🇺🇸⚖️🗽🦸🏻 AMERICAN HERO: Round Table 🛡⚔️ Judge (Ret.) Ilyce Shugall Reflects On Two Decades Of Promoting Justice & Resisting Evil: “While United States detention policies and conditions were cruel when I worked at ProBAR, they are exponentially worse today.”

Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S Immigration Judge (Ret)
Managing Attorney at ILD and Senior Counsel in the Immigration Program at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, CA
Adjunct Professor, VIISTA Villanova
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
PHOTO: VIISTA Villanova

Published by the ABA:

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/immigration/generating_justice_blog/probar-then-and-now/

I started my post-law school immigration law career at ProBAR in Harlingen, Texas, as an Equal Justice Works Fellow from September 1999 to September 2001.  In May, 2023, I had the privilege of returning to ProBAR as a volunteer with the ABA Commission on Immigration (COI) to engage in a week of pro bono service.  I have been a Commission member for almost three years.  My return, over twenty years after I left the Rio Grande Valley, provided me perspective, and caused me to reflect on the many changes as well as the constants in the South Texas border region, where I learned how to be a fierce immigration advocate.  I was privileged to spend the week with welcoming ProBAR staff, COI colleagues, and the COI director, Meredith Linsky, who was my boss and mentor at ProBAR, a hero to the immigrants’ rights movement, and is someone I am proud to call a colleague and friend.

Our first day of our pro bono week began at the new ProBAR office.  When I walked into the office, I felt like I was in a different world!  ProBAR’s new office space is large, spacious, beautiful, and inviting.  It is clear that much thought went into the design and structure of the office, considering the need for private office space, open collaborative space, large quiet spaces, conference rooms, outdoor space, and a gym and yoga room to ensure staff can decompress and energize before, during, or after long, challenging, and emotionally draining days.  The office is a sharp contrast to the ProBAR office where I worked—two rooms on the second floor of an old, pest-infested house.  The new office is equipped with state-of-the-art technology, another contrast from my experience, where we used dial up internet and unplugged the fax machine before we could access the internet.  We learned that ProBAR now has a staff of 270 people.  In 1999 when I started, we were a staff of three—the ProBAR director, the volunteer paralegal, and me.  I am thrilled to see the investment in the staff through hiring and creating a livable workspace.  Comfortable, functional, supportive workspace is crucial to the sustainability of the demanding work.

Our schedule for the week included meeting with partner organizations in Brownsville and Matamoros, meeting with individuals detained at the Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC), touring children’s shelters, and visiting La Posada Providencia, a welcoming shelter for many immigrants and refugees.  I was impressed by the resiliency and responsiveness of organizations in the region.  The increase in resources for noncitizens in the Rio Grande Valley was striking and is unquestionably due to necessity.  The humanitarian crisis at the border is unlike anything I saw between 1999 and 2001 and the need has increased exponentially.  I was impressed by the partnerships established by the ProBAR team.  The increased staffing has allowed ProBAR to form and maintain crucial partnerships throughout the Rio Grande Valley.  During my time at ProBAR, we relied on trusted partnerships; however, due to our limited staffing, we were unable to engage in outreach or foster relationships with many organizations.  The current partnerships with shelters and other social services organizations are crucial to ProBAR’s ability to meet the needs to the community they serve.

ProBAR’s presence in Brownsville is remarkable.  We utilized ProBAR’s small office close to the border.  This space was crucial when the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program was still in place, as ProBAR staff served clients facing removal proceedings in the tent courts.  The office space on the border continues to provide essential access to clients and the social services agencies that serve them.  It allows the ProBAR staff to do outreach, education, and intake at the non-legal organizations that serve mutual clients.  For example, while in Brownsville, we provided legal consultations to numerous individuals staying at a Brownsville shelter.  We also visited one of the unaccompanied children’s shelters in Brownsville, where ProBAR staff provide services.

During our pro bono week, we had the opportunity to travel to PIDC twice to provide consultations to recently arrived asylum seekers.  It was bittersweet to return to the detention center I frequented from 1999 to 2001, when I traveled daily to what was then called Port Isabel Service Processing Center (PISPC) – PIDC is a more appropriate name.  PIDC has not changed much.  The entrance, lobby, attorney visitation area, and court space have been remodeled.  I recall a dingy dirty lobby with a pay phone I used regularly to call the ProBAR office after long afternoons of presentations and consultations.  The lobby is now clean, spacious, and the pay phone is gone.  However, the interior of the detention center remains the same- a jail with razor wire, barbed wire, and no freedom of movement.  Also similar was ProBAR’s access to the facility due to the reputation the agency has built over the years.  When I went to PISPC daily, I felt respected by guards and government officials.  I learned the importance of building those relationships to ensure access to those who needed the services.  ProBAR’s reputation endures, and the relationships remain strong.  ProBAR’s continued ability to provide Know Your Rights presentations and consultations in the facility is crucial to serving the needs of thousands of individuals every year.

In the two days I conducted consultations with noncitizens at PIDC, I met men from Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala.  The nationalities of individuals detained have shifted over the years, but the reasons they have fled their homes remains constant.  They are fleeing political violence and oppression, gang violence, cartel violence, and government instability.  The men detained at PIDC endured exceptional hardship, danger, and suffering to arrive at the United States border to seek refuge.  While United States detention policies and conditions were cruel when I worked at ProBAR, they are exponentially worse today.  Currently, noncitizens are forced to stay in unsanitary and unsafe refugee camps in Matamoros often for months while trying to request protection in the United States.  They face disease, kidnapping, rape, and torture in Matamoros while the United States and Mexican governments turn a blind eye and collaborate to keep them from crossing the bridge into Brownsville.  When those lucky enough to find a way into the United States arrive, many are forced to remain detained in Customs and Border Protection custody for weeks, sleeping on the floor with limited to no access to showers and in freezing rooms or cells.  They then must navigate the new confusing and complex asylum rule without counsel.  While we were unable to provide representation, the men we met with were grateful for our explanation of the legal process, as well as the pro bono legal consultations we provided.

As part of our trip, we also had the opportunity to go to Matamoros and meet with partners at the Sidewalk School.  The plan to walk over the bridge, meet with Sidewalk School staff, and tour one of the refugee shelters took much time and coordination on the part of ProBAR and ABA staff.  Unlike when I lived and worked in Harlingen, when going to Matamoros was often a spur of the moment decision to have dinner or go shopping, today, numerous considerations must be assessed.  Matamoros was a safe city when I crossed regularly.  However, today, due to the United States’ and Mexico’s war on drugs, Matamoros is often dangerous, particularly for refugees hoping to reach the United States.  I appreciate the care, planning, and coordination that went into our day in Matamoros.  Witnessing the situation at the base of the bridge as well as the refugee camp was crucial to gaining a true understanding of the consequences of United States immigration law and policy changes over the last several years.  Photos of the bridge and the camp provide a glimpse into the reality that refugees are living.  However, the photos did not prepare me for what I saw and experienced.  Walking into and around the shelter full of makeshift tents, no sanitation, no services, in 90+ degree temperatures with soaring humidity was horrifying.  People approached us for information and help, desperate to access medical care and safety.  I fought back tears the entire time we were in the camp.  No one should live in these conditions, and no one who lives in the camps is there by choice.  Refugees tolerate the dangerous, unsanitary conditions that are making them sick because they were forced to leave their homes.  Their flight was not voluntary.  Seeing the camp provided me even greater perspective on the situations they fled.  I left feeling sad, horrified, and angry at the United States government policies that created the humanitarian crisis in Matamoros.  It is avoidable.  It can be changed for the better.  Instead, the United States government recently finalized a rule to make it harder for those seeking protection to access the United States asylum system.  This rule will exacerbate the problems in Matamoros and has caused and will continue to cause greater human suffering on both sides of the border.

I am thankful for my week with ProBAR.  I appreciated starting my days as I started many days when I lived in Harlingen decades ago, running on the path along the Arroyo Colorado in the heat and humidity, among the beautiful lush green plants, chirping birds, and adorable bunnies.  I found peace and energy running on the path, which carried me through the days of the harsh realities of human suffering and unfair laws and policies.  My time at ProBAR reminded me why I continue to work as an immigration attorney, why I work at another amazing nonprofit, Immigrant Legal Defense, to provide free legal services to underserved communities, including noncitizens in ICE detention.

Author

Ilyce Shugall

Managing Attorney at Immigrant Legal Defense

Ilyce is currently a Managing Attorney at ILD and Senior Counsel in the Immigration Program at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (CLSEPA).  She was an adjunct professor in the Villanova Interdisciplinary Immigration Studies Training for Advocates from January 2021 to December 2021.  She was previously the Director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Justice and Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco. Prior to joining JDC, Ilyce served for 18 months as an immigration judge in the San Francisco Immigration Court. Prior to serving as an immigration judge, Ilyce was the Directing Attorney of the Immigration Program at CLSEPA from 2012-2017. Under Ilyce’s leadership, CLSEPA’s immigration staff grew from four to twenty.  Ilyce also served temporarily as the first legal director for the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative at the Bar Association of San Francisco in 2015. For 10 years, Ilyce was an attorney at Van Der Hout, LLP. Three of those years she spent as a partner. Before joining the private sector, she worked at the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) as a National Association of Public Interest Law/Equal Justice Fellow. Ilyce received the 2016 National Pro Bono Services Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association; and was a 2015 Silicon Valley Business Journal’s “Women of Influence” awardee.  Ilyce is a commissioner on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration and previously served as a commissioner on the State Bar of California Commission on Immigration and Nationality Law. She was NIPNLG’s update editor for Immigration Law and the Family from 2012-2017, and has published numerous articles on immigration law. Ilyce is an active member of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges.  Ilyce holds a JD from DePaul University College of Law, and a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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Talk about a professional career spent on the “front lines” of fighting for due process and humanity! Thanks for all you do and for being such an inspiring role model, my friend (and fellow Badger). It’s an honor to be your colleague on the Round Table and the VIISTA Villanova Program!

I was detailed to the Port Isabel Detention Center shortly before my retirement. I remember it pretty much as Ilyce describes it today.

The facility and court personnel were nice and helpful. But, there was an aura of grimness, despair, and wastefulness hanging over everything that just couldn’t be dispelled. Leaving the facility every night have me a sense of relief.

I think that all so-called policy makers in the Biden Administration should be required to experience a week in one of their immigration prisons as a prerequisite for obtaining or retaining their jobs. Sadly, and inexcusably, we now have folks making life or death decisions about immigration and human rights policy and the future of our nation who know less and have less perspective than Ilyce and others had after completing their one-year EJW Fellowships! The lack of expertise, compassion, creativity, and common sense in the Biden Administration’s immigration hierarchy/bureaucracy shows!

To quote Ilyce, about the largely self-created “humanitarian crisis” at the border: “It is avoidable.  It can be changed for the better.” My question is why isn’t a Democratic Administration that many voted for to solve problems and make things better at the border getting the job done?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-03-23

⚖️🗽🛡⚔️ LISTEN TO ROUND TABLE “FIGHTING KNIGHTESS” JUDGE (RET.) ILYCE SHUGALL ON KEVIN GREGG’S “IMMIGRATION REVIEW PODCAST!”

Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S Immigration Judge (Ret)
Managing Attorney at ILD and Senior Counsel in the Immigration Program at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, CA
Adjunct Professor, VIISTA Villanova
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
PHOTO: VIISTA Villanova
Kevin A. Gregg
Kevin A. Gregg, Esquire
Partner
Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt
Coral Gables, FL
Host Immigration Review Podcast
PHOTO: KKPT

Get the podcast here:

https://www.kktplaw.com/immigration-review-podcast/

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Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

It was a pleasure working with my friend Ilyce during an exciting two-day workshop at VIISTA Villanova recently, attended by some of her VIISTA students now out using their skills to promote and realize social justice!

Round Table members are literally everywhere these days, fighting, teaching, advocating, and educating for due process and fundamental fairness for all persons in America!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-31-23

🇺🇸🗽⚖️😊 VENEZUELAN ASYLUM IN 50 MIN! — Judge Christina Jiménez, GW Law Immigration Clinic, ICE ACC Show How The System Should Work! — Why Isn’t The Biden Administration Institutionalizing Fair Hearings & Best Practices?🤯 

GW Law Immigration Clinic
Mr. W-G-G’s “winning team” from GW Law Immigration Clinic.
PHOTO: GW Clinic with client’s permission. It’s never too early in your legal career to do meaningful work and save lives!

Professors Alberto Benitez & Paulina Vera of the GW Immigration Law Clinic report from the Annandale (VA) Immigration Court:

“I’ll only have a couple general statutory bar questions to ask and will defer to Judge Jimenez in granting relief”

Please join me in congratulating Immigration Clinic client W-G-G, from Venezuela. He was granted asylum this morning by Immigration Judge (IJ) Christina Jiménez. W-G-G was represented by student-attorneys Anam Abid and Matt Banaitis. W-G-G and his family were targeted by the Maduro government for their opposition views culminating in being removed from their home at gunpoint on New Year’s Day 2020. Only W-G-G was allowed to leave Venezuela but thanks to the asylum grant he can begin the process of bringing his wife and 11 and 8 year-young kids to the USA.

The ICE Assistant Chief Counsel complimented Anam and Matt on the thoroughness of their pretrial filing and direct examination, limited his cross-examination to the statutory bar questions, and deferred to the IJ’s discretion on the grant of asylum. The hearing lasted 50 minutes.

In addition to Anam and Matt, student-attorneys Jasmine Martínez and Mark Rook also worked on this case.

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Who says great representation and meticulous preparation don’t matter? (Disgracefully, during the Trump Administration EOIR tried to make exactly that bogus claim by releasing a fictional “fact sheet” full of lies.) 

Thanks for showing us how the system could and should work in many more cases, Paulina and Alberto! Congrats to you and your amazing team of student attorneys! Imagine having saved lives like this before you even graduate from law school or take the bar!

It’s tragic that the Biden Administration just isn’t interested in institutionalizing due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices. This case represents real teamwork, expertise, and mutual respect from ALL participants for the common good. 

I particularly liked the ICE Assistant Chief Counsel’s complimentary comments. “Positive reinforcement” and recognition of excellence is SO important in the development of practice skills! And, I know that GW Law has contributed outstanding talents to both the Government and the private/NGO sectors of immigration practice!

Everybody, including ICE and EOIR, benefits from great representation in Immigration Court! It also virtually guarantees appearance at all hearings without counterproductive expensive detention. Why isn’t the Biden Administration focused on funding, expanding, and institutionalizing the things that actually work and enhance due process?

I also recognize Judge Christina Jimenez for setting a positive tone and having the confidence to inspire those appearing before her to do their best and to let them “model” the proper resolution. “Retail level judging” is about teaching, inspiring, setting good examples, and reinforcing success. That appears to be exactly what Judge Jimenez did here!

This is also an example of why I urge practitioners to compete for Immigration Judge positions! Although the system often lacks consistent expertise and leadership “from above,” there is plenty of room for achieving justice, case by case, at the Immigration Court level. I constantly get reports of significant victories for the NDPA and their clients. 

Last week, my Round Table colleague Judge Ilyce Shugall  (she is also on the VIISTA permanent faculty) and I had a chance to work with VIISTA Villanova faculty and instructors from the National Institute of Trial Advocacy on mock Immigration Court hearings for VIISTA students. What an impressive group of smart, personable, engaged, and serious advocates! And, talk about prepared! This group was SO prepared for their sessions! 

There is tremendous “un-mined” potential for great pro bono representation out here! If only the Biden Administration would work WITH the advocacy/NGO community on representation and best practices, rather than trying to shove their broken and user unfriendly “good enough for government work” model down the public’s throats!

Even if the Biden Administration prefers “deterrence gimmicks” to systemic due process and best practices, “change from below” can spread throughout the nation. 

Unfortunately, this particular Venezuelan situation is hardly unusual. I’m sure I granted similar cases during my tenure. 

One can imagine, however, that some Venezuelan asylum applicants in the same situation are denied in the “EOIR crapshoot that passes for justice” while others are sent away to peril without fair hearings by the Biden Administration’s anti-asylum policies at the border.

I hope that in the “next generation,” leaders like you, Paulina, and your NDPA colleagues can change this broken and unfair system! Because the Biden Administration sure isn’t getting the job done when it comes to due process, human rights, and equal justice. That will mean getting some political power to make Dems take notice or pay a price.

Thanks to you, Paulina, Alberto, and your talented student attorneys for all you do for American justice! If only the Biden Administration had the same commitment and dedication to due process, creative problem solving, excellence, and fundamental fairness, this system could be fixed!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS🗽⚖️

03-25-23

🤯 WONDER WHY THERE ARE ENDLESS BACKLOGS @ EOIR? — IJ Correctly Grants Asylum in 2019; DHS Takes Meritless Appeal; BIA Exceeds Authority To “Get To Denial;” 10th Cir. Reverses & Remands! BOTTOM LINE: Going On 4 Years After Asylum Was Properly Granted, Case Still Floating Around EOIR’s 2.1 Million Backlog W/O Resolution! 👎🏼

Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action — “Deter and deny is our battle cry!”
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/010110825418.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca10-on-clear-error-caballero-vega-v-garland#

“Gerardo Caballero-Vega, a Mexican citizen, entered the United States in 1993 without admission or parole by an immigration officer when he was eight years old. He was removed to Mexico in 2019. Shortly after his removal, Caballero-Vega returned to the United States and applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Later that year, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) granted his application for asylum, which the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“the BIA”). In 2020, the BIA vacated the IJ’s decision for clear error and ordered Caballero-Vega’s removal to Mexico. The following year, Caballero-Vega filed a petition for review in this court. We reverse the BIA’s vacation of the IJ’s decision and remand the case for further review. … Caballero-Vega became a criminal informant for the San Mateo County District Attorney in 2012. He reported to law enforcement on the drug, firearm, and human trafficking conducted by Nuestra Familia, a California prison gang, as well as the Norteño Gang, Nuestra Familia’s “foot soldiers” in the streets. R. Vol. I at 143. Following his informant work, he testified against Nuestra Familia members in criminal court. Caballero-Vega was placed in a witness protection program during and after his testimony. … On November 13, 2019, the IJ granted Caballero-Vega’s application for asylum, finding that he had established a well-founded fear of future persecution based on his membership in the group of “informants who have testified in court against gangs.” … DHS appealed the decision to the BIA. On December 15, 2020, the BIA sustained DHS’s appeal, vacated the IJ’s grant of Caballero-Vega’s asylum, and ordered Caballero-Vega’s removal to Mexico. Specifically, the BIA found that there was “clear error in the [IJ]’s finding that there’s a reasonable possibility that [Caballero-Vega’s] 2012 status as an informant and his 2013 or 2014 United States testimony against United States gang members will be a central reason for possible future harm to [him] upon removal to Mexico.” … We find insufficient the BIA’s explanation for its finding that the IJ’s decision is clearly erroneous. The fact that Caballero-Vega was not persecuted in Mexico is of little-to-no probative value here because he escaped before he could be identified by cartel members. Likewise, the fact that he was not threatened or harmed in the United States following his time as an informant is unhelpful because he was in witness protection for that entire period. Finally, the expert testimony cited by the IJ demonstrates that Mexican cartel members and United States gang members cooperate extensively, so the fact that Caballero-Vega testified against individuals based in the United States, not Mexico, is not dispositive. Thus, none of the reasons the BIA offers for vacating the IJ’s decision justifies the BIA’s finding of clear error. We remand Caballero-Vega’s case to the BIA to accept the IJ’s decision or to provide further justification for its finding that the IJ’s decision is clearly erroneous.”

[Hats off to Tiago Guevara!]

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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Very “classic” BIA “Any Reason To Deny.” Or, as Professor Denise Gilman would say “presumptive denial” (ironically, outrageously, something the Biden Administration now intends to “codify” through widely opposed, wacko, proposed regulations). https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/03/15/%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8%f0%9f%97%bd%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%9b%9f-protection-v-rejection-professor-denise-gilman-on-how-the-dicks-last-resort/ Or, as I say “Dick’s Last Resort” decision-making! 

Asylum was correctly granted in November 2019. 3.5 years later, the case is still kicking around because the wrong “judges” are on the BIA.

Ever wonder why EOIR has unmanageable backlogs? Even when the system works as it should and protection is granted at the initial level, the BIA and their “partners” at DHS Enforcement combine to screw it up! We need Article I!

Dems keep babbling about “Federal Court reform.” But, they can’t even achieve long-overdue progressive reforms to a court system they totally “own!”

Why won’t the Biden Administration govern in accordance with the humane, practical, legal values they ran upon, when it comes to human rights, immigration, and racial justice? Don’t kid yourself! Rather than being “expendable” or “negotiable,” THESE are the issues on which our democracy will eventually stand or fall! That’s something that the younger generation must focus on!

Sessions and Miller wasted almost no time in co-opting and weaponizing EOIR against asylum seekers, migrants, people of color, and even smearing and attacking those defending them. Evil though they were, they had passion and a plan for dehumanization, destruction, and undermining democracy!

Social justice in America needs passionate, brave, principled advocates and defenders! There are plenty of them “out here!” Indeed, My Round Table colleague Judge Ilyce Shugall and I are surrounded by them here at the VIISTA celebration and training at Villanova!

Villanova University President Rev. Peter M. Donohue, Villanova Law Dean Mark Alexander, Professor Michele Pistone, creator and founder of VIISTA Villanova and the CARES Clinic, the VIISTA and CARES alums who have come here from literally every corner of America to celebrate, teach and learn — THEY are passionate about social justice and are actively expanding and defending it. THEY are doing something about the number one immigration problem today — guaranteeing due process through effective representation — by training and turning out “accredited representatives,” highly skilled  professional advocates who don’t necessarily have to be lawyers!

Professor Michele Pistone
Professor Michele Pistone
Villanova Law — Creator of VIISTA Villanova Program for training accredited representatives and building nationwide social justice networks. She is passionate about social justice. Why aren’t Biden Administration politicos?

 

As Father Donohue said at yesterday’s celebration,  “‘Woke’ means social justice!” Amazing people have come here from the Southern Border where they work with asylum applicants on both sides of the border. Every day, they see the human trauma, racism, pain, and suffering caused by the Administration’s failure to innovate, lead, and stand up for human rights. These are the preventable human dramas and traumas that smug, ill-informed Administration “policy makers” run away from — they don’t have the courage to face and learn from those they abuse!

Values – human rights and legal rights — CAN’T  EVER be “trumped” by “reelection concerns.” I might also add that the “Miller Lite” strategy followed by the Administration hasn’t found supporters or made them friends anywhere on the political spectrum! If you are going to make folks mad, why not at least be doing the right thing? Are competence, innovation, humanity, keeping campaign promises, and following the law REALLY political “losers” as Biden apparently believes? I doubt it!

The Biden Administration and many congressional Dems apparently lack passion and guts! Without the basic governing skills and integrity to undo the horrible human and systemic damage inflicted by Trump and institutionalize due process and fundamental fairness, the Dems are wandering in the social justice wilderness! No passion, no values, no expertise! Doesn’t say much for a party that promised to be a “socially just” alternative to anti-American Trumpist White Nationalism!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-17-23

😟MONTANA IS “FLYOVER COUNTRY” FOR EOIR BUREAUCRATS: Due Process & Public Service For People Below, Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind! — 1,000 Mile Drives, Required In Person Hearings In Other States, Different Circuits, Different Rules Producing Inconsistent Results, Frustrated Lawyers — Human Lives & Justice In Large, Thinly Populated States Just More “Collateral Damage” From A Failed System! — Quoting Montanan NDPA Superstar 🌟 Kari Hong & Members Of The “Round Table!” 🛡⚔️

Montana
“There’s a whole lotta wide open spaces (and natural beauty) out in Montana as viewed by EOIR “flyover bureaucrats” and their DOJ “handlers.” But, if you look closely, there are real life people living there who deserve decent public service!”
PHOTO: Bird Tail Divide, By “Montanabw” — Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Carrie La Seur reports for the Daily Montanan:

 

https://dailymontanan.com/2023/02/05/without-any-immigration-courts-montana-is-tough-for-immigrants-looking-to-build-new-life/

Carrie La Seur
CARRIE LA SEUR
Carrie La Seur is a Billings novelist and attorney, descended from 1860s Montana settlers and a long line of one room schoolhouse educators. She works pro bono with asylum seekers. She can be found on Twitter @claseur

Without any immigration courts, Montana is tough for immigrants looking to build new life

BY: CARRIE LA SEUR – FEBRUARY 5, 2023 9:58 AM

The drive from Billings to Las Vegas is nearly a thousand miles. That’s 14 to 15 hours of windshield time, winding through some of the roughest, most isolated country in the continental U.S.

Imagine that U.S. forces recently evacuated you from Afghanistan, where the advancing Taliban would have killed you as a member of the Afghan military who fought them alongside Americans. You retreated under orders, unable to reach your wife and children, left behind in hiding in Kabul. Now, alone in Montana, struggling to improve your English, you must make the journey to Las Vegas in winter for your first immigration hearing.

You’ve come through war, exile from the only home you’ve ever known, separation from your family, and imprisonment in the first country you arrived in, but the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service still has a few curveballs for you.

You’ve had only a few weeks’ notice of your hearing, barely time to figure out how to make the trip. You’ve managed to borrow a car, but the owner has to work and can’t come with you. Flights are wildly expensive and you’ve survived first on savings and charity, now on a temporary work permit, so the road is the best option, but the drive is risky.

You’re lucky enough to have a pro bono lawyer appearing for you by video, but you’ve never met her in person. For most people in your situation, there is no lawyer. Although your life and those of your family are on the line, you have no right to representation.

This is the situation for dozens, possibly hundreds, of new Montana residents from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, and other nations in crisis, including family members of U.S. citizens. The U.S. allows them to enter and remain in this country because they have credible fears of persecution in their home country and therefore a right under U.S. and international law to seek asylum. Montana nonprofits and religious organizations are scrambling to respond.

Since the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in 2021, more than 76,000 Afghan nationals have arrived in the U.S., the largest wave of wartime evacuees since the fall of Saigon during the Vietnam War. The New York Times recently published a map of the distribution of Afghan refugees, with a few pinpoints in Montana, compared to thousands of arrivals in San Diego, Houston, and D.C. Many more are waiting for permission to come. In most cases, their lives are in danger from the Taliban.

Until 2016, a Montana resident in immigration proceedings could go to Helena, where a traveling immigration court staff heard cases several days a month. Budget cuts eliminated the court toward the end of the Obama administration. There was pressure to shift resources to the southern border, so staff relocated from more northern locations.

“Detailing” judges, as it’s called when judges move to different locations to hear cases, is expensive (travel, hotel, office space). According to the agency, immigration judges handle about 700 cases a year – the backlog is approaching 2 million – so Montana’s relatively light caseload makes the Helena court low on the priority list.

Now, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Denver are common immigration court assignments for Montana residents. Personal appearances are usually mandatory. Travel is a costly burden for displaced people struggling to adapt to a new country. The distance is also a burden for lawyers, who often can’t spare the time to travel for brief hearings that are frequently rescheduled at the last minute. There can be jurisdictional problems, too. Montana is in the Ninth Circuit, a huge appellate region that includes all the states on the west coast, Nevada, and Idaho.

In the 9th Circuit, judges must give greater weight to testimony about what happened in other countries, and case law makes it more difficult to find that an immigration witness isn’t credible. That’s fine if a Montana resident goes to a hearing in Las Vegas, also in the 9th Circuit, but Salt Lake City and Denver are in the 10th Circuit. If a judge rules against a Montana resident using 10th Circuit law, when 9th Circuit law would have given a more favorable result, that’s just bad luck.

Many Montana lawyers may not be familiar with 10th Circuit law, making it that much more difficult for Montana residents to find a qualified attorney.

Montana lawyers with expanding immigration practices are beginning to ask, why Helena’s immigration court couldn’t be restored? Kari Hong, a Missoula attorney with the Florence Project, an immigration rights organization, points out that many clients have trouble finding qualified lawyers where multiple jurisdictions are involved, and differences in appellate law give some Montana residents worse judicial outcomes based on a random court assignment.

As a practitioner, Hong notes, it’s harder to show documents in a remote hearing, or be sure that everyone is looking at the same document. Interpretation is more difficult. Not being in the courtroom with a client makes it hard to establish rapport, and make sure that the judge is hearing everything. Attorneys are legitimately concerned, says Hong, about providing effective counsel in remote hearings that could be located anywhere in the country.

The U.S. Customs and Immigration Service has office space in Helena, where it handles immigration biometrics checks. so the cost of bringing in an itinerant immigration judge to handle Montana residents’ cases might be only a staffing and travel expense. But the appointment of more immigration judges and their assignments have become political issues wrestled over in Washington, D.C.

Paul Wickham Schmidt, a Wisconsin native, served as a career immigration lawyer and judge, chaired the Board of Immigration Appeals in the 1990s, and is now a law professor at Georgetown and formerly at George Mason University. He writes about dysfunction in the U.S. immigration system on his blog, Immigration Courtside. In an interview, he’s outspoken about how immigration courts have become a disgrace to the fundamental American value of justice for all.

“Today’s DOJ has allowed immigration courts to become weaponized as a tool of immigration enforcement,” says Schmidt. “For example, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions unethically and improperly referred to supposedly fair and impartial immigration judges as ‘in partnership’ with DHS enforcement. Attorney General (Merrick) Garland has done little to dispel this notion.”

Schmidt talks about the “Dred Scottification” of refugees, referring to the US Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, holding that all people of African descent were not U.S. citizens and therefore could not sue for their rights in U.S. federal court.

The current U.S. immigration system, k says, treats refugees as sub-human, unworthy of rights long enshrined in U.S. and international law. It uses the court system to send political messages (for example, “Don’t come”) to refugees, turning the courts into political weapons.

Americans, says Schmidt, should be disgusted.

Part of the problem in maintaining the integrity of immigration courts is that immigration judges are appointed by the Attorney General and serve at his or her pleasure. They don’t have the independence of federal judges confirmed by the U.S. Senate under Article III of the Constitution, or the protections of Article I judges, like bankruptcy judges. They don’t control their dockets. Scheduling is done by non-judicial administrators, who book judges and lawyers so tightly that there’s no way, according to Schmidt, to do their jobs competently.

Immigration courts also lack necessary administrative support.

Hiring court administrators is done through a slow, difficult hiring process, and administrators struggle with inadequate space and tech support, which handicaps the whole immigration court system. In one example of the slow pace of progress in the immigration system, cases handled by the Executive Office for Immigration Review finally went electronic in 2022 – a quarter century after the U.S. federal courts transitioned to electronic filing, using a different system.

Many immigration judges are shouting for reform. Judge Dana Leigh Marks of the San Francisco Immigration Court, a past President of the National Association of Immigration Judges, says: “Immigration judges often feel asylum hearings are ‘like holding death penalty cases in traffic court.’”

Highly qualified people continue to leave the agency rather than uphold a farce.

“There are many of us who just feel we can’t be part of a system that’s just so fundamentally unfair,” said Ilyce Shugall, who quit her job as an immigration judge in San Francisco in 2019 and now directs the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco. “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”

Schmidt writes on his blog about the U.S.’s “disgracefully dysfunctional immigration courts,” which offer no right to legal representation. Having an attorney in immigration proceedings makes a huge difference, statistically speaking. For recently arrived women with children fleeing violence, the success rate of represented applicants is 14 times higher.

To fix the major problems with the system, Schmidt has a short list of big changes he’d like to see:

 

  • Create an Article I immigration court system. Article I courts are legislative courts created by Congress, without full judicial power to decide Constitutional questions, but with enough independence not to be controlled by political appointees.
  • The Board of Immigration Appeals needs to become a true appellate court.
  • Reverse reforms put in place by Attorneys General William Barr and John Ashcroft, intended to reduce the capacity of the immigration courts to do the work assigned to them by Congress.
  • Remove judges who deny 100% of asylum applications.
  • At the management level of the agency, hire professional court managers focused on providing due process and making the system work efficiently.
  • Improve automation, e-filing, and information-technology capability.

Montana residents are a tiny constituency of perhaps hundreds in the vast U.S. immigration system, processing millions of people, but they demonstrate what’s broken. Somewhere under the Big Sky is an Afghan evacuee who saved military aircraft from falling into the hands of the Taliban during the U.S. retreat from Kabul. He’s desperately worried about his wife and children trapped in Kabul, where the Taliban have identified them as the family of a soldier who supported the Americans.

They exist in hiding, while the Taliban-controlled passport agency charges thousands of dollars to produce a legal travel document. As his asylum application winds its way through the system, he texts his wife every day.

“All I can think about is making them safe,” he says.

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REPUBLISH

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

Carrie La Seur is a Billings novelist and attorney, descended from 1860s Montana settlers and a long line of one room schoolhouse educators. She works pro bono with asylum seekers. She can be found on Twitter @claseur

MORE FROM AUTHOR

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Thanks, Carrie! 

“All I can think of is making them safe.” Given the facts in Carrie’s article, this Afghan case should have been a “no-brainer” asylum grant at the USCIS Asylum Office. Having made it to EOIR, it would be a candidate for a 30 minute “stipulated grant” in a properly functioning and professionally led Immigration Court system.

That cases like this, clear asylum grants that shouldn’t even reach EOIR, linger in the system, is symptomatic of the endemic dysfunction in America’s Immigration Courts. It also illustrates the failure of the Biden Administration and America’s “top lawyer,” A. G. Merrick Garland, to aggressively stand up for the legal rights of immigrants and to apply common sense, expertise,  and practical scholarship to our dysfunctional immigration and human rights bureaucracy.

But, all EOIR can think about is how human lives — and justice —  in Montana and elsewhere really aren’t very important in the overall bureaucratic scheme. And, it’s not not like A.G. Merrick Garland and his minions, safely ensconced in their offices at 10th & Penn in downtown DC, are thinking about the human carnage left in EOIR’s dystopian wake, in Montana and elsewhere!

We all “get” that Montana’s problems are “small potatoes” in the context of EOIR’s ever-expanding 2.1 million case backlog! Yet, EOIR could serve Montana in a way that preserves due process, promotes consistency, encourages representation, and delivers “good public service” without materially affecting their backlogs elsewhere or “breaking the bank.” 

EOIR’s approach to the “real problems” of the “small-population” State of Montana and its very human residents is sadly reflective of Washington’s overall approach to immigration and human rights: We won’t solve the “little problems” that could improve individual lives because we can’t solve the “big problem” of so-called “comprehensive immigration reform.”

I don’t buy it! There are plenty of ways that DOJ/EOIR could successfully address many of the “little problems” that would improve administration and public service in places like Helena. DOJ/EOIR does not have a “stellar record” for competent management or fiscal responsibility, to say the least.

For example, the DOJ Office of Inspector General recently found that EOIR had for years mismanaged multi-million dollar technology contracts.https://wp.me/p8eeJm-87P.

They have also wasted money on so-called “Immigration Judge Dashboards” so that they could monitor IJ “performance” under much-criticized and now abandoned “production quotas.” 

Certainly, with a little administrative ingenuity, EOIR could scrape together the modest amount of resources it would take to conduct periodic hearings in Helena and thereby provide due process to Montanans caught up in EOIR’s dysfunctional system. 

Without affecting overall backlogs or big budget increases, EOIR could:

  • Bring back one or more retired IJ’s as “rehired annuitants” to work part time on the Helena docket; or
  • Designate one or more IJs at the numerous so-called “EOIR Adjudication Centers” to hear cases in Helena by Televideo; or
  • Use Helena for piloting an authorized (but, to my knowledge, never implemented) “phased retirement” program for training and mentoring new IJ’s by those seeking to reduce their work hours as they move toward retirement; or
  • “Slim down,” or better yet eliminate, the unnecessary and duplicative “Office of Policy” created at EOIR HQ under Trump (why would an agency comprised of supposedly independent quasi-judicial officials need a “Bureaucratic Politburo?”) and allocating the resources to case adjudication — supposedly the ”lifeblood of EOIR;” or
  • Reprogram some of the unnecessary, non-adjudicating, fancy-titled “spear carrier” positions wandering the halls of the bloated, yet inept, EOIR bureaucracy in Falls Church.

Those are just for starters. Like its failed counterpart, USCIS, EOIR needs an independent re-examination of processes, quality control, and accountability —all of which currently are failing the public — in Montana and elsewhere! EOIR also needs new, dynamic, professional, problem-solving judicial administration by experts appointed from OUTSIDE the dysfunctional EOIR bureaucracy and the hapless gang of politicos at “Main Justice.” 

The only kind of “equal justice” that seems to be an objective at EOIR today is to make sure that public service is equally bad across America. 

Notably, as shown in Carrie’s article, the EOIR debacle is affecting virtually every county and every nook and cranny in America. No American community is too far removed from the DOJ/EOIR “bureaucracy of pain and failure” to avoid the adverse consequences of this monumental, and unnecessary, meltdown at the “retail level” of American Justice; even those humans residing in “EOIR Flyover Country!”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-08-23

⚖️🗽👩🏽‍⚖️👨🏽‍⚖️ ROUND TABLE 🛡⚔️ WEIGHS IN ON BURDEN OF PROOF FOR VACATED CONVICTION IN 9TH CIR.  — Jovel v.Garland 

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Member Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

A criminal conviction vacated due to a substantive or procedural defect does not qualify as a “conviction” establishing a noncitizen’s removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). By the statute’s plain language, vacatur under section 1473.7(a)(1) conclusively establishes that the underlying conviction rested on a substantive or procedural defect: It allows people no longer in criminal custody to seek vacatur of convictions that were “legally invalid due to prejudicial error damaging the moving party’s ability to meaningfully understand, defend against, or knowingly accept the actual or potential adverse immigration consequences of a conviction or sentence.”

Even though a California court vacated the conviction of petitioner Jose Adalberto Arias Jovel under section 1473.7(a)(1), the BIA declined to sua sponte

2 Further statutory references are to the California Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.

-2-

RESTRICTED Case: 21-631, 07/05/2022, DktEntry: 35.1, Page 12 of 34

reopen Mr. Arias’ removal proceedings because it held that, as a noncitizen,

Mr. Arias had the burden to show that his conviction under section 1473.7(a)(1) was vacated on the merits, and Mr. Arias failed to meet that burden. If affirmed, the BIA’s holding creates several problems.

First, the holding requires IJs to second-guess a state court’s determination under section 1473.7(a)(1), despite the statute allowing vacatur only for prejudicial defects. The plain language of section 1473.7(a)(1) requires “prejudicial error” that renders the conviction “legally invalid,” and IJs should accept that the state court must have vacated the conviction due to a substantive or procedural error of law. Precedent requires IJs to apply the INA to a section 1473.7(a)(1) vacatur without second-guessing the state court’s ruling.

Second, even if a section 1473.7(a)(1) vacatur doesn’t conclusively establish a substantive or procedural defect, the burden is not on noncitizens like Mr. Arias to demonstrate their convictions were vacated on the merits. IJs are bound by Ninth Circuit precedent, which holds that the government bears the burden of proving whether a vacated conviction can still form the basis for removal. To shift the burden of proof to noncitizens (who do not have a constitutional right to counsel, may be detained, and often have limited English proficiency) is contrary to the law and will inevitably increase the likelihood of due process violations.

-3-

RESTRICTED Case: 21-631, 07/05/2022, DktEntry: 35.1, Page 13 of 34

Third, the government’s interpretation of section 1473.7(a)(1) will exacerbate the growing backlog of immigration cases and the enormous pressure that IJs face to eliminate the backlog. Given the severe time and resource constraints applied to the immigration court, deviating from the established law governing vacated convictions will greatly hinder the fair and efficient administration of immigration proceedings.

Here’s the full amicus brief:

2022-07-05 (Dkt. 35.1) IJ’s Amici Curiae Brief

Many thanks to NDPA Superstar 🌟 Judge Ilyce Shugall for taking the lead on this!

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

Here’s a nice “thank you” from respondent’s counsel Tomo Takaki at Covington & Burling, LA Office:

Dear former IJs and BIA members and GMSR Counsel,

Apologies for the delayed email, but thank you all again for your excellent and powerful brief.  It was truly invaluable to get the perspective of former IJs and BIA members on this important issue, especially regarding the unworkability of the BIA’s decision here.  It was particularly helpful to get GMSR’s appellate expertise on board here with such well-written advocacy.  Our client, and many like him, I’m sure deeply appreciate your efforts on their behalf.

 

Best,

Tomo Takaki

Covington & Burling LLP

And, of course many, many thanks to our all-star 🌟 pro bono counsel Stefan C. Love and Tina Kuang of  GREINES, MARTIN, STEIN & RICHLAND LLP in Los Angeles. Couldn’t do it without you guys and your excellence in appellate advocacy!

Garland’s DOJ inexplicably defends a bad BIA decision, unworkable and slanted against immigrants! Why don’t we deserve better from the Biden Administration? 

Why are scarce pro bono resources being tied up on wasteful litigation when Garland could appoint a “better BIA” dedicated to due process, fundamental fairness, practical scholarship, and best practices? Why not get these cases right at the Immigration Court level? Why not free up pro bono resources to represent more respondents at Immigration Court hearings? What’s the excuse for Garland’s poor leadership and lack of vision on immigration, human rights, and racial justice?

Sure, there have been a few modest improvements at EOIR. But, it’s going to take much, much more than “tinkering around the edges” to reform a broken system that routinely treats individuals seeking justice unfairly, turns out bad law that creates larger problems for our legal system, and builds wasteful and uncontrolled backlogs. 

Accountability and bold progressive reforms don’t seem to be politically “in” these days.  But, they should be! Responsibility for the ongoing mess at EOIR and the corrosive effects on our justice system rests squarely on Garland and the Biden Administration.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-09-22

⚖️ JUDGE TARA NASELOW-NAHAS “JUST SAYS NO” TO ICE’s ATTEMPTED IRAQI DEPORTATION! — Ruling Comes After U.S. Magistrate Judge Found DOJ’s Failed Extradition Attempt Based On Bogus Evidence!

Bob Egelko
Bob Egelko
Courts Reporter
SF Chronicle
PHOTO: SF Chron

Bob Egelko reports for the SF Chron:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Immigration-judge-blocks-deportation-of-17035086.php

An immigration judge has blocked the deportation of a Sacramento man to his native Iraq where he would face trial, and likely execution, for a terrorist murder — a murder that, according to a U.S. magistrate, took place while the man was in another country.

Omar Ameen was granted U.S. refugee status in 2014 by immigration officials who said he would face persecution in Iraq. But the U.S. government jailed him in August 2018 while Iraq sought to extradite him on a murder charge.

Last April, U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund Brennan found that the crime Iraq accused Ameen of committing, the fatal shooting of a police officer in 2014 before his departure for the U.S., had taken place while Ameen was 600 miles away in Turkey, where he had fled from Iraq more than two years earlier.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement then sought to deport Ameen to Iraq, saying he had lied about his alleged terrorist connections and other subjects, and kept him in custody. But Immigration Judge Tara Naselow-Nahas of Van Nuys (Los Angeles County) ruled last week that Ameen could not be deported to Iraq because he was likely to be jailed and tortured there. She did not dismiss ICE’s claim that Ameen had made false statements, but said she found no evidence of terrorist connections.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Immigration Judges make critical life or death decisions every day. Yet the system suffers from gross inconsistencies, huge backlogs, lack of discipline, poor intellectual leadership, an appellate board mired in leftover Trumpism, and an Attorney General who generally has been slow to recognize the importance of Immigration Court reform and a focus on due process, fundamental fairness, expertise, and quality in his “wholly owned” system.

One of the lead attorneys for Mr. Ameen is Round Table stalwart and former Immigration Judge Ilyce Shugall!  Congrats to Ilyce and her team!

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Member Rounds Table of Former Immigration Judges

Here’s more on the case from KCRA News:  https://www.kcra.com/article/omar-ameen-cannot-be-sent-to-iraq-what-happens-next/39566797

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-29-22

 

☹️HE BEAT THE GOVERNMENT TWICE IN COURT — But, After Three Years In Jail Without Being Charged With Any Crime, Omar Ameen Still Can’t Get A Bond From Garland’s Courts —  How Can A System Where The Prosecutor Makes The Rules & Picks The Judges, Mostly From The Ranks Of Former Prosecutors, Provide The “Fair & Impartial Judging” Required By Due Process?

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.

 

IMMIGRANT LEGAL DEFENSE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 10, 2022

Contacts:

Immigrant Legal Defense

Ilyce Shugall, ilyce@ild.org, (415) 758-3765

Siobhan Waldron, siobhan@ild.org, (510) 479-0972

Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, The University of Chicago Law School Nicole Hallett, nhallett@uchicago.edu, (203) 910-1980

Omar Ameen Files Federal Lawsuit Seeking His Release

After the U.S. Government Fails Once Again to Prove Any Connection to Terrorism

San Francisco, CA. Immigrant Legal Defense and the University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic have filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Omar Ameen seeking his immediate release from immigration custody. Mr. Ameen has been held by the U.S. government for over three years based on false allegations that he was involved in terrorism in Iraq before he arrived in the United States as a refugee. Multiple courts have now rejected those allegations. The petition alleges that his continued detention in these circumstances violates the Due Process Clause and the Immigration and Nationality Act.

After an investigation initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Iraqi government issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the 2014 murder of a police officer in Rawa, Iraq. Mr. Ameen was subsequently arrested by U.S. authorities in August 2018 and placed in extradition proceedings, with the government arguing that not only was Omar responsible for the 2014 murder, but that he also occupied a leadership position in ISIS. After two and a half years of fighting his extradition, the federal magistrate judge found that the warrant was not supported by probable cause because Mr. Ameen had been in Turkey, not Iraq, at the time of the murder. He further found that there was no evidence that Mr. Ameen was an ISIS leader and ordered his immediate release.

Instead of releasing him or charging him with a crime, DHS took Mr. Ameen into immigration custody, and placed him in removal proceedings before the Department of Justice (DOJ). DHS abandoned the murder claim, but otherwise made the same terrorism allegations against Mr. Ameen in immigration court that had been made – and rejected – in the extradition proceedings. After months of proceedings, the immigration judge found that the government had not proved that Mr. Ameen had any involvement with terrorism, yet still denied him bond while he seeks relief from deportation. Mr. Ameen continues to fight for his freedom, to remain in the United States, and to clear his name.

“It is a fundamental principle that the government cannot detain someone based on unsubstantiated rumors and unproven accusations,” said Ilyce Shugall, an attorney with Immigration Legal Defense (ILD) and a member of Mr. Ameen’s legal team. “The government keeps losing, yet continues to believe it can detain Omar indefinitely without cause. The Constitution does not allow such a cavalier denial of individual liberty.”

“Omar’s bond request was denied by the same agency – the Department of Justice – that has maliciously targeted for him years. Omar deserves a fair hearing in federal court,” said Siobhan Waldron, another ILD attorney on Mr. Ameen’s legal team.

“The government seems to think that it can do whatever it wants as long as it invokes the word ‘terrorism,’” said Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, “Rather than admit it was wrong about Omar, the government will go to extraordinary measures to keep him locked up. We are asking the federal court to put a stop to this abuse of power.”

###

Immigrant Legal Defense’s mission is to promote justice through the provision of legal representation to underserved immigrant communities.

The Immigrants’ Rights Clinic is a clinical program of the University of Chicago Law School and provides representation to immigrants in Chicago and throughout the country.

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

Unfortunately, “cavalier denial of individual liberty” largely describes the daily operations of Garland’s dysfunctional and hopelessly backlogged “wholly owned Immigration Courts” — where due process, scholarship, quality, and efficiency are afterthoughts, at best. “Malicious targeting” — that’s a Stephen Miller specialty shamelessly carried forth by Garland in too many instances! Miller must be gratified, and not a little amazed, to find that the guy Dem progressives and human rights advocates thought would be leading the charge to undo Miller’s White Nationalist, scofflaw attack on migrants and people of color would instead be proudly “carrying his water” for him.

To punctuate my point, today Garland’s Solicitor General will follow in the disgraceful footsteps of predecessors in both GOP and Dem Administrations. Essentially (that is, stripped of its disingenuous legal gobbledygook), the SG will argue that individuals, imprisoned without conviction, struggling to vindicate their rights before Garland’s broken, backlogged, and notoriously pro-Government, anti-immigrant Immigration Courts, renowned for their sloppiness and bad judging, are not really “persons” under the Constitution and therefore can be arbitrarily imprisoned indefinitely, in conditions that are often worse than those for convicted felons, without any individualized rationale and without recourse to “real” courts (e.g., Article III courts not directly controlled by the DOJ).

“The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court seems to be planning to eliminate the only way a lot of people in immigration detention can challenge their imprisonment,” appellate public defender Sam Feldman commented in a quote-tweet. “People would still be held illegally, but no court could do anything about it.”  

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/jan-11-2022-sc-oral-arg-previews-detention-bond-jurisdiction

One might assume that our nation’s highest Court would unanimously make short-shrift of the SG’s scofflaw arguments and send her packing. After all, that’s what several lower courts have done! But, most experts predict the exactly opposite result from a Supremes’ majority firmly committed to “Dred Scottification” — that is de-humanization and de-personification” — of people of color and migrants under the Constitution. 

It’s painfully obvious that Congress must create an independent Article I Immigration Court not beholden to the Executive Branch. But, don’t hold your breath, given the current political gridlock in Washington. It’s equally clear that the Article IIIs, from the Supremes down, have “swallowed the whistle” by not striking down this blatantly unconstitutional system, thereby forcing Congress to take corrective action to bring the system into line with our Constitution.

In the meantime, Garland could bring in better-qualified expert judges, reform procedures, and appoint competent professional administrators who would institutionalize fairness, efficiency, and independence that would help transition the Immigration Courts to a new structure outside the DOJ. He could stop echoing Stephen Miller in litigation. 

He could have replaced the architects of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and exponentially growing back logs with practical scholars and progressive experts who could reduce backlogs and establish order without violating human or legal rights of individuals. He could have set a “new tone” by publicly insisting that all coming before his Immigration Courts be treated fairly, with respect, dignity, and professionalism. 

But, instead, Garland has stubbornly eschewed the recommendations of immigration and human rights experts while allowing and even defending the trashing of the rule of law at the border and elsewhere where migrants are concerned. He’s also done it with many questionably qualified “holdover” judges and administrators appointed by Sessions and Barr because of their perceived willingness, or in some cases downright enthusiasm, to stomp on the legal and human rights of asylum seekers and other migrants.

It’s curious conduct from a guy who once was only “one Mitch McConnell away” from a seat on the Supremes! I guess the “due process” Garland got from McConnell and his GOP colleagues is all that he thinks migrants and other “non-persons” of color get in his wholly-owned “courts.” 

Good luck to our Round Table colleague, Judge Ilyce Shugall, and her great team, on this litigation! Obviously, the wrong folks are on the Federal Bench — at all levels of our broken and floundering system.

Interestingly, Judge Shugall was once an Immigration Judge until forced to prematurely resign, as a matter of conscience, by the lawless anti-immigrant policies of the Trump Administration carried out through its DOJ. As in many cases, the Government’s loss is the Round Table’s gain!🛡⚔️

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-11-22

BIDEN PLAN TO REFORM ASYLUM SYSTEM @ THE BORDER MAKES SENSE, BUT ONLY IF CORRECTLY IMPLEMENTED WITH THE RIGHT PERSONNEL — The Devil 👿 Is In The Details & Major Progressive Judicial Reforms @ EOIR ⚖️ Are A Prerequisite! — “Early Returns” On Actually Solving Immigration/Human Rights/Due Process Problems From “Team Biden” Not Encouraging!☹️

 

Frranco Ordonez
Franco Ordonez
White House Correspondent
NPR
PHOTO: Twitter

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/01/982795844/biden-administration-considers-overhaul-of-asylum-system-at-southern-border

Franco Ordonez reports for NPR:

President Biden’s top advisers promise “long-needed systemic reforms” to address a backlog of more than 1 million asylum cases in the immigration court system, which often keeps people applying for asylum waiting years to resolve their cases. That could mean some big changes to how asylum cases are processed at the southern border.

The plan the Biden administration is considering to speed up the process would take some asylum cases from the southern border out of the hands of the overloaded immigration courts under the Department of Justice and instead handle them under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, where asylum officers already process tens of thousands of cases a year, two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak about administration plans told NPR exclusively.

Those familiar with the discussions say one outcome could be discouraging unauthorized migration. That’s because those who can argue for a certain fear of persecution are able to gain temporary residence and often a work permit as they wait out their cases.

. . . .

Advocates say they welcome a more efficient system, provided changes are not used as a way to expedite removals as the Trump administration did.

Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First says there are a host of reasons to allow asylum officers to conduct the first set of interviews and reduce the numbers, but she says it’s important that applicants have a chance to appeal to the court before being removed.

“The massive backlog must be dealt with,” she said. “But the answer to that problem is not to deprive asylum seekers of due process and a fair hearing, or to weaponize the asylum process to try to deter other people from seeking U.S. protection.”

The Biden administration has already ended two of the Trump administration’s programs, the Prompt Asylum Case Review and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Program, that were designed to quickly return Mexican and Central American asylum seekers suspected of having invalid claims.

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POLITICS

House Passes 2 Bills Aimed At Overhauling The Immigration System

Department of Homeland Security officials declined to discuss plans to shift border cases to the asylum division.

But an administration official said last week they are now working on a number of policies and regulations to create “a better functioning asylum system.”

That includes establishing refugee processing in the region and strengthening other countries’ asylum systems.

Biden also resurrected the Central American Minors program that reunited children with parents who are in the United States legally.

The Biden administration is now seeking to “pick up the pieces” after the Trump administration, with a different set of policies that abide by U.S. law but also international obligations, Meissner said.

“We need to have access to asylum,” Meissner said, “but it needs to be done in a way that can be prompt and fair, not in a way that leads to waits of years and years and court backlogs.

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

Read the complete article at the link.

Why it could work:

  • Granting relief at the lowest level of the system is cost effective;
  • It’s easier to hire, train, and assign Asylum Officers than Immigration Judges;
  • Immigration Court time should be reserved for those cases where there is a real issue as to whether relief can be granted.

Why it probably won’t work:

  • Leadership is critical. Right now, there are only a few experts in government with the knowledge, proven leadership ability, organizational skills, and courage to lead this program. 
    • Two obvious names that come to mind are Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, currently USCIS Chief Counsel, and Judge Dana Leigh Marks, one of the “founding mothers” of U.S. asylum law and pioneer of the well-founded fear standard. Both are past Presidents of the NAIJ. Neither has yet been tapped for this assignment.
    • By contrast, there are a number of experts in the private/NGO sector who could lead this effort. Obvious choices would be Judge Paul Grussendorf, former Immigration Judge, Asylum Officer, UN Representative, and professor; Professor Karen Musalo, Director, Center for Refugee & Gender Studies, UC Hastings Law; Eleanor Acer, Senior Director, Refugee Protection, Human Rights First (quoted in this article); Professor Michele Pistone, Creator and Founder of the VIISTA asylum training program at Villanova Law; Professor Phil Schrag, Co-Director of the CALS Asylum Clinic at Georgetown Law and author of Baby Jails and the upcoming release The End of Asylum; Michelle Mendez, Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations at CLINIC; or Judge Ilyce Shugall of our Round Table. But, nobody of that caliber has been tapped either. 
    • Without creative, dynamic, expert leadership, and a different approach to personnel, the program will be yet another bureaucratic failure. In case nobody has noticed, after four years of never ending abuse, gross mismanagement, and intentional misdirection by the Trump kakistocracy, the USCIS Asylum & Refugee program is also in shambles — demoralized, disorganized, leaderless, incredibly backlogged. An obvious untapped source is retired Asylum Officers and Adjudicators who could be brought back on a limited-term basis, intensively trained by experts from a “Better EOIR,” and who often are in a position to travel frequently and on short notice.
  • It’s not about deterrence. Already, this article speaks of “possible deterrent effect.” WRONG! The purpose of an asylum adjudication system is to provide fair, timely, generous adjudications of asylum eligibility in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Refugee Act of 1980, the U.N. Convention and Protocol on which it is based, and the due process clause of our Constitution. We have never had such a system, which inevitably would be more orderly and efficient, but also result in many more grants. 
    • The main reason why we don’t currently have a functioning asylum system, and never have had the system that asylum seekers need and deserve, is that the system is at the mercy of a bogus Executive-controlled “court” system that time and time again has been compromised by politicos seeking who use it as an enforcement tool rather than an independent court of justice. 
      • In 2014, the last year that I taught Refugee Law & Policy at Georgetown Law I “graded” the U.S. Asylum system at “B-.” Not as good as it should be, but not as bad as it could be. 
      • Now I’d give it an “F.” Completely dysfunctional, highly arbitrary, and a tool of institutionalized racism and White Nationalism.
    • The system is ineffective as a deterrent. There is no known basis to believe that quick and often arbitrary and wrongful “rejections” are an effective deterrent. That’s particularly true because rejections are seldom explained in a reasonable, understandable manner. So, to the extent that there is a “message” it’s that you got the wrong officer or the wrong judge on the wrong day or that the U.S. legal system is inherently unfair and should be avoided by hiring a smuggler to get you to the interior of the U.S. where, as a practical matter, you have a better chance of obtaining “de facto refuge.” 
    • The only “efficiency and leverage” that comes from the Asylum Officer system is in quickly identifying and consistently granting a substantial number of applications. That, and only that, does actually relieve the Immigration Court system of unnecessary cases. Otherwise, “non-grants” still have to go to the Immigration Courts for de novo review. I probably granted the majority of asylum cases “referred” from the Asylum Office. That leaves plenty of room to believe that a better trained and operated system with some positive guidance and effective supervision by better Immigration Judges and a truly expert BIA would achieve substantially higher grant rates and higher efficiency at the Asylum Office, thereby keeping many cases out of court and speeding the process for asylees to obtain permanent residence and eventually U.S. citizenship!
  • Some assumptions appear invalid. This article also repeats the unproven assumption that a fair, just, and efficient asylum system would result in rejection of the majority of cases. I doubt that. 
    • Prior to the Trump disaster, approximately 75-80% of asylum applicants at the Southern Border passed “credible fear.” That the majority of them never achieved asylum was due less to the lack of merit in their claims than to factors such as: 1) lack of a system to match asylum seekers with qualified counsel; 2) wrong-headed anti-asylum precedents from the BIA that were specifically directed against asylum seekers from Latin America — basically institutionalized racism in the guise of “enforcement;” 3) poor selection, training, and motivation of Immigration Judges some of whom simply did not treat asylum seekers fairly, nor were they given any incentive to do so. 
    • I granted asylum or other protection to many refugees from the Northern Triangle. I probably could have granted twice that number had the BIA precedents actually fairly and reasonably interpreted asylum law to specifically cover gender-based claims and claims arising from persecution by gangs basically operating “in lieu of government authorities” in most of the Northern Triangle.
    • Additionally, an honest interpretation of the CAT by the BIA would have allowed life-saving protection to be extended to many others who lacked nexus but had a high probability of torture with Government acquiescence upon return. I believe that a return to the original Acosta-Kasinga line of asylum analysis and adoption of proper CAT interpretations along the lines set forth by the (exiled) dissenting judges in Matter of J-E- would result in grants of some type of protection (asylum, withholding, or CAT) in the majority of Southern Border cases coming from the Northern Triangle that passed credible fear or reasonable fear.
    • Asylum, along with refugee status, is a key form of legal immigration to the U.S. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s NOT a “loophole.” It’s the law! Studies by groups of experts such as CMS have shown the huge benefits that refugees confer on the U.S. I have no reason to believe that asylum seekers as a group are any different. 
    • As long as we keep treating the reality of human migration and the strengths and humanity of asylum seekers as a negative rather than a positive, we will continue to fail, as we have for decades, to fully comply with either our own laws or international conventions.
  • A broken, dysfunctional, unfair EOIR will continue to drag American justice down. There must be de novo review of denials by EOIR and far, far more competent review and direction in the review of credible fear denials by EOIR. A better BIA could actually set binding precedents on “credible fear” and “reasonable fear.”
    • Currently, EOIR is incapable of producing either consistently fair results (particularly for asylum seekers) or the inspired legal scholarship and leadership for the asylum system to be functional and held accountable. It’s going to require all new leadership, an all new BIA, elimination of all of the Trump-era  precedents that impede fairness for asylum seekers, new merit-based selection criteria for Immigration Judges, professional administration from judicial experts, and an immediate slashing of the largely self-created “backlog” of 1.3 million cases by closing and removing from the docket every case more than a year old that doesn’t relate to a priority (most are folks who would be covered by Biden’s legalization program anyway; many are eligible for relief that USCIS could grant) to get EOIR in a position to provide the necessary legal guidance and system accountability for the Asylum Office. The absurdist notion that we could or would want to remove every one of the 10-11 million undocumented residents (many performing essential services that propped us up through the pandemic) is one of the “big lies” that has prevented rational reforms of our immigration system.
    • In plain terms, EOIR needs an immediate “rebuild” with a new progressive, humanitarian judiciary of experts. There is no early indication that Judge Garland either understands that “mission-critical” need or has a plan for achieving it. 

As we say in the business the “devil is in the details.” Right now, I can see neither the details nor the leadership in place or “in the pipeline” to solve the debilitating problems in our asylum system that actually are undermining the entire U.S. justice system.

Biden could fix it. But, I wouldn’t count on it. That means that the only real fix in the offing will be for the NDPA to force the Administration to “get it right” through aggressive, never-ending litigation as well as continuing to seek better legislators. Highly inefficient. Yet, sometimes it’s the only way to get the attention of those in power.

If nothing else, we’ll continue to make an important historic record of the cruelty and stupidity with which the current asylum system is being administered. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can always choose to follow our “better angels.” It just takes the courage and the good judgement to get the right folks in the right jobs to make it happen. 

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-01-21

⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🇺🇸MUST-READ FOR TEAM GARLAND @ DOJ: ABA COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION JOINS CALL FOR INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I IMMIGRATION COURT, MAJOR DUE PROCESS REFORMS, END OF WHITE NATIONALIST KAKISTOCRACY @ EOIR! 

Two distinguished Members of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges serve on the Commission:

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Honorable Lisa Dornell
Honorable Lisa Dornell
U.S. Immigration Judge (Retired)
Member, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, PHOTO: CNN
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

KEY QUOTE FROM REPORT:

The Executive Branch should work with Congress to establish, through legislation, an immigration court system independent of any federal agency, both at the trial and appellate level. In the ABA’s view, any major court system restructure should have the following goals:

2

American Bar Association • Achieving America’s Immigration Promise

(1) Independence – Immigration judges at both the trial and appellate level must be sufficiently independent and adequately resourced to make high-quality, impartial decisions without improper influence, particularly influence that makes judges fear for their job security;

(2) Fairness and perception of fairness – The system must actually be fair, and it must appear fair to all participants;

(3) Professionalism of the immigration judiciary – Immigration judges should be talented and experienced lawyers representing diverse backgrounds; and

(4) Increased efficiency – An immigration system must process immigration cases efficiently without sacrificing quality, particularly in cases where noncitizens are detained.

READ THE COMPLETE REPORT HERE:

ABA Achieving America’s Immigration Promise Final 1.13.21

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

As the calls for immediate EOIR reform grow, so does the sense of urgency for those vulnerable individuals (and their courageous, badly abused lawyers) caught up in the current unfair, biased, dysfunctional, and disgracefully misdirected and mal-administered Immigration Courts. 

Notably, EOIR “management” has continued its unseemly race to implement a racist, White Nationalist, anti-asylum, anti-lawyer agenda right up until the end! Their latest unlawful regulations were immediately and emphatically enjoined by several Federal Courts. 

EOIR has totally screwed up the Immigration Courts by piling up an avoidable backlog that greatly exceeds 1.1 million cases, largely by scheming to deny cases that could be granted, retaining cases that should be closed on their artificially bloated docket, selecting unqualified judges without expertise in immigration, human rights, and due process, and arbitrarily changing priorities and “churning” cases (“Aimless Docket Reshuffling”). They have then had the gutless audacity and intellectual dishonesty to attempt to shift the blame for their gross management and squandering of public resources to their victims: the individuals denied due process and fair hearings and their lawyers!

Additionally, EOIR’s continuing efforts to abuse asylum seekers and their lawyers through illegal and immoral regulations, and DOJ attorneys’ equally unethical “defense of the indefensible,” has continued to waste the time of the Article III Courts. It was obvious that these latest regulations would undermine the incoming Biden Administration’s pledge to reinstate due process and that they were illegal from the “git go!” 

This type of arrogantly “in your face Biden, Garland, democracy, and humanity” approach deserves immediate reputation, revocation, and removal of these responsible for the last, disgusting gasps of the “EOIR Clown Show!”🤡 It also demands that some action be taken to deal with the unethical DOJ lawyers 🦹🏿‍♂️🤮who have continued to “press this mess” before the Federal Courts. 

A Federal paycheck does NOT exempt lawyers from ethical codes nor is it a license to clog the courts with a frivolous, invidiously intended civil litigation “strategy” designed to “wear down and exhaust” those private, largely pro bono or low bono, lawyers defending due process and the rights of the most vulnerable among us. In civil litigation, the USG does NOT have either a right or an obligation to defend an illegal racist agenda of invidious actions. 

The disgraceful performance of all too many parts of the DOJ over the past four years must never, ever be repeated! This is a real, festering problem that “Team Garland” can’t afford to ignore as it takes the helm at the broken and dysfunctional DOJ that has become an actual threat to our democracy and our system of justice and an overt mockery of legal ethics. 

Judge Garland, please end the “EOIR Clown Show!” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️☠️🤮👎🏻🧹🪠 NOW!

⚖️🗽🇺🇸👍🏼Due Process Forever. The “EOIR Clown Show,” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️🏴‍☠️Never! 

PWS

01-17-21

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

🛡⚔️⚖️ROUND TABLE (WITH LOTS OF HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS @ AKIN GUMP) CONTINUES TO AID NDPA ⚖️🗽🦸🏽‍♂️🦸‍♀️IN TAKING IT TO THE EOIR CLOWN SHOW🤡🧟! —  The Forces Of Bigotry, White Nationalism, “Dred Scottification,” & Malicious Incompetence Will Be Driven From The Field & Removed From  The Power They Have So Grossly & Disgracefully Abused! — Read Our Latest Amicus Brief ⚖️🗽👍👨🏽‍⚖️🤵🏻‍♀️👩‍⚖️ In Pangea II Here!

2020.12.30 DE 41 Admin Motion for Leave to File Amicus Brief

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

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

Thanks to our friends Steve Schulman 😇 and Michael Stortz 😇 at Akin Gump for their truly outstanding pro bono assistance on this brief.  Couldn’t do it without you!😎

Such an honor to be “fighting the good fight” for due process and fundamental fairness with my colleagues on the Round Table🛡⚔️👩‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️. We have made a difference in the lives of some of the most vulnerable and deserving among us. 🗽We have also helped educate the Federal Courts and the public on the ugly realities of our failed, unjust, and totally dysfunctional Immigration “Courts” ☠️🤡🦹🏿‍♂️, modern day “Star Chambers” ☠️⚰️😪that have become weaponized appendages of “White Nationalist 🤮🏴‍☠️⚰️👎🏻 nation.”

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Star Chamber Justice
“Justice”
Star Chamber
Style
Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

Happy New Year! 🍾🥂🎉Looking forward to Jan. 20 and the end of the kakistocracy!👍🏼⚖️🗽😎🇺🇸

PWS

12-31-20

FACT: THE ROUND TABLE 🛡⚔️ HELPS LEAD THE FIGHT AGAINST EOIR CLOWN 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ SHOW’S “DYING GASP” ASSAULTS 🤮 ON THE MOST VULNERABLE AMONG US! — “Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere!” — Rev. MLK, Jr.

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Fearless “Knightess of the Round Table🛡⚔️“

Two sets of evil, scofflaw proposed regs at issue here:

MTR EOIR Comments FINAL

Round Table continuance regs comments_FINAL

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

Thanks to our leading “Warrior Queen” Ilyce and her team of knightesses and knights who took the lead on this phase of the never ending battle for “truth, justice, and the American way.”

I trust that it will take more than another pathetic “Alternative Fact Sheet” 🤥 to save the sorry bunch @ “EOIR’s Clown Tower”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ in Falls Church from accountability for their sycophancy, false narratives, and constant assaults on due process, the rule of law, truth, and human decency. 👎🏻🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1161001/download

EYORE
“Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Star Chamber Justice
“Justice”
Star Chamber
Style
Four Horsemen
BIA Asylum Panel In Action
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Indicative and very telling that as justice further deteriorates, backlogs mushroom, productivity drops, public outrage grows, chaos reigns, (already rock bottom) morale plummets, and vulnerable humans suffer, the “malicious incompetents” 🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ at EOIR spend time and public resources on this nonsense!

There will be neither racial justice nor social justice in America without “radical due process reform” that ends forever the disgraceful “Dred Scottification” of “the other” (particularly migrants of color, women, families, and, most disgustingly, children) by the EOIR Clown Courts!🤡🦹🏿‍♂️☠️ To paraphrase Rev. King, “Injustice to one is injustice to all.”

Due Process Forever!⚖️🗽🇺🇸👍🏼 EOIR’s Assault On Asylum Seekers, Never!👎🏻🏴‍☠️

PWS

12-29-20

 

 

ON THE MOVE: NDPA SUPERSTAR 🌟 LAURA LYNCH TAPPED TO BECOME SENIOR IMMIGRATION POLICY ATTORNEY FOR NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER (“NILC”)

Laura Lynch
Laura Lynch
Senior Policy Counsel
AILA

A graduate of the University of Baltimore Law, Laura has been Senior Policy Counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“AILA”) National Office in Washington, D.C. for the past four years. In that role, she engaged with Federal agencies, Congress, and designated AILA committees on immigration issues with a focus on interior enforcement, due process, and removal defense. Immigration Court Reform was one of Laura’s key areas of expertise.

 

Importantly, from my personal standpoint, Laura has been (and will continue to be, I hope), part of the “Informal Strategic Planning Group” for the New Due Process Army (”NDPA”) that includes Dan Kowalski, Michelle Mendez, Debi Sanders, Tess Hellgren, and my Round Table colleagues Judge Jeffrey S. Chase and Judge Ilyce Shugall! Her many contributions to our camaraderie and work in behalf of due process and fundamental fairness have been nothing short of spectacular!

 

The good news is that, although NILC is headquartered in Los Angeles, Laura will be remaining in Washington, D.C. While she tells me that her “precise portfolio” at NILC is “TBD,” I know we will be hearing much more from our “Due Process Superstar” in the future.

 

Thanks for all your past contributions and all the best for the future, Laura, from all of your many “admirers and fellow soldiers in the NDPA!”

 

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

11-02-20

 

ROUND TABLE 🛡 LANCES EOIR’S LATEST PROPOSAL TO SCREW ASYLUM SEEKERS, DENY DUE PROCESS!

You can read the comments on EOIR’s latest regulatory proposal here:

Procedures for asy and WH regulation comments

Many thanks to the “drafting team:” Judges Ilyce Shugall, Jeffrey Chase, Lory Rosenberg, and Rebecca Jamil.

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Director, Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.
Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges
Lory Rosenberg
Hon. Lory Diana Rosenberg
Senior Advisor
Immigrant Defenders Law Group, PLLC
Rebecca Jamil
Hon. Rebecca Jamil
U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)
Source: Twitter
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-26-20 

🏴‍☠️RULE EXTENDING ASYLUM BARS TO BECOME FINAL NOV. 20, OVER OBJECTIONS OF ROUND TABLE, MANY OTHER EXPERTS — The Undoing Of U.S. Asylum Law Continues Full Speed Ahead!🤮

 

pastedGraphic.png

THE DEPARTMENTS OF JUSTICE AND HOMELAND SECURITY PUBLISH FINAL RULE TO RESTRICT CERTAIN CRIMINAL ALIENS’ ELIGIBILITY FOR ASYLUM

 

New Mandatory Bars Prevent Convicted Felons, Drunk Drivers, Gang Members, and Other Criminal Aliens from Receiving Asylum

 

WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security announced the publication of a Final Rule amending their respective regulations to prevent certain categories of criminal aliens from obtaining asylum in the United States. The rule takes effect 30 days after publication of the Final Rule in the Federal Register, which is scheduled to occur on Wednesday, Oct. 21.

Asylum is a discretionary immigration benefit that generally can be sought by eligible aliens who are physically present or arriving in the United States, irrespective of their status, as provided in section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1158. However, in the INA, Congress barred certain categories of aliens from receiving asylum. In addition to the statutory bars, Congress delegated to the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to establish by regulation additional bars on asylum eligibility to the extent they are consistent with the asylum statute, as well as to establish “any other conditions or limitations on the consideration of an application for asylum” that are consistent with the INA. To ensure that criminal aliens cannot obtain this discretionary benefit, the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security have exercised their regulatory authority to limit eligibility for asylum for aliens who have engaged in specified categories of criminal behavior.

The new bars apply to aliens who are convicted of:

(1) A felony under federal or state law;

(2) An offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A) or § 1324(a)(1)(2) (Alien Smuggling or Harboring);

(3) An offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (Illegal Reentry);

(4) A federal, state, tribal, or local crime involving criminal street gang activity;

(5) Certain federal, state, tribal, or local offenses concerning the operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant;

(6) A federal, state, tribal, or local domestic violence offense, or who are found by an adjudicator to have engaged in acts of battery or extreme cruelty in a domestic context, even if no conviction resulted; and

(7) Certain misdemeanors under federal or state law for offenses related to false identification; the unlawful receipt of public benefits from a federal, state, tribal, or local entity; or the possession or trafficking of a controlled substance or controlled-substance paraphernalia.

Aliens who have committed certain domestic violence offenses, even if not convicted, will also be barred from asylum.

###

 

_________________________________________

Executive Office for Immigration Review

Office of Policy

Communications and Legislative Affairs Division

PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov

703-305-0289

I adopt the comment of my friend and colleague Judge Ilyce Shugall, the “lead drafter” of the Round Table’s 🛡⚔️🗽⚖️comments in opposition:

This is so awful, but not unexpected.  We will keep filing comments in the hopes that a new administration reads them carefully and can un-do the harm that has been done.

Hon. Ilyce Shugall
Hon. Ilyce Shugall
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Director, Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.
Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-20-20