Gratuitous Cruelty – immigrationcourtside.com

😢☠️ DACA: THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT — Right Wing Judges, GOP Politicos Take Aim @ America’s Future By Dumping On Dreamers!🤮

OLAFIMIHAN OSHIN & Rebecca Beitsch report in The Hill:

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4203346-federal-judge-again-declares-daca-immigration-program-unlawful/

A federal judge for the second time found the DACA program unlawful, but held back from ordering the deportation of the nearly 600,000 people who remain in the country as “Dreamers.”

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, first crafted with a 2012 memo under the Obama administration, was likewise found unlawful by federal District Court Judge Andrew Hanen in a similar ruling in 2021.

“While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time,” Hanen wrote in the 40-page ruling.

“The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. Congress, for any number of reasons, has decided not to pass DACA-like legislation.”

Given earlier challenges to the DACA program’s creation through a memo, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2022 underwent formal rulemaking to solidify the basis for the program.

But Hanen found while the government followed the law in undergoing notice and comment rulemaking, the new rule essentially carried the 2012 memo into a formal rule without addressing prior issues criticized by the court.

Last year the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, before remanding the case to Hanen, found broader issues with DACA, saying the policy was inconsistent with immigration processes laid out under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Hanen pointed to that in his Wednesday ruling, noting that while the record underlying the new rule showed DACA to be beneficial to both recipients and the U.S. “DHS did nothing to change or resolve the substantive problems found by this court or the fifth circuit.The decision earned swift backlash from immigration advocates and spurred familiar calls for Congress to act.

. . . .

The decision earned swift backlash from immigration advocates and spurred familiar calls for Congress to act.

“While expected, today’s court ruling is devastating. It impacts hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth and their loved ones, who have already endured years of uncertainty stemming from politicized attacks on DACA,” Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center said in a statement.

“Congress has failed to pass a permanent legislative solution, and it is urgent that they act now. We cannot allow court rulings to continue to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth whose home is here.”

The ruling comes months after a coalition of nine GOP-led states asked Hanen to end the federal program, referring to the program as “unlawful” and “unconstitutional.”

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

Once you get beyond GOP White Nationalist politicos and judges, DACA legislation is widely popular across the political spectrum. Yet, the GOP is happy to defy the common good, and, sadly, Dems are afraid to leverage and elevate DACA to a “Tier One” issue! So, a generation of younger talent that American needs for the future continues to “twist in the wind!” Stupid, cruel, wasteful!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-14-23

⚖️😎☹️ AFTER RARE VICTORY FOR RESPONDENT IN MATTER OF C-G-T- (UNWILLING/UNABLE TO PROTECT, POLICE REPORT, HIDING SEXUAL ORIENTATION), BIA REVERTS TO FORM BY DENYING ADJUSTMENT TO CONDITIONALLY PAROLED CUBANS (MATTER OF CABRERA-FERNANDEZ)

Here’s the link to Matter of C-G-T-, 28 I&N Dec. 740 (BIA 2023):

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1594626/download

Here’s the link to Matter of Cabreara-Fernandez, 28 I&N Dec, 747 (BIOA 2023):

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1595041/download

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This e-mail exchange among experts says it all about Cabrera-Fernandez:

Expert 1: Wow – they never miss a chance to hurt noncitizens, do they?

Expert 2: The cruelty is the point.

With an available interpretation that would have allowed regularization of status, what purpose is served by devising a way to keep these otherwise qualified Cubans in limbo? Why would the DHS appeal a decision like this? Why would the BIA reward them for pursuing a result that is 1) inhumane, 2) undesirable, and 3) entirely avoidable with a little creativity and common sense (see, IJ in this case)?

No wonder we have backlogs everywhere an a dysfunctional system that nobody in charge seems interested in fixing — even when fixes are available and basically “cost free?” Better leaders and more enlightened decision-makers would be helpful.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-12-23

😇🙏🏽SANCTUARY, A TIME-HONORED ANTIDOTE TO CRUELTY & STUPIDITY, PUTS AMERICA’S 🇺🇸🗽BEST FOOT FORWARD 👏: “It means treating [migrants] like humans in need rather than pawns.”

MATTHEW 25 — Holy card ( 1899 ) showing an illustration to the Gospel of Matthew 25, 34-36 – rear side of an obituary.
Wolfgang Sauber
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-06-21/la-ed-sanctuary-cities

From the L.A. Times Editorial Board:

Editorial: Sanctuary cities are working just fine, thank you

When Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida bused and flew migrants to Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., and other so-called “sanctuary cities,” they might have envisioned they were exporting the same chaos as border states have experienced as they grapple with a historic number of migrants. They wanted leaders in these cities to admit they were wrong about their immigrant-friendly policies.

Earlier this month, Abbott sent migrants on a bus to Los Angeles. And DeSantis has admitted he dispatched migrants on two chartered flights to Sacramento a few days earlier, luring them with false promises of housing, shelter and legal help.

But Abbott and DeSantis are mistaken if they think they are teaching cities with sanctuary polices any lessons with their inhumane political stunts or causing their leaders to rethink their commitment to not treating migrants as criminals.

Those governors and their political allies also seem to be confused about what it means when cities have sanctuary policies. Though policies vary, providing sanctuary means not turning migrants over to federal immigration authorities simply for being in the country illegally. It means treating them like humans in need rather than pawns.

OPINION

Editorial: Migrants flown to Sacramento are human beings, not political pawns

June 5, 2023

That’s what leaders in Los Angeles, Sacramento and other “sanctuary cities” did as buses and planes dumped dozens of tired and often confused migrants on their doorsteps in recent months. They rallied attention and resources, while religious and other nonprofit organizations stepped up to welcome the migrants with shelter, food and clothes. In some instances, these migrants have even found temporary jobs, illustrating the need for their labor.

Abbott and DeSantis may also not realize that sanctuary policies were designed to help law enforcement keep communities safe. Sanctuary policies were developed because police in many cities such as Los Angeles were frustrated because undocumented immigrants were not reporting crimes or stepping forward as witnesses for fear of deportation.

Critics say these sanctuary cities have laws and policies that shield criminals and obstruct federal immigration policies. But cities with sanctuary policies have lower than average crime rates, higher household incomes and lower poverty rates, according to various studies.

Local authorities did not refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement, as critics claim. They simply limited the role of local law enforcement in immigration cases, for example, by not using local police to do immigration checks or by not holding an undocumented immigrant in custody for a few extra days to serve federal authorities’ schedules.

OPINION

Editorial: There’s a crisis at the border all right, but one created by political posturing

Sept. 20, 2022

Los Angeles is in the midst of transitioning from a “city of sanctuary” to “sanctuary city.” The difference is more than just semantics. The former designation is little more than a statement by city leaders in 2017 that they opposed then-President Trump’s dehumanizing anti-immigrant policies, which included separating young children from their parents. Some of those children have yet to be reunited with their parents years later. Earlier this month, the City Council voted to strengthen the policy by banning city personnel or resources from being used for immigration enforcement.

It’s true that the transports of migrants by the Texas and Florida governors have been inconvenient to cities such as Washington and New York, which have had to scramble to find housing and other resources. But they haven’t done a thing to undermine the foundation on which sanctuary policies were built.

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The money wasted by these GOP nativist neo-fascists could much better be spent on coordinated efforts to help asylum seekers to help themselves and our nation in the process. Obviously, GOP states like Florida and Texas have money to burn.

Also, to the extent that cities “targeted” by these GOP White Nationalist Governors have persevered in the face of attempts to sow chaos, it has been largely without the coordination, guidance, and leadership of the Biden Administration. Seems like that should be “low hanging fruit” for progressive Democrats to change!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-25-23

☠️⚰️🤮🏴‍☠️ THE PARTY AT THE BOTTOM OF HUMANITY’S BARREL 🛢 — New Wave Of Fascist Cruelty & Stupidity @ The Border! — “Texas governor Greg Abbott is seated at the center of a long table surrounded by grim-faced White men, most of them elderly, in various postures of mental agita.” — The Border Chronicle

https://www.theborderchronicle.com/p/sinking-to-the-bottom?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Melissa del Bosque reports for the Border Chronicle:

Both parties have doubled down on inhumane border policies, but it’s the GOP that is taking it to new depths in its race to the bottom over who can be more deliberately cruel.

It’s like some kind of grotesque Last Supper: In a publicity photo from last week’s press conference, Texas governor Greg Abbott is seated at the center of a long table surrounded by grim-faced White men, most of them elderly, in various postures of mental agita. Next to them is a large illustration on an easel board titled “Live Test of Attempt to Breach.” It shows a man with an inner tube (presumably an asylum seeker) clinging to a floating red buoy. Hundreds of these buoys Abbott announced, will be deployed on the Rio Grande near the town of Eagle Pass. The barrier will be 1,000 feet long, and its netting will extend underwater, catching anyone who tries to swim under it.

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“We don’t want anyone to get hurt,” said Steve McCraw, head of Texas’s Department of Public Safety, at the June 9 press conference. “We want to prevent people from drowning.”

The floating buoy barrier will persuade people not to cross, he said. “This is to deter them from even coming in the water.”

But we already know this isn’t true. Both McCraw and Abbott were parroting the same strategy, known as “prevention through deterrence,” introduced in the mid-1990s during the Clinton administration. It has turned our southern border into a graveyard. After nearly three decades of militarized border buildup that has pushed people into increasingly deadly terrain like the Sonoran Desert, people haven’t stopped coming. But thousands of them have died.

As Todd [Miller] recently wrote in his poignant piece about this deadly strategy, “On the cusp of summer, we can predict like clockwork that hundreds of otherwise healthy people will be dead by summer’s end. It has an aura of premeditated murder.”

These floating barriers, which, according to the manufacturer’s website, can also be reinforced with spikes, will only contribute to an already-skyrocketing death count. Abbott’s latest announcement has already spurred many human rights organizations to sound a warning. Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent and now border human rights activist, along with fellow Texas-based activist Marianna Treviño Wright, released a bilingual video warning migrants of the deadly new policy.

All-in on Fascism

Abbott has long toyed with the idea of running for president. While it increasingly looks less likely that he will, Florida governor Ron DeSantis has already joined the fray. And he’s all-in on fascism. When he’s not treating fellow human beings like FedEx packages, he’s modeling himself after Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s authoritarian leader, and darling of the CPAC circuit. Last week DeSantis released “B-roll” of Florida state troopers surveying the Texas-Mexico border as they participate in Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. I suspect they didn’t include any audio in the B-roll because it would humanize the children and adults waving to the troopers from the Mexican side of the river, detracting from DeSantis’s threatening narrative of an invading army.

DeSantis’s campaign video begins with a Texas DPS officer, who sports an official DPS seal on his tactical face covering, unlocking a tiny metal door surrounded by razor wire. This is next-level border security theater, as comical as it is utterly surreal and tragic. Several other Republican-led states are also, once again, sending troopers and National Guard soldiers to the Texas border—as they did before the 2022 midterm—to wage war against the Biden White House before the election. Unfortunately, it’s border communities and migrants who are caught in the crossfire.

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For many years, I’ve documented border theater as it has ebbed and flowed depending on the political tide. But as I’ve been documenting in The Border Chronicle, we’ve reached an altogether different and deadly era of disinformation, with the GOP parroting invasion and great replacement rhetoric, and increasingly dehumanizing people, spurring mass shootings and political violence. This behavior is championed by a growing right-wing media ecosystem which in turn promotes more anti-democratic and extremist behavior.

I spoke with Sergio Muñoz, vice president of Media Matters for America, a nonprofit that has tracked conservative media for nearly two decades. I quoted Muñoz in a recent article, and wanted to include my full Q&A with him here. As Muñoz warns, the U.S. is in a “dangerous moment” as it approaches the 2024 presidential election.

. . . .

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Read Melissa’s full report, including the interview with Sergio Muñoz at the above link.

Yes, “deterrence gimmicks” directed at refugees have a decades-long proven record of failure. You can just look at the efforts of the EU to “bar the door” to refugees from Africa and the Middle
East.

The boats continue to come, some sink, people drown. But, not surprisingly to those other than the “overprivileged and elitist White power class” like Abbott and DeSantis, desperate individuals forced from their homes are going continue to come — at any cost, even their own health, safety, and sometime lives.

Most would rather “risk it all” on a shot — even a very long shot — at stability and a real life, rather than facing the certainty of wasting away without hope, freedom, or opportunity and having to watch the same thing happening to younger generations. Some, against all odds, continue to believe that rich, powerfu Western countries like the U.S. will eventually live up to their solemn legal obligations to protect refugees and asylum seekers!

While, as Melissa cogently points out, these inane, yet deadly, gimmicks do kill migrants, they don’t do so at a high enough rate to materially affect the flow. It’s just causing pain, suffering, and sometimes death for their own perverted sake.

Border Death — This is a monument for those who have died attempting to cross the US-Mexican border. Each coffin represents a year and the number of dead. It is a protest against the effects of Operation Guardian. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border.
Tomas Castelazo
n order to comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Apparently, neo-fascists like Abbott, DeSantis, Trump, and their “role model” Stephen Miller just “get off on” watching others suffer unnecessarily. Bullies and cowards often get a kick out of observing the effects of their handiwork.

Meanwhile, the public money being wasted on these cruel, yet ultimately ineffective stunts (remember former AZ Gov. Ducey’s shipping containers arrayed and then disassembled at government expense), could much, much better be spent on providing representation, organized resettlement, and humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers.

As Melissa says, the GOP’s (and sometimes, unfortunately the Dems’) “uber-enforcement/deterrence gimmicks are “as comical as [they are] utterly surreal and tragic.” It’s time for decent Americans to “just say no” to these horrible folks and their failed and deadly policies of dehumanization and degradation!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-15-23

🇺🇸🗽😎 FACED WITH GOP GOV’S CRUEL STUNTS, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S INDIFFERENCE TO HUMAN RIGHTS, GOOD FOLKS IN SACRAMENTO JUST “DO THE RIGHT THING” & WELCOME MIGRANTS — “I’m hoping to have a good life here and I was welcomed with open arms,” one woman wrote. “I want to work and serve. We are here to help.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=fbb1f5c1-f13f-4dac-b153-d626bff1ae79

Mackenzie Mays reports for the LA Times:

With clothing, food and shelter, church groups aid people flown to California on chartered flights arranged by Florida officials, which many in this state call a political stunt

By Mackenzie Mays

SACRAMENTO — On the same day that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration took responsibility for sending dozens of migrants seeking asylum to California, the volunteers and organizers inside the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral of Sacramento refused to say the Republican politician’s name.

Instead, they wanted to talk about the 36 men and women they’ve cared for this week, who they say were left exhausted, confused and afraid at the doorstep of a local church in what California officials have called a political stunt.

Gabby Trejo, executive director of Sacramento Area Congregations Together, said the migrants she took to church with her on Sunday — some who had walked thousands of miles over the course of several months from Venezuela to the U.S. — reached into their pockets to offer a dollar for the collection plate.

“I said, no, you need it more than our church does today. But they didn’t care. They still put it in the plate,” Trejo said. “In that moment, our new neighbors showed me what it means for them to also be able to contribute to our community.”

Cecila Flores, who has supported the migrants since the first group arrived by plane on Friday, wiped away tears at a news conference on Tuesday.

In their 20s and 30s, most of the migrants are the first in their families to make it to the U.S. and are eager to work, she said. Some are married. One brought along a dog named Gieco.

When she asks them simple questions like what they want for dinner, they are timid. Anything is fine, they always say.

“It’s been years since I’ve been able to pick my own clothes,” one man told Flores, an organizer at Sacramento ACT, after a volunteer took him to the thrift store.

The identities of the migrants, who also came from countries including Colombia and Guatemala, remain undisclosed as the California Department of Justice investigates the incident. Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened conservative presidential hopeful DeSantis with kidnapping charges.

Organizers said Tuesday that the migrants had arrived at the Texas border, where they were met by people claiming to be with a relocation program, promising housing and jobs. They were then shuttled to New Mexico and flown to Sacramento on a chartered plane.

. . . .

The people working on the ground with them in Sacramento said that the migrants had no idea where they were headed. Their “American dream” quickly became “a nightmare,” Trejo said, adding they were deceived.

Along with city and county officials, local church leaders and nonprofits have scrambled to help them.

. . . .

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Where is the leadership, competence, and “good government” the Biden Administration promised during the 2020 campaign?

California needs affordable housing and workers, particularly in agriculture, child care, and health care. Migrants can help with this. They are eager to contribute.

The key is to get them represented, through the system with grants of asylum or other protection that many are eligible for, work authorized, and on their way to durable legal status.

Stunts like De Santis’s, misplaced “deterrence,” lack of creativity, and poor leadership by the Administration and Dems in DC are wasting resources and time that could be used to solve problems, not aggravate them!

Once again, the Biden Administration has left the job of making the flawed immigration system work to individuals without sufficient Federal support or coordination. Yet, they disdain the advice and counsel of these “grass roots experts” in favor of mindless, half-baked deterrence gimmicks derived from Stephen Miller and other GOP neo-fascists! Why?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-97-23

PROFESSOR JENNIFER CHACON’S BRENNAN ESSAY — RULE OF LAW RUSE — The Gratuitous Cruelty, Dehumanization, & Demonization Is The Point! — “Courts have played an essential role in shoring up the dehumanizing narratives that enable our nation’s harsh enforcement practices.”

Professor Jennifer M. Chacon
UC Berkley Law

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/02/immigration-article-of-the-day-the-dehumanizing-work-of-immigration-law-by-jennifer-m-chac%C3%B3n.html

Professor and ImmigrationProf Blog Principal Kit Johnson reports:

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Immigration Article of the Day: The Dehumanizing Work of Immigration Law by Jennifer M. Chacón

By Immigration Prof

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The Dehumanizing Work of Immigration Law is an analysis piece authored by immprof Jennifer M. Chacón (Berkeley) for the Brennan Center for Justice. It was part of a series of articles examining the “punitive excess that has come to define America’s criminal legal system.”

In her article, Chacón acknowledges that “our immigration laws are exceptionally harsh in ways that frequently defy common sense.” She notes that for many migrants “the notion that there is a ‘right way’ to immigrate is just not true.” Moreover, “our country has not always honored its own legal processes when immigrants are doing things ‘the right way.’” And, for those “long-time lawful permanent residents who have contact with the criminal legal system are often denied the chance to do things ‘the right way.’”

“Again and again,” Chacón writes, “notions of the rule of law are invoked to justify the sundering of families and communities that would, in other circumstances, seem unthinkable.”

-KitJ

February 22, 2022 in Data and Research, Law Review Articles & Essays | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Jennifer elegantly articulates a theme that echoes what “Sir Jeffrey” Chase and I often say on our respective blogs: It’s all about gratuitous cruelty and intentional dehumanization of “the other” — primarily vulnerable individuals of color!

But, it need not be that way! Undoubtedly, the current legislative framework is outdated, unrealistic, and often self-contradictory. Congress’s failure to address it with bipartisan, humane, common sense, practical reforms that would strengthen and expand our legal immigration system is disgraceful.

But, there are plenty of opportunities even under the current flawed framework for much better interpretations of law; more expansive, uniform, and reasonable exercises of discretion; creation and implementation of best practices; advancements in due process and fundamental fairness; drastic improvements in representation; improved expert judging; rational, targeted, “results-focused” enforcement; promoting accountability; and teamwork and cooperation among the judiciary, DHS, and the private/NGO/academic sectors to improve the delivery of justice and make the “rule of law” something more than the cruel parody it is today.

Historically, as Jennifer points out, courts have often aided, abetted, and sometimes even disgracefully and cowardly encouraged lawless behavior and clear violations of both constitutional and human rights. But, it doesn’t have to be that way in the future!

Folks like Trump, Miller, Sessions, Barr, Wolf, “Cooch,” Hamilton, McHenry, et al spent four years laser-focused on banishing every last ounce of humanity, fairness, truth, enlightenment, kindness, compassion, reasonableness, efficiency, rationality, equity, public service, racial justice, consistently positive use of discretion, practicality, and common sense from our immigration and refugee systems.

Biden and Harris promised dynamic change, improvement, and a return to a values-based approach to immigration. Once in office, however, they have basically “gone Miller Lite” — preferring to blame and criticize the Trump regime without having a ready plan or taking much positive action to bring about dynamic systemic improvements. In fact, as pointed out by Jennifer, Garland and Mayorkas have continued to apply, defend, and to some extent rely on the very vile policies they supposedly disavowed. Talk about disingenuous!

Drastic improvements in the current system are “out there for the taking,” with or without Congressional assistance. But, the will, skill, and guts to make the “rule of law” something other than an intentionally cruel, failed “throw away slogan” appears to be sorely missing from Biden Administration ldeadership!

Maybe, the beginning of Jennifer’s essay “says it all” about the abject failure of Garland and others to “get the job done:”

During his confirmation hearing to be attorney general, when asked about the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border, Merrick Garland repudiated the policy, stating “I can’t imagine anything worse.”

Yet, now that he is confirmed, Attorney General Garland presides over an agency that represents the U.S. government in court arguing every day that parents should be separated from their children, brothers from sisters, grandchildren from grandparents.

Obviously, that’s the problem! Garland actually “can’t imagine” the human impact of government-imposed family separation! Nor can he “imagine” what it’s like to be caught up in his unfair, biased, and broken Immigration “Courts” as a party or a lawyer. The “retail level” of our justice system “passed him by” on his way to his judicial “comfort zone.”

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style — “AG Garland ‘can’t imagine’ what it’s like to be caught up in the dysfunctional, abusive, and unfair ‘court system’ that he runs!”

Unless and until we finally get an Attorney General who has either experienced or has the actual imagination necessary to feel the daily horrors and indignity that our unnecessarily broken immigration justice system inflicts on real human beings, American justice and human values will continue to spiral downward! ☠️🤮

And, there will be no true racial justice in America without justice for immigrants!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-23-22

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Here’s the link to Matter of C-G-T-, 28 I&N Dec. 740 (BIA 2023):

Here’s the link to Matter of Cabreara-Fernandez, 28 I&N Dec, 747 (BIOA 2023):

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

From the L.A. Times Editorial Board:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Melissa del Bosque reports for the Border Chronicle:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Mackenzie Mays reports for the LA Times:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2022/02/immigration-article-of-the-day-the-dehumanizing-work-of-immigration-law-by-jennifer-m-chac%C3%B3n.html

Professor and ImmigrationProf Blog Principal Kit Johnson reports:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

Related posts: