards applicable to such facilities, which go beyond substantive immigration law.

Moreover, former IJ King has no demonstrated background in overseeing complex litigation or compliance with consent decrees. Immigration judges have limited powers delegated to them by regulation to decide individual cases, and only for matters designated to them under the Immigration and Nationality Act. 8 C.F.R. § 1003.10(b). This is very different from the substantial and complex task of overseeing the operations of multiple agencies as is required in the present matter. Given this lack of experience, Defendants disagree that former IJ King would have only a “minimal learning curve” in undertaking to serve as an independent monitor related to the issues in the Court’s June 27, 2017 order.

Defendants also object to the appointment of former IJ King on the ground that she has published a writing to promote her law practice that gives the appearance of a very real and serious bias against the defendants. These sentiments, expressed publicly, at the very least create the appearance that former IJ King would not carry out her duties as special master with the type of impartiality that is required for a quasi-judicial role. These statements criticize a defendant in this matter – the Attorney General – and address policies relating to children subject to the Flores Agreement.

Specifically, on her law office web site, former IJ King states in the “Introduction to Carol King Law Office” that “[t]he current wave of attacks on immigrants [that] has clearly been manufactured . . . to sow division and grab power” includes “those who have been so viciously attacked . . . immigrant parents and young children.” Introduction to Carol King Law Office, July 9, 2018, available at: https://carolkinglawoffice.com/2018/07/09/hello-world/. Former IJ King further states that “[t]he lack of any ethical, moral or compassionate compass reflected in the current administration is more disturbing than anything in recent history[,]” and that the “current actions on the part of the President, Attorney General and administration, which reflect only a commitment to power and to hatred, hurt me so deeply.” Id.

To be sure, there is nothing improper about holding strong views on government policies, but public statements such as these are not consistent with performing the quasi-judicial function of a special master, where officers must meticulously avoid “[c]onduct that compromises or appears to compromise the independence, integrity, and impartiality of a judge” because it “undermines public confidence in the judiciary.” ABA Model Rules of Judicial Conduct 1.2, Comment [3]; see id. Comment [5] (“[t]he test for appearance of impropriety is whether the conduct would create in reasonable minds a perception that the judge . . . engaged in other conduct that reflects adversely on the judge’s . . . impartiality”). The published criticism of a named defendant, and of government policies related to children who are subject to the Flores Agreement, as an introduction to her law practice do not, Defendants submit, meet this exacting standard. A reasonable person could question, in light of such statements, whether former IJ King will be impartial in evaluating compliance with this Court’s orders for facilities that are currently operated by Defendants CBP and ICE, who are agencies of that same administration against which former IJ King has a clearly and publicly expressed bias. Defendants therefore object to the appointment of former IJ King as an independent monitor in this case.

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Let’s get this straight! The DOJ Attorneys who filed this with Judge Gee represent and work for a named defendant Jeff Sessions who:

Unapologetically masterminded the “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in the unconstitutional separation of children and the intentional violation of Judge Gee’s earlier order in the case;
After having his legal arguments soundly rejected by Judge Gee is actively trying to “back door” his contemptuous behavior by proposing unlawful regulations that any reasonable person would know would be “dead on arrival;”
This week told supposedly “fair and impartial” judges who work for him, without any supporting evidence, that “the vast majority of the current asylum claims are not valid under the law;”
Knowingly and intentionally misrepresented the DOJ’s own statistics relating to asylum grants on the merits to understate the grant rates to make them appear to support his false anti-asylum narrative;
Warned Immigration Judges not to be “sympathetic” toward asylum applicants appearing before them in Immigration Court;
Intentionally created a false narrative linking asylum policy to Southern Border arrivals that ignores the majority of reliable studies showing that refugee producing conditions in foreign countries, not changes in US policy, drive individuals to seek refuge;
In the words of AILA, before Immigration Judges expressed his “disdain for lawyers who take a solemn oath to uphold the law” and showed “a complete disregard for the role of independent judges in overseeing our adversarial system;”
In front of a group of Immigration Judges referred to attorneys representing individuals asylum cases (many serving pro bono or “low bono”) as “dirty lawyers;”
Promoted the role of “judges” as enforcement officers rather than fair, impartial, independent adjudicators;
Unethically acted in a quasi-judicial capacity in Matter of A-B- after publicly prejudging the substantive issue in the case during a radio interview.

So, how do these DOJ lawyers, with straight faces and in compliance with their ethical duties, have the audacity to argue the ABA Model Rules of Judicial Conduct against Judge King (who does not currently serve in any judicial capacity) when their own boss and named defendant is in violation of that provision (and also the EOIR’s own rules of judicial conduct). No “reasonable person” would believe that Jeff Sessions, in light of his public antipathy to migrants, asylum seekers, and their lawyers, and his clear, highly inappropriate favoritism for DHS Enforcement could properly and ethically run the Immigration Courts and actually act in a quasi-judicial capacity in individual cases! Yet, he is still doing both, to the detriment of Due Process and the rule of law.

Jeff Sessions has total contempt for the Constitution, the law, and courts of every type (both the ones he controls and the ones he appears before through DOJ attorneys). At some point, the Article IIIs, if they wish to maintain their position as a “separate but equal Branch” are going to have to take on the biased, contemptuous, and overtly unethical performance of Attorney General Sessions head on. Otherwise, he will run right over them as he has the US Immigration Courts and the Constitutional guarantee of Due Process.

PWS

09-12-18

WASHPOST, NYT, & LA TIMES EDITORIAL BOARDS “CALL OUT” TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S STUPID AND CRUEL CHILD ABUSE PROPOSAL! — “There’s no evidence that they work to cut illegal border-crossing; there’s plenty of evidence of their cruelty.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/first-they-separated-families-now-theyre-incarcerating-children/2018/09/07/affedb90-b21b-11e8-aed9-001309990777_story.html?utm_term=.90ac0917a68e

The Post’s View Opinion

First they separated families. Now they’re incarcerating children.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Washington on Wednesday. (Cliff Owen/AP)

By Editorial Board

September 7

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ripped more than 2,600 migrant children from their parents’ arms with no plan or procedures for reuniting them, resulting in some 500 children remaining effectively orphaned even today, five months after the fact. Now it proposes a new policy for jailing migrant children indefinitely, one that ensures they “are treated with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors.”

That assurance, along with its rich irony, is offered by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has proposed the policy in a brazen attempt to escape the strictures of a two-decade-old court settlement forbidding the long-term incarceration of minors who cross the border seeking asylum in the United States.

Ms. Nielsen, who was instrumental in executing the zero-compassion policy that traumatized so many toddlers, grade-schoolers, tweens and teens this spring and summer, now would have Americans believe her department recognizes children as particularly vulnerable human beings, deserving of dignity and respect. How will that dignity and respect be meted out when those children are confined, along with their parents, in long-term detention facilities that the administration now proposes to build?

Ms. Nielsen, along with immigration hard-liners such as White House adviser Stephen Miller, are convinced that so-called catch-and-release policies are largely to blame for the flow of families across the southern border. Among the factors contributing to those policies is the 1997 court agreement known as Flores, which arose from abundant evidence that migrant children had been harmed by long-term detention, and forbade it.

The reality is that Flores has been in effect for more than 20 years, during which migrant flows have dipped and surged. When the Trump administration tried, just a few months ago, to amend the Flores agreement to permit long-term detention of families, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee rejected its argument that the agreement was to blame for a recent surge in border crossings. “Any number of other factors could have caused the increase in illegal border crossings, including civil strife, economic degradation, and fear of death in the migrants’ home countries,” the judge wrote.

The administration’s proposal sets up a new court fight, one that will test Homeland Security’s risible insistence that the new policy would “satisfy the basic purpose” of the Flores agreement while freeing the government to get tougher on migrants. The “basic purpose” of Flores was to protect children from harm; confining them defeats that mandate.

It is legitimate to take concrete steps to ensure that migrant families appear in immigration court when ordered to do so. Ankle bracelet monitors, bail and other means of achieving that have been effective, and their use can be expanded. What’s less effective, and at odds with American values, is the administration’s abiding faith in punitive measures where children are concerned. There’s no evidence that they work to cut illegal border-crossing; there’s plenty of evidence of their cruelty.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/09/opinion/editorials/dont-let-migrant-kids-rot.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

Opinion

Don’t Let Migrant Kids Rot

If the Trump administration gets its way, the government will be able to detain the children indefinitely.

By The Editorial Board

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

Sept. 9, 2018

Image
Undocumented immigrants at a bus station in McAllen, Tex.CreditCreditIlana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

For all the human brain’s mysteries, its development is quite well understood. Early childhood and adolescence are crucial times of unparalleled neural growth. Just as trust and stability can enhance that growth, fear and trauma can impede it. Institutionalization, in particular, can have profound and deleterious effects, triggering a range of developmental delays and psychiatric disorders from which recovery can be difficult, if not impossible.

In light of that knowledge, the Trump administration’s latest move against immigrant children is especially troubling. On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed new regulations that would allow the government to detain migrant children indefinitely. Officials are now prohibited from detaining such minors for more than 20 days by an agreement known as the Flores settlement, which has been in place since 1997. The new rules would end that settlement and would likely open the door to an expansion of detention centers across the country.

D.H.S. says that by eliminating Flores, officials will deter illegal immigration, reasoning that undocumented adults will be less likely to enter the country to begin with if they know they can’t avoid long-term detention simply by having a child in tow. Immigration activists say the proposed rule’s true aims are both simpler and more diabolical than that: “They want to strip away every last protection for detained immigrant children,” says Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

Even with Flores in place, those protections have proved thin. Youth migrant shelters — there are roughly 100 such facilities housing more than 10,000 minors across the country — have been cited for a long list of abuses, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, blatant medical neglect, the forcible injection of antipsychotic medications, the unlawful restraint of children in distress and harsh rules that prohibit even siblings from hugging one another. The shelters in question, several of which are facing lawsuits, are part of a network that has received billions of federal dollars in the past four years alone. That money has continued to pour in even as abuse allegations have multiplied.

Related

For more on detained migrant children

Restraint Chairs and Spit Masks: Migrant Detainees Claim Abuse at Detention Centers

Aug. 4, 2018

Opinion | The Editorial Board

The Continuing Tragedy of the Separated Children

Aug. 30, 2018

The administration bears unique responsibility for these violations, in no small part because its disastrous and short-lived separation policy has wreaked havoc on a system that was already rife with problems. Shame alone should have federal officials working hard to undo the damage of that policy and to prevent further harm to the children under their charge, never mind that it’s the right thing to do under any number of international agreements and norms.

But their latest plan is more likely to exacerbate existing problems than to resolve them. The proposed regulations would eliminate the standing requirement that detention centers submit to state inspections and would narrow the scope of relatives to whom children can be released to only parents and legal guardians — no aunts, uncles or other extended family members. It would also trigger a proliferation of new facilities: The administration projects that Immigration and Customs Enforcement-run family detention would increase from 3,000 beds to 12,000. The number of shelters for unaccompanied immigrant minors may also grow.

The proposals will be open to public comment for the next 60 days before they can be finalized. Readers who wish to register their concern can do so on the Federal Register’s website.

After that period, the issue is almost certainly headed to court. Observers say the same judge who has ruled against past attempts to undermine Flores is likely to thwart this attempt as well.

Which paints a stark reality for what’s motivating this move and what it ultimately means: The administration surely knows what a long shot this proposal is, but it will undoubtedly excite President Trump’s political base as the midterm elections approach. So while the administration plays politics, the well-being of thousands of children who came to America seeking protection and safety will be put at risk — today and, developmentally, for the rest of their lives.

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

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http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=6656cffa-1bec-452b-a9de-dbba54a04ac1

From the LA Times Editorial Board:

It’s wrong to jail children

The Trump administration wants no limits on how long it can detain migrant kids and their parents.

Of all the appalling things the Trump administration has done, the cruelest has to be arresting and detaining asylum seekers, and separating them from their children. Seeking to deter desperate families from entering the United States by detaining parents for weeks or months apart from their children is so hard-hearted it shocks the conscience. The cruelty has been compounded by ineptitude, as hundreds of migrant children have been stranded in the United States without their parents, who have been deported.

Thankfully, the administration’s callousness has been held in check by a court order left over from President Clinton’s second term. The 1997 settlement agreement in Flores vs. Reno requires, among other things, that children facing deportation be held in detention for no more than 20 days, and in the least restrictive environment possible. Courts later extended the agreement to include families with minors in detention centers. (The government has been sued at least five times for allegedly violating the order.)

Now the Trump administration wants to scrap the agreement entirely by instituting even more draconian regulations that would allow it to detain families with minors as long as it may take to resolve their deportation cases. That’s beyond the pale.

Migrant children seeking permission to remain in the U.S. should not be detained regardless of whether they have a parent to accompany them in confinement. It’s especially troubling that one of the administration’s stated reasons for doing so is to send a threatening message to other families who might seek asylum in the U.S. from dangerous circumstances in their home countries.

Of course, the government has the right and duty to set immigration laws and enforce them. And we have a system for that, broken as it might be. Current U.S. law allows asylum to be granted to people facing persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or “membership in a particular social group.” If immigration courts rule that applicants don’t meet those requirements, or reject appeals by people seeking permission to stay on humanitarian grounds, the government is entirely within its rights to send them to their home countries. But it should not (and may not, under international agreements) incarcerate them — especially when they are children — unless there is good cause to think the migrants are a flight risk or pose a threat to public safety.

Remember, most of these families arrive seeking official permission to stay, so they have a powerful incentive not to skip their court hearings or break the law: doing so only leads to deportation orders. Advocates argue that most of the aslyum seekers who do miss court dates never received an appearance notice, often because the process takes so long that their addresses change and official records don’t catch up. As for public safety, a raft of studies has found that immigrants, regardless of their status, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans.

If no-shows truly are the administration’s concern, it inherited a new Family Case Management Program from the Obama administration that matched eligible asylum-seeking families with housing, healthcare, schooling for the children and legal advice to help navigate the immigration court system. Families in that program had a 99% show-rate for court hearings. But Trump killed it last year.

Under the Flores agreement, the government can hold minors only in state-licensed facilities. But states tend not to license facilities for families, which, the government argues, means that it must release the families while the deportation cases continue.

The new regulations would let the federal government do the licensing of facilities, paving the way for a massive expansion of the detention system. The government currently uses three family detention centers with a total of 3,500 beds. They are secured, dormitory-style facilities with shared bathrooms, common areas, play space and rooms for classes. Trump wants to add 15,000 more beds, but that may just be the start; border agents caught 77,674 people migrating as families in 2016 alone.

It is fundamentally inhumane to incarcerate children — with or without their parents — while immigration courts try to figure out what to do with them. Psychiatrists warn of the damage even from short-term detentions, and some of those who have been held for months have shown signs of severe emotional distress and post-traumatic stress disorder. So in its obsessive quest to stop migrants from seeking asylum, the Trump administration is willing to, in essence, commit child abuse. That’s a stain not just on the presidency, but on the nation.

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The White Nationalist Scofflaws are at it again! Even if were effective as a deterrent (which all reliable data and experience show it isn’t), detention for deterrence would still be illegal.

Join the New Due Process Army and fight to uphold our Constitution and true American values against the White Nationalism, racism, cruelty, xenophobia, and lawlessness of Trump, Sessions, and their cronies! Put an end to Sessions’s “New American Gulag” (“NAG”)!

PWS

09-10-18

TAL @ CNN: BREAKING: SCOFFLAW ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES DEFYING COURT DECREE ON KIDDIE DETENTION – MONUMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL SHOWDOWN IN FEDERAL COURT COMING!

Trump admin seeks to keep immigrant families in detention indefinitely

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration has released a proposal to overhaul the way that undocumented immigrant families are treated in custody, a maneuver that would allow the government to keep the families in detention as long as their immigration court case remains open.

The proposed federal regulations would notably revoke the court case known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, which governs how undocumented children can be treated in custody. The regulations are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Friday.

The more than 200-page rule would have sweeping implications for the immigration detention system in the US and is likely to face swift resistance from advocates who brought the Flores case and those who have supported it.

One of the biggest proposed changes would create a federal license system to allow for detention centers that could hold families. The administration argues that it is the state-based licensing system that is causing issues that would restrict family detention.

The arguments for the rule are similar to the case the administration has made in court before Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the settlement. Gee has rejected those arguments in her courtroom.

“This rule would allow for detention at (family detention centers) for the pendency of immigration proceedings … in order to permit families to be detained together and parents not be separated from their children,” the rule states. “It is important that family detention be a viable option not only for the numerous benefits that family unity provides for both the family and the administration of the INA, but also due to the significant and ongoing influx of adults who have made the choice to enter the United States illegally with juveniles or make the dangerous overland journey to the border with juveniles, a practice that puts juveniles at significant risk of harm.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/politics/trump-administration-immigrant-families-children-detention/index.html

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Pretty outrageous. But, about what we would expect from a racist White Nationalist Administration with no respect for the Constitution, laws, Federal Courts, or human dignity, and that is hell-bent on wasting our taxpayer money on evil causes.

I predict that this will “reactivate” the Flores litigation before Judge Gee. She, in turn, will “stuff” the Administration on its insulting, contemptuous, and clearly bogus justification for the detention.

These individuals are coming to the US seeking to exercise legal rights to apply for protection. Every reliable study shows that if released under alternatives to detention, informed of what the system requires, given adequate notice, and, most important, given reasonable access to lawyers they show up for their hearings nearly 100% of the time and actually prevail on the merits in a significant number of cases (the success rate is kept artificially low by the disingenuous anti-asylum jurisprudence created by Sessions and by a pre-existing legal bias in the system against many asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle, also fanned and encouraged by Sessions’s overt xenophobia).

Stay tuned for another monumental waste of taxpayer money on yet another misguided Administration attempt to impose a White Nationalist immigration agenda!

PWS

09-06-18

TAL @ CNN: ADMINISTRATION PLANNING END RUN AROUND FLORES SETTLEMENT BY ISSUING NEW REGULATION!

White House reviewing plan to end court settlement on immigrant child detention

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The White House is reviewing a plan that could nullify a settlement that immigrant children that arrive with their families be released from custody within 20 days, a rule they have blamed for their separation of thousands of families at the border.

The action to finalize regulations on the topic, revealed in a government database, comes after repeated attempts to change the Flores Settlement Agreement have been resoundingly rejected by a federal judge and amid continuing fallout over the Trump administration’s related decision to separate families at the border.

The Trump administration has made the Flores settlement a frequent target of its ire — blaming the agreement for its decision to implement a policy at the border that resulted in thousands of families being separated. It has also repeatedly said only Congress can act to overrule the settlement. But lawmakers have shown little appetite to do so and have so far failed to pass any immigration legislation under this administration.

Key provisions of the agreement dictate minimum standards of care of immigrants in detention, as well as requiring that children who arrive with their families be released from custody within 20 days unless their parent agrees to them being held longer. But three weeks is faster than their immigration court cases can be processed, leading the Trump administration to complain the agreement forces them to either release the families together or separate them.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/02/politics/trump-administration-flores-settlement/index.html

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Sounds pretty scofflaw! Can they get with it?

Flores doesn’t purport to create Constitutional rights for the class members. Congress clearly could, and should, merely enact the Flores protections for children into statute. But, realistically, that’s not going to happen under Trump, and even if it did, Trump would undoubtedly veto it.

Conversely, perhaps Congress could overrule Flores by statute. But, if Flores turns out to be setting forth Constitutional minimum requirements, then the statute would be held unconstitutional. On the other hand, if no Constitutional issues are involved, Congress would be free to act. However, Congress hasn’t shown any enthusiasm for immigration legislation, particularly something as sensitive and potentially controversial as Flores.

Additionally, just because Congress could change the law doesn’t necessarily mean that the Administration could do so by regulation. Indeed, if the Administration could void a court-approved settlement simply by publishing a regulation, settlements with the Government would cease to have any meaning or enforceability.

Also, at the time of the original Flores settlement it seems to me that both parties and the court wisely wanted to avoid protracted litigation on the Constitutional question of long-term detention of children which had risks for both parties.

At a minimum, an attempt to “undo” Flores by regulation would allow the plaintiffs to raise the Constitutional issue in court. It’s seems to me that there must be some Constitutional limits on child detention. So, the Government could well end up enjoined to follow Flores while the litigation on the Constitutional question works its way up the system — a process likely to take until beyond 2020. I’d also say that the Administration’s stupidity and lawlessness on separating children from parents tends to make the “litigating context” very favorable for plaintiffs.

So, to me, it looks like another dumb, counterproductive, “in your face” move by the Trumpsters. But, that doesn’t mean they won’t try it. In fact, most of their so-called “litigating strategy” seems to fit this mold. It’s an Administration that has made immorality, lies, fraud, waste, and abuse of public resources the norm. However this issue comes out, that couldn’t bode well for the future of our country.

PWS

08-03-18

SCOFFLAWS: SESSIONS & NIELSEN LIE, CONFUSE, AND OBFUSCATE TO HIDE REAL ILLEGAL INTENT BEHIND CHILD ABUSE POLICY!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-family-separation-policy-is-meant-to-deter-immigration-that-could-make-it-illegal_us_5b194b89e4b0599bc6e17605

Roque Planas reports for HuffPost:

You won’t hear Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen call this “deterrence.”

By Roque Planas

The aim of President Donald Trump’s new policy of splitting kids from their mothers at the border is, in a word, deterrence: The White House wants to discourage more immigrants from trying to enter the United States.

Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s secretary of homeland security, is careful not to say this outright — she dodged a direct question on the subject from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) at a hearing last month.

JOHN MOORE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Central American immigrants walk after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents in February near McAllen, Texas. The Trump administration adopted a policy in May of intentionally separating mothers from their children at the border in order to deter migrants from crossing illegally into the U.S.

There’s a reason Nielsen and other administration officials shy away from attaching the word “deterrence” to the new policy: Changing immigrant detention policy as a way to deter undocumented people from coming to the U.S. is illegal, federal courts have repeatedly ruled. So now she and other Trump administration officials find themselves struggling to defend a family separation policy whose clear ambition is deterrence.

A growing number of mothers have crossed into the United States since 2014, often from Central America and often requesting asylum. Other administration officials were blunter in the past when discussing a policy that would split the families up to scare them away from coming.

The Department of Homeland Security was considering separating children from their parents “in order to deter” undocumented immigration, White House chief of staff John Kelly told CNN while serving as Nielsen’s predecessor last year. And Gene Hamilton, a former aide to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asked participants at a meeting last August on the policy to “generate paperwork laying out everything we could do to deter immigrants from coming to the U.S. illegally,” according to The New Yorker.

Whether or not the deterrence goal is spelled out, the strategy is likely to backfire. Former President Barack Obama learned that lesson in 2015, when a federal judge in Washington blocked his plans to lock up Central American immigrant mothers and their kids without bond to deter others from trying to cross the border.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the federal government can’t detain immigrants indefinitely for the sake of deterrence alone. Instead, the decision to detain needed to be based on whether the immigrant posed a threat to the community or a flight risk.

The Obama administration was forced to provide bond hearings to the migrants in family detention. A separate ruling that year ordered the Obama administration to start releasing people from family detention after three weeks in order to comply with the Flores settlement, a 1997 deal that bars the government from locking up children in detention centers.

The Trump administration hopes to skirt the rulings that got Obama officials into trouble by prosecuting immigrant parents at the border. The federal government can’t jail children while their mothers await trial, so immigration authorities transfer them to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to find a sponsor or to non-secured facility to hold them, as if they arrived by themselves.

But this legal maneuver stands on the same shaky ground.

“Whether the deterrence to seeking protection is being done by detaining families or separating families doesn’t make a whole lot of difference,” said Michelle Brané, the director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “They’re both punishing families for seeking protection, and protection to which they have the right under U.S. law.”

The Trump administration is already running into legal trouble over its policy. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Southern California to overturn Trump’s family separation policy, asking U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw for a nationwide injunction to halt the practice. At a hearing on May 4, Sabraw repeatedly asked whether the Trump administration had adopted the family separation policy to deter others.

“If there were a blanket policy to separate for deterrence value, would that be legal?” Sabraw asked, according to a transcript of the hearing. “Would that pass muster under the Fifth Amendment?”

The judge did not receive a straight answer. The government’s lawyer, Sarah Fabian, instead argued that the government wasn’t separating mothers from their kids systematically, and only following existing immigration law to do so.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions undermined her argument three days later, when he announced that the Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy for prosecuting border-crossers included mothers who cross with their children.

Lee Gelernt, the lawyer leading the ACLU lawsuit, called the government lawyer’s unwillingness or inability to defend family separation on the merits without resorting to the legally fraught term “deterrence” significant.

“The government still needs a persuasive justification for separating children,” Gelernt wrote in an email. “And the government has not provided one.”

On Wednesday, Sabraw ordered that the case against family separation can move forward, over the Trump administration’s objections. Although he has yet to rule on the case’s merits, his order did not augur well for the federal government.

Implementing a family separation policy to deter other migrants “arbitrarily tears at the sacred bond between parent and child,” Sabraw wrote. “Such conduct, if true, as it is assumed to be on the present motion, is brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency.”

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Ah, the never-ending legal, moral, and intellectual corruption and dishonesty of the Trumpsters!

Take depositions — force them to lie under oath or admit they have been lying publicly. And, as I recently pointed out, most Article III Federal Judges, who actually have contempt of court authority, take a dim view of perjury by Cabinet Officers in their court proceedings.

I also think that even under the Supreme’s restrictive standards, there is an ever increasing possibility of actually imposing monetary damages on Nielsen, Sessions, and others for their intentional denial of Constitutional rights and their dishonest schemes to conceal their true intent. I actually think that when the full truth some day comes out, we will find not only illegal deterrence, but rather clear evidence of racial animus underlying Sessions’s policies. To be honest, Sessions has turned the entire U.S. Immigration Court system into a tool for enforcement deterrence — a huge violation of Due Process, as well as an astounding conflict of interest and violation of ethics.

Also, not surprisingly, the name of Sessions’s restrictionist crony Gene Hamilton has surfaced in connection with this scheme.

PWS

06-11-18

Stand up against the Trump Administration’s cruel and cowardly attack on children and families. Join the New Due Process Army and the daily ongoing effort to force our Government to follow the law and provide full Due Process for all!

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Due process forever; Big Mac and his lies, never!

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Justice Department Argues Against Providing Soap, Toothbrushes, Beds To Detained Kids

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NOTE: This story originally “broke” in a report by Suzanne Monyak at Law 360. Those with access can check it out here: https://www.law360.com/articles/1081651/gov-t-decries-pick-to-monitor-facilities-for-immigrant-kids

Link to original court filings kindly provided by Dan Kowalski at LexisNexis Immigration Community.

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First they separated families. Now they’re incarcerating children.

Join the New Due Process Army and fight to uphold our Constitution and true American values against the White Nationalism, racism, cruelty, xenophobia, and lawlessness of Trump, Sessions, and their cronies! Put an end to Sessions’s “New American Gulag” (“NAG”)!

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