"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
GOP political hacks and their enabling bad righty Federal Judges have combined to wreak havoc on humanity and trample the Constitution, rule of law, common sense, and simple human decency at our Southern border! Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsProfessor Stephen Yale-Loehr Cornell Law
In 2015, a Ghanaian man who goes by the initials M.A. and his gay friend were brutally assaulted by a vigilante group in Accra, Ghana. In Ghana, homosexuality is illegal and carries a prison sentence of up to three years. M.A. was beaten with sticks before escaping through a window. His friend was killed. Fearing the group would find and kill him, he fled to Ecuador and made his way to the U.S. border, where he requested asylum. After being detained for nine months, he was released on bond and lived with a childhood friend in New York while he waited for his case to make it through the legal system.
M.A. clearly faced persecution, but an immigration judge denied his claim. I took M.A.’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2016 as part of the Cornell Law School’s asylum appeals clinic. It took M.A. four years to win asylum in America, but at least he was given the chance to apply in the first place.
Since March 2020, approximately 900,000 people — including over 215,000 parents and children — have been denied the ability to request asylum at all. They’re casualties of Title 42, a pandemic-related policy that paused nearly all asylum proceedings at the border. Some people argue the policy is preventing an influx of migrants. In fact, numbers are up despite the policy, and our refusal to process most of them has led to chaotic and dangerous conditions.
The United States has successfully managed ebbs and flows of asylum seekers for decades. There’s a system in place to manage an influx — and regardless of how hard immigration lawyers like me fight for them to stay, many will lose their case and be deported. Even so, we must let people try. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also guaranteed under international and domestic law. We signed a 1967 protocol to the U.N. Refugee Convention to protect the rights of refugees, and we have adopted it and codified it into U.S. asylum law. Right now, we’re violating those obligations. The longer we do, the weaker American rule of law looks to our global partners.
We must immediately reinstate due process for asylum seekers. And once this happens, we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.
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Read Steve’s complete op-ed in The Hill at the link.
I agree that “we must work to make the system more equitable and faster.” But, the answer can’t be just to hire more Immigration Judges in Garland’s dysfunctional, broken, and anti-asylum-biased “court” system. That would just speed the “deportation assembly line” and lead to even more injustice and grotesque inconsistencies.
According to TRAC, Immigration Judge “asylum denial rates” currently “range” from 5% to 100%. That’s a ridiculous, indefensible variation and a total perversion of the generous standard for granting asylum set forth by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca and adopted by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi, but seldom enforced or followed, particularly these days.Why this very obvious, totally solvable problem is still festering going on two years into a Democratic Administration that pledged to solve it is beyond me!
Enough of this nonsense, biased, “amateur night at the Bijou” mal-administration of the Immigration Courts at EOIR by Garland’s DOJ! No wonder folks are still complaining about “Refugee Roulette” more than a decade after it was written by my Georgetown Law colleagues Professors Phil Schrag, Andy Schoenholtz, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales (now an Associate Dean at Temple Law). Why not put one of THEM, or for that matter, Professor Yale-Loehr, in charge of kicking tail and cleaning out the deadwood at EOIR?
This approach to life or death asylum adjudication at EOIR, particularly the BIA, is a killer! PHOTO: Thomas Hawk Creative Commons Amateur Night
At a minimum Garland must:
Remove the holdover “Asylum Deniers Club” from the BIA and replace them with a real judge as Chair and new Appellate Immigration Judges who are widely recognized as “practical experts” with careers that have demonstrated superior scholarship in immigraton and human rights, an unswerving commitment to due process for individuals, and a passion for racial justice in our legal system;
Have the “New BIA” issue useful precedential guidance on how to document and grant valid asylum cases at both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Court, implement best practices, and identify and remove from future asylum adjudication those unqualified Immigration Judges who basically “make up” reasons to deny and can’t or won’t treat applicants fairly; and
Immediately replace with qualified expert judges those Immigration Judges on the “Southern Border docket” who can’t fairly adjudicate asylum cases.
Steve is totally correct about the need for Title 42 to go! But, Garland’s EOIR, particularly the BIA, is just as broken, counterproductive, and out of control as Title 42! In many ways, the illegal abrogation of the rule of law at the Southern Border has somewhat ”hidden” the larger problem that a dysfunctional and incapable EOIR poses for those who do manage to get a hearing!
Without a legitimate, totally reformed and significantly “re-populated” EOIR operating at the “retail level” of our justice system, there will be no rule of law and equal justice under law in America — for anyone!
Tell Garland you have had enough! The deadly and disorderly “EOIR Clown Show” has got to go! Now!
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept
American Justice takes a grim turn as righty Trump judges take over immigration enforcement! Reaper Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons LicenseCamilo Montoya-Galvez CBS Journalist
Judge voids Biden administration restrictions on immigration arrests and deportations
BY CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ
UPDATED ON: JUNE 11, 2022 / 10:35 AM / CBS NEWS
A federal judge in Texas on Friday granted a request by Republican-led states to throw out Biden administration rules that placed limits on whom federal immigration agents should seek to arrest and deport from the U.S., declaring the directive unlawful.
U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did not have the authority to issue a September 2021 memo that directed immigration officials to focus on arresting immigrants deemed to threaten public safety or national security and migrants who recently crossed a U.S. border illegally.
Tipton, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, agreed to void Mayorkas’ memo, which was challenged by Republican officials in Texas and Louisiana. But he paused his ruling for seven days to give the Biden administration time to appeal.
Friday’s ruling is the latest setback in federal court for the Biden administration’s immigration agenda, which has faced more than a dozen lawsuits by Texas and other Republican-controlled states.
Federal judges appointed by Mr. Trump have blocked the Biden administration from ending a policy that requires asylum-seekers to wait for their court hearings in Mexico and a pandemic-era measure that allows border officials to quickly expel migrants. Tipton himself halted an 100-day moratorium on deportations during Mr. Biden’s first month in office, as well as an earlier directive that limited immigration arrests.
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Read the entire report at the link. Many thanks to Nolan Rappaport, Contributor to The Hill, for sending this my way!
So, righty U.S. District Judges and GOP State AG’s have figured out a way to take over basic immigration enforcement from the Feds. I assume that they will “waive” any claims to immunity from suits against themselves as the inevitable human rights and legal abuses caused by unbridled, uncontrolled, and often irrational and wasteful, DHS Enforcement pile up. These judges and AGs have now become part of the problem. We’ll see how they solve it.
I also find it interesting that righty U.S. District Judges, part of a court system that only just barely manages to keep its head above water because the vast, vast majority of Federal crimes and violations are never fully investigated or prosecuted, have such unbridled enthusiasm for unaccountable, unlimited immigration enforcement.
Part of this right-wing “judicial scam” is to grotesquely exaggerate the “harm” to states and to minimize or ignore the well-documented legal, human rights, and practical problems with “out of control” immigration enforcement that was intentionally used by the Trump regime to “terrorize” ethnic communities. These communities contain “mixed populations” of citizens, legal residents, those living here with legal permission to work, and the undocumented.
I also find it notable that the so-called “plenary power” over immigration appears to have passed from the AWOL Congress and the fumbling Executive, where it historically resided, to the Federal Judiciary, often those serving at the lowest levels —U.S. District Judges, the BIA, and Immigration Judges (although to be fair, the latter two groups are Executive Branch employees operating in a dysfunctional system that often appears to have no rhyme, reason, or defined mission.)
This is an unusual development in the right-wing conservative world of (bogus) “judicial restraint” to be sure. I guess the doctrine of “judicial restraint” is limited to stopping liberal judges from correcting egregious legal mistakes that ruin individual human lives. That’s sure how it looks to me!
The “Tipton Gang” might have a harder time taking over the dysfunctional, out of control, and backlogged Immigration Courts where the results of poor enforcement decisions often go to die in the 1.8 million plus backlog.
The Immigration Courts could prove more of a challenge because Republicans have stuffed the law with various jurisdiction-limiting and jurisdiction-stripping provisions intended to make it difficult or impossible to challenge individual immigration enforcement decisions outside the context of a petition to review a final order of removal in the Courts of Appeals.
Arguing “no jurisdiction/no review” in immigration cases is one thing that DOJ attorneys are very good at and, more often than not, successful.
Otherwise, Garland’s DOJ legal team has been less than stellar at defending changes meant to undo portions of the Trump regime’s misguided, often White Nationalist inspired, anti-immigrant agenda. Perhaps it’s time for the Biden Administration to “reshuffle the deck.” Maybe they should bring in some of the progressive litigation experts who succeeded in blocking some of the worst parts of the Trump-Miller assault on the rule of law and humanity to aggressively defend the job of restoring at least some modicum of due process, fundamental fairness, and rationality to the broken and reeling immigration enforcement system.
A family in Tijuana who wanted to request asylum and advocacy groups including Innovation Law Lab sought to intervene in the lawsuit. They argued that a court order keeping Title 42 in place should only apply to states involved with the suit. Summerhays denied their request.
Alicia Duran Raymundo, her partner and their 6-year-old daughter fled El Salvador after gang members threatened to torture and kill them. She said in a news release from her lawyers last week that they wanted to live with extended family in California while pursuing asylum, but instead joined the thousands of migrants living in Mexican border towns while they wait for the U.S. to reopen its doors.
“We’ve tried many times to ask for asylum but they just tell us the border is closed,” Duran said.
Seeking asylum is a legal right guaranteed under federal and international law, regardless of how someone arrived on U.S. soil. Some of those turned away are fleeing persecution, while others pushed out by turmoil in their home countries seek jobs and security.
Though migrants can’t seek asylum under Title 42, they can still be screened under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. But those screenings are more difficult to pass.
Lee Gelernt Deputy Director ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Program PHOTO: ACLU
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s immigrant rights project, noted that regardless of Friday’s decision, a prior ruling in Washington, D.C., District Court taking effect Monday prevents Title 42 from applying to families who face persecution or torture if they are expelled. Gelernt is lead attorney in that case.
“Hypocritically, the states that brought this lawsuit seemingly care about COVID restrictions only when they involve asylum seekers,” he said. “The lawsuit is a naked attempt to misuse a public health law to end protections for those fleeing danger.”
. . . .
Migrants have been removed from the U.S. nearly 2 million times since Title 42 was first used in March 2020, in some cases to dangerous situations in which they’ve been tortured or raped.
. . . .
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Policy Counsel American Immigration Council Photo: Twitter
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, predicted that Title 42 is likely to stay in place until at least next year.
Summerhays’ decision signals that while the Biden administration can establish a policy under emergency conditions, terminating it requires a rulemaking comment period that could take six months to a year.
Louisiana and the other states are not arguing that the policy can never end, Reichlin-Melnick said, but they’re imposing judicial roadblocks to delay it. The CDC is likely to try to end the policy again while satisfying the judge’s demands, he said.
In the meantime, he said, “we’re going to see an ever higher number of repeat crossings. Look at the border and tell me Title 42 works.”
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The case is Louisiana v. CDC, WD LA, 05-20–22. Here’s a link to the opinion:
Of course Title 42 doesn’t work! But, it’s never been about a “working” border asylum policy. NO, it’s always been about cruelty fueled by nativist racism!
Gabe Ortiz Staff Writer The Daily Kos PHOTO: dailycos.com
Gabe Ortiz in the Daily Kos:
. . . .
Republicans will use Title 42’s rollback “to fearmonger in an election year, using nativist talking points based on falsehoods,” The Boston Globe columnist Marcela García writes. “An invasion is coming! Expect chaos at the border! Yet those sound bites ignore the fact that Title 42 utterly failed even as a border management mechanism: Data show that migrant encounters surged to a record high during the policy.”
Marcela Garcia Associate Editor and Columnist Boston Globe PICTURE: bostonglobe.com
“For Biden and the Democrats, the end of this disastrous policy should not be framed as a political headache, butas an opportunity to demonstrate that it is possible and suitable to process asylum applications in an orderly, legal, and humane way at the US-Mexico border,” she continued, noting new policy intended to speed up asylum processing, and a plan “that includes directing more resources and personnel to the southern border.”
What a mess. Everyone is now openly admitting Title 42 has nothing to do with public health and speaking of it purely in terms of an immigration deterrent—which it isn’t. Title 42 drove up apprehension numbers! There have been 750,000 repeat crossings thanks to Title 42.
Marianne LeVine
@marianne_levine
Tester:”Ending Title 42 is expected to cause a significant increase of migration to the United States and put more pressure on an already broken system. These problems do not only affect the southern border, but put more strain on those working to secure the northern border”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
@ReichlinMelnick
The amount of lies and misinformation about Title 42 is hitting a fever pitch. Title 42 has been an abject failure. It’s not about public health and it’s a terrible deterrent.
It’s shut down the asylum system at the ports of entry and forced desperate people into crossing.
García is right. For as long as we can successfully keep this policy from continued use, it should be framed as a huge step forward for U.S. asylum law and a victory for vulnerable people who have been blocked from their U.S. asylum rights for more than two years. Isn’t restoring asylum law, especially in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, undoubtedly a good thing? And why shouldn’t it be a win for the president, too, comporting to his pledge for a more humane immigration system?
It’s past time for ALL Dem pols and EVERYONE in the Biden Administration to stop enabling racist false narratives about refugees and asylum seekers (and, for Garland to stop “defending the indefensible”)! And, that means that one way or another, the Biden Administration needs to get off their tails and put in place a system to “process asylum applications in an orderly, legal, and humane way at the US-Mexico border.”
It’s very possible! And, it’s no less than what Biden and other Dems promised when they ran in 2020 andsolicited the votes of the human/rights, racial justice communities!
Elizabeth Gibson Managing Attorney National Immigrant Justice Center Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
Weekly Briefing
This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.
ICE: On April 4, 2022, Principal Legal Advisor Kerry E. Doyle issued a memorandum to the OPLA workforce titled Guidance to OPLA Attorneys Regarding the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Laws and the Exercise of Prosecutorial Discretion (Doyle Memorandum), which will take effect on April 25, 2022. The Doyle Memorandum is consistent with DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas’ September 30, 2021 memorandum titled Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law, which took effect on November 29, 2021. Upon its effective date, the Doyle Memorandum rescinds OPLA’s prior PD guidance.
Reuters: The Biden administration on Tuesday released a final rule expanding a program that allows applicants for various employment-related immigration benefits to pay up to $2,500 to speed up the process, in a bid to ease massive backlogs at the agency. See also USCIS Announces New Actions to Reduce Backlogs, Expand Premium Processing, and Provide Relief to Work Permit Holders (USCIS continues to make progress toward a temporary final rule currently named “Temporary Increase of the Automatic Extension Period of Employment Authorization and Documentation for Certain Renewal Applicants.”).
Law360: Immigrant rights, community and legal advocacy organizations (including NIJC) asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday to abandon attempts to undermine local policies limiting cooperation with DHS agencies and instead terminate enforcement agreements with cities and counties.
Intercept: The privately run facility where Argueta Anariba was held was one of several new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in Louisiana. The implications of caging thousands of people in a state that’s notorious for extreme weather crystallized with the intensifying wind.
NYT: The visa program being expanded, known as the H-2B visa program, allows American businesses to hire foreign workers for seasonal nonagricultural jobs like mowing lawns, cleaning hotel rooms, staffing amusement parks and waiting tables. Industries like landscaping, hospitality and tourism are particularly reliant on foreign nationals to meet high demand during the busy summer months.
BIA: A finding of guilt in a proceeding that affords defendants all of the constitutional rights of criminal procedure that are applicable without limitation and that are incorporated against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment is a “conviction” for immigration purposes under section 101(a)(48)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Law360: The Second Circuit ruled Monday that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services failed to weigh the full facts when denying an Afghan national’s application for permanent residence because he fought opposition forces under duress after being abducted by the Taliban.
Justia: The BIA also did not address Cruz-Garcia’s challenge to the IJ’s alleged failure to permit Lesley to testify, but that may have been because the BIA erroneously concluded that Cruz-Garcia had not challenged the IJ’s discretionary determination and therefore did not “reach . . . the arguments raised on appeal.”… Because the BIA failed to address an exhausted argument that ultimately challenges the IJ’s determination that he was not entitled to cancellation of removal, remand is warranted.
CA5: In his credible-fear interview, Muminov did not describe his alleged 2016 protest of the confiscation of his passport or the beating that he incurred thereafter… Given these discrepancies, a reasonable factfinder could conclude, as the IJ and BIA did, that Muminov’s testimony about politically motivated attacks “was too inconsistent”… He cites his testimony about extortionate fees that he was forced to pay to live in Moscow and the harassment and discrimination that he faced there. This testimony may well support a restricted-residence exception, but we cannot say that the IJ and BIA were compelled to conclude that…
Law360: A Venezuelan mom must return her children to South America, the Sixth Circuit ordered in a published but split decision, ruling that an incident of domestic violence she said was committed by the father and witnessed by the children was too minor for the court to refuse a Hague Convention petition for their return.
Law360: An Eighth Circuit panel declined Wednesday to review a Somali man’s petition to avoid deportation, saying the immigration judge who looked at the case properly determined that even if the man’s testimony were found credible, he still wouldn’t likely face torture in Somalia due to his Christian beliefs.
Washington Blade: “Any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to find a pattern or practice of persecution against transgender women in Honduras,” reads the 10th Circuit ruling.
Law360: A California federal judge has approved a settlement between a class of unauthorized immigrants and the federal government that prohibits judges from setting unreasonable bond amounts for those detained without considering their ability to pay.
An Arizona federal judge on Friday dismissed the families putative Bivens class action regarding family separation against 15 high-ranking Trump Administration officials but rejected the federal government’s motion to dismiss as to the families’ FTCA claims against the United States.
Law360: An Ohio federal judge refused to shelve his earlier ruling blocking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from following a Biden administration mandate narrowing immigration enforcement priorities when making custody decisions while DHS appeals his order.
Law360: A Connecticut federal judge dismissed a Honduran immigrant’s claims that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer raped and blackmailed her with the threat of deportation for seven years, finding that her claims are all time-barred.
AILA: CDC released an order to terminate its Title 42 public health order on May 23, 2022. The document assesses the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic, provides legal considerations, and describes plans for DHS to mitigate COVID-19, provide vaccinations to migrants, and resume use of Title 8.
AILA: USCIS announced actions to reduce caseloads and processing times. These include setting new internal cycle time goals, creating premium processing availability of Form I-539, Form I-765 and Form I-140 in FY2022, and working toward a temporary final rule for streamlining EAD processes.
DOJ OIG: In May 2018, eight members of Congress asked the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to investigate allegations that after January 2017, offers for Immigration Judge and Board Member positions were withdrawn or delayed for political or ideological reasons. While we were engaged in assessing these allegations, we received additional allegations that other candidates may have been favored in the hiring process because of their connections to the Trump administration, or perceived political affiliation or ideology. The DOJ OIG did not find sufficient evidence based on an assessment of the allegations to warrant opening a full investigation. However, during the course of our assessment, we identified concerns about the Immigration Judge and Board Member hiring process.
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Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)
Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship
National Immigrant Justice Center
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On its face, the “Doyle Memo” on PD looks good. But, as is always the case with ICE, it all depends on how it is interpreted, used, and applied on the “Field Office Level” and before the Immigration Courts.
On Title 42, interestingly, GOP states that were fine with the Trump regime’s racist attacks on the rule of law now are apoplectic about the Biden’s Administration’s long overdue effort to restore law, order, and human rights to the border.
It will also be telling to see how Federal Courts (particularly the 5th Circuit) that happily facilitated the Executive’s scofflaw, racist assaults on the Constitution and immigrants’ rights during the Trump era react to the Biden Administration’s efforts to restore at least some semblance of asylum laws and due process.
Experts like Blaine Bookey, Legal Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies; Eleanor Acer, Director of Refugee Protection, Human Rights First; Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and many others have pointed out that the “Trump/Miller Title 42 Blockade” was an illegal (not to mention immoral) pretext “from the git go.”
We can only hope that Garland does a better job of defending the termination of Title 42 than he did with the equally illegal and immoral “Remain in Mexico” program. However, having made the bad decision to rely upon and defend Title 42 for the last year, and fecklessly standing by while it was illegally invoked by the Biden Administration over a million times to deny migrants their legal rights, Garland might find some of his best legal arguments foreclosed by his own actions.
It’s also possible that given the unconscionable delay, lack of enthusiasm, and lack of effective planning within the Biden Administration for the termination of Title 42 and for vindicating the rights of immigrants of color in general, some of those in influential positions would not be unhappy if a “Trumpist Federal Court” forced them to keep illegally turning back refugees at our border forever!
Some GOP judges and super-sleazy state AGs have a very clear vision of the future for refugees of color. Most days, the Biden Administration can’t decide whether they share it or not. EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)Professor (Emeritus) David A. Martin UVA Law PHOTO: UVA Law
The court’s opinion carries the reader along on what purports to be textual analysis and implacable logic. On closer examination, however, it is a startling exercise in judicial imperialism. The opinion seizes on fragments of statutory text, taken out of context, to construct a presumed congressional intent that would be more to the judges’ liking. It ignores contrary indicators in the wording and the historical development of the key provisions. It makes no attempt to reconcile the supposed strict mandate with the historical fact that Congress went 20 years without really noticing—much less objecting to—the absence of implementation. The court also shows an arrogant disregard for the operational realities of border enforcement, including the sensitivity of diplomatic relations with Mexico that sustain cross-border cooperation—on migration issues as well as other policy priorities.
I can bring some special perspective in analyzing the appeals court’s decision. I have been a scholar and teacher of immigration law for 40 years, and I also was fortunate to hold policy-level positions dealing with immigration in three different departments, under three different Presidents. My years in government gave me close exposure to the operational realities at a level most law professors—and judges—don’t experience. One of those stints consisted of 30 months during the mid-nineties as General Counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) the period when the key reform bills on which the Fifth Circuit relies were introduced, debated, amended, enacted and implemented.
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Read David’s complete article at the above link. As usual, my “practical scholar” friend gives you the real legal analysis that should have been applied by the court. Now, here’s my “less nuanced” take on this atrocious and cowardly piece of extreme White Nationalist judicial misfeasance!
Remarkably, in their 117 pages of snarky, wooden legalese, demeaning of humanity, and willfully misrepresenting reality, these life-tenured righty judges (surprise, two Trumpists, one Bush I) give no serious consideration whatsoever to the well-documented, daily, ongoing abuses of the human and legal rights of those fleeing oppression who are subjected to this heinous White Nationalist program! See, e.g., https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/shameful-record-biden-administration-s-use-trump-policies-endangers-people-seeking-asylum
Just how do asylum applicants exercise their statutory “right” to apply for asylum and other protection under U.S. and international law if they are dead, kidnapped, beaten, extorted, raped, threatened, given inadequate notice of hearing, denied their right to legal assistance, prevented from preparing and documenting their cases, and if they are fortunate enough to finally get a hearing, subjected to an anti-asylum, anti-due-process, non-asylum-expert “faux judiciary” run by a prosecutor with a majority of his “holdover judges” appointed or co-opted by his White Nationalist, asylum-hating predecessors? The Fifth Circuit doesn’t bother to explain. That’s probably because historically their failure to stand up for human rights and racial justice for those in need of protection has been part of the problem.
Also, it’s remarkable how righty judges who couldn’t find any reasons to stop the Trump regime from rewriting asylum law out of existence in unprecedented ways, without legislation, and usually without regard to the APA, suddenly take a much different position when it comes to the Biden Administration’s modest efforts to vindicate human rights and restore some semblance of the rule of law. But, that’s actually less surprising than the Biden Administration’s failure to “see the handwriting on the wall” and have a “Plan B” in operation.
Obviously, these three life-tenured right-wing human rights abusers in robes need to spend a few months “detained” in Mexico or in the “New American Gulag!” But, that’s wishful thinking. Not going to happen! These are ivory tower guys with life tenure, fat salaries, and robes who use their positions to pick on the most vulnerable in the world and deprive them of their legal and human rights based on intentional misconstructions of the law, ignorance of reality, and pandering to a rather overly political racist appeal from GOP AGs who are from “the bottom of humanity’s — and our legal profession’s — apple barrel!” Doesn’t get much worse than that!
Nevertheless, it should be clear to both advocates and the Biden Administration that “Remain in Mexico” likely is here to stay! Despite the lack of merits to the Fifth Circuit’s decision, and the Supreme’s granting of the Biden Administration’s cert petition, I wouldn’t hold my breath for relief from either the right-wing Supremes or the feckless Dems in Congress.
Given that the program is likely to be judicially imposed, the Administration and advocates can still get together to make it work in compliance with due process. It’s well within their power and not rocket science:
Appoint a new BIA with appellate judges who are practical scholars in asylum and will establish coherent, correct legal guidance on domestic violence claims, gender based asylum, gang-based claims, nexus, “failure of state protection,” credibility, corroboration, the operation of the presumption of future persecution, the DHS’s burden of rebutting the presumption, “rise to the level,” right to counsel, fair hearings, and other critical areas where the current “Trump holdover” BIA’s guidance has been lacking, inadequate, and/or defective. They can also insure consistency in asylum adjudications, something that has long escaped EOIR.
Get a corps of Immigration Judges with established records and reputations for scholarly expertise, commitment to due-process, practicality, and fairness to asylum seekers to handle these cases.
Work with pro bono and advocacy groups and the UNHCR to insure that every person applying under this program has access to competent representation and adequate opportunities to prepare and document cases. Nolan Rappaport and I have recently written about the “largely untapped potential” of a better “qualified representative” program. Professor Michele Pistone at Villanova Law has done some ground-breaking innovative work on training accredited representatives for asylum cases in Immigration Court. But, like most other long overdue reforms, it appears to have gone over Garland’s distracted head! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2022/02/02/⚖%EF%B8%8F🗽there-will-be-no-supreme-intervention-to-stop-mpp-☹%EF%B8%8F-rappaport-pistone-schmidt-tell-how-the-administration-advocates-c/
Work with the Government of Mexico and the UNHCR to guarantee the health, security, safety, and welfare of those waiting in camps in Mexico.
Then, we’ll finally find out how many of those who have already passed credible fearactually qualify for a grant of asylum under a fair, competent, timely system run by experts with individuals who are well-represented! I’ll bet it’s the majority, not the measly 2% who have received grants under EOIR’s “Stephen Miller Lite” approach!
For example, during 13 years on the trial bench, I found that the majority of those referred to Immigration Court after a positive “credible fear” finding (all of the “Remain in Mexico” applicants fall in that category) qualified for asylum or some other type of protection from removal. And, like my friend and long time-colleague Professor Martin, I’ve been working on asylum issues from enforcement, advocacy, academic, and judicial standpoints, in and out of government, since before there was a Refugee Act of 1980!
So, to me, the “2% asylum grant rate” in Immigration Court for these cases,” particularly in light of some revised intentionally overly restrictive “credible fear” criteria imposed by the Trump regime, appears clearly bogus. Why hasn’t Garland looked into the systemic defects in the EOIR system, as applied to “Remain in Mexico,” that have artificially suppressed the grant rate?
Lack of lawyers, undue hinderances on gathering evidence and presenting cases, poor notice, lack of expertise, inadequate training, and anti-asylum performance by IJs and the BIA, and in some cases kidnapping, assault, rape, extortion, and other well-documented physical harm knowingly inflicted on applicants by placing them in clearly dangerous and unacceptable conditions in Mexico are just the start!
There are lots of creative ways of making our current immigration system work better! You just need the knowledge, motivation, expertise, and guts to make it happen! So, far that’s been lacking at all levels of the Biden Administration, but particularly at Garland’s “brain-dead” DOJ. Gosh, these guys make Stephen Miller look like a “creative genius,” albeit an evil and pathological one! 🤯🤮🏴☠️ Come on, man!
As many of us have pointed out, Garland, Mayorkas, Biden, and Harris could and should have had such a system up and operating by now! Outrageous and disgusting as the conduct of the 5th Circuit has been, it’s hardly unpredictable given past performance. Every day that the Administration continues to waste by not making the necessary changes at EOIR, a court system totally within their control, adds to the human misery and injustice!
So, bottom line: White Nationalist judges get life tenure from the GOP. Meanwhile, back at the ranch of the “Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” Biden and Garland retain Trump’s White Nationalist appointees and enablers at EOIR and eschew the chance to create a diverse, progressive, expert, practical, due-process-oriented, fundamental-fairness-insistent, racial-justice-committed judiciary to decide life-or-death cases that affect and influence the operation of our entire justice system and our democracy in ways that no other court system in America does! The Administration’s alarming “tone deafness” is blowing perhaps the “last clear chance” to create a “model judiciary!” Sounds like something only a Dem Administration could do. Go figure!
