Immigration Court – Page 199 – immigrationcourtside.com

OPERATION BOGO? — Many Of Those Arrested By DHS In Recent “Raids” Were NOT Serious Felons!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/ice-data-shows-half-of-immigrants-arrested-in-raids-had-traffic-convictions-or-no-record/2017/04/28/81ff7284-2c59-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html?utm_term=.9b04937c5746

Maria Sacchetti and Ed O’Keefe report in the Washington Post:

“About half of the 675 immigrants picked up in roundups across the United States in the days after President Trump took office either had no criminal convictions or had committed traffic offenses, mostly drunken driving, as their most serious crimes, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.

Records provided by congressional aides Friday offered the most detailed look yet at the backgrounds of the individuals rounded up and targeted for deportation in early February by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assigned to regional offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio and New York.

Two people had been convicted of homicide, 80 had been convicted of assault, and 57 had convictions for “dangerous drugs.” Many of the most serious criminals were given top billing in ICE news statements about the operation.

The largest single group — 163 immigrants convicted of traffic offenses — was mentioned only briefly. Over 90 percent of those cases involved drunken driving, ICE said Friday. Of those taken into custody in the raids, 177 had no criminal convictions at all, though 66 had charges pending, largely immigration or traffic offenses.

The raids were part of a nationwide immigration roundup dubbed Operation Cross Check, which accounts for a small portion of the 21,362 immigrants the Trump administration took into custody for deportation proceedings from January through mid-March.

The two-month total represents a 32 percent increase in deportation arrests over the same period last year. Most are criminals, administration officials have said. But 5,441 were not criminals, double the number of undocumented immigrants arrested for deportation a year earlier. The administration has released a detailed breakdown of the criminal records only of the raids in early February.”

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Seems like Trump, Sessions, Kelly & Co. have “embellished” or exaggerated both the threat posed by undocumented individuals and the the achievements of their “enhanced enforcement operations.” And, this is hardly the first time, nor is it likely to be the last.

That being said, as a former U.S. Immigration Judge, I wouldn’t necessarily give a “free pass” to those convicted of DUI. I agree with the commenter who indicated that a DUI far in the past, followed by an otherwise “clean” record would not ordinarily make someone a “danger to society.” But, multiple DUI convictions within the past several years would be a much different story.

Moreover, facts and circumstances are important. A DUI with others, particularly children, in the car, and/or a DUI that resulted in an an accident and injury to persons or property would be something more than a “mere traffic violation.”

Generally, I did not grant bond to individuals with recent multiple DUIs, and I almost never granted a second bond to an individual who had a DUI while out on bond.

PWS

04-29-17

NEW FROM 4TH CIRCUIT: Court Reviews Expedited Removal, Finds VA Statutory Burglary “Not Divisible” — CASTENDET-LEWIS v. SESSIONS!

http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/152484.P.pdf

PANEL:

GREGORY, Chief Judge, KING, Circuit Judge, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit Judge.

OPINION BY: JUDGE KING

“In these circumstances, we must assess whether a Virginia statutory burglary constitutes an aggravated felony using the categorical approach. See Omargharib, 775 F.3d at 196. As the Attorney General concedes in this proceeding, the Virginia burglary statute is broader than the federal crime of generic burglary. In Taylor, the Supreme Court included in its definition of a generic burglary “an unlawful or unprivileged entry” into “a building or other structure,” and explained that state burglary statutes that “eliminat[e] the requirement that the entry be unlawful, or . . . includ[e] places, such as automobiles and vending machines, other than buildings,” fall outside the definition of generic burglary. See 495 U.S. at 598-99. As we noted above, the Virginia burglary statute is satisfied by various alternative means of entry, including one’s entry without breaking or one’s concealment after lawful entry. By proscribing such conduct, the statute falls outside the scope of generic burglary. The Virginia burglary statute also reaches several places that are not buildings or structures, such as ships, vessels, river craft, railroad cars, automobiles, trucks, and trailers. As the BIA recently recognized, the breadth of the statute means that it falls outside the definition of an aggravated felony. See In re H-M-F, __ I. & N. Dec. __ (BIA Mar. 29, 2017). Utilizing the categorical approach, we are also satisfied that the Virginia offense of statutory burglary criminalizes more conduct than the generic federal offense of burglary. The DHS therefore erred in classifying Castendet’s conviction as an aggravated felony.”

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Could the wheels be starting to come off the DHS’s “Expedited Removal Machine” before it even gets up to full throttle?

PWS

04-27-17

THE HILL: Nolan Rappaport Says NY Times “Sugar Coats” Horrors Of FGM!

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/330660-politically-correct-ny-times-hides-horror-of-female-genital

Nolan writes:

“The New York Times does not use the term “Female Genital Mutilation” (FGM) in its article about a Michigan doctor who is being prosecuted for allegedly performing that procedure on two seven-year-old girls. The Times calls the offense, “genital cutting,” despite the fact that the prosecution is based on a federal criminal provision entitled, “Female genital mutilation.”

If convicted, the doctor can be sentenced to incarceration for up to five years.

According to Celia Dugger, the Times’ Health and Science editor, “genital cutting” is a “less culturally loaded” term than “FGM.” It will not widen the “chasm” between “advocates who campaign against the practice and the people who follow the rite.”

For reasons that are inexplicable to me, Dugger seems to think that there can be a legitimate difference of opinion on whether it is right to mutilate the genitals of a seven-year-old girl.

Also, her euphemism, “genital cutting,” makes FGM sound less horrific, which is a disservice to the victims and to the people who are trying to stop the practice.

Political correctness serves a valid purpose when it prevents a person from unnecessarily or unintentionally offending others, but I do not understand why we should be sensitive to the feelings of people who subject seven-year-old girls to genital mutilation.”

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Go on over to The Hill to read Nolan’s complete article at the above link.

For those who want to read (or re-read) my majority opinion in Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996) finding for the first time that FGM is persecution, here is the link: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2014/07/25/3278.pdf.

PWS

04-26-17

AMERICAN GULAG: NGOs Fear Administration’s Planned Detention Empire Will Be Deadly!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-immigrant-detention_us_58f0e2b7e4b0bb9638e34621

Elise Foley reports in HuffPost:

“WASHINGTON ― Human rights advocates spent years fighting for even small improvements to the system that detains men, women and children waiting to be either deported or released back into the U.S. Now they fear the progress they have made could disappear under President Donald Trump, who has promised harsher treatment of undocumented immigrants.

“This administration is prepared to make conditions at immigrant detention even worse than they already are, which, given that for some people they’re already fatal, is terrifying,” said Mary Small, policy director of the advocacy group Detention Watch Network.

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is considering looser regulations for new contracts with jails to hold immigrants in deportation proceedings, The New York Times reported earlier this month. That agreement would allow jails to treat immigrants detained for civil offenses the same way they treat people charged with crimes.

The department also plans to eliminate an office at Immigration and Customs Enforcement that focuses on improving the detention system and to ramp up detention and deportation efforts.

Trump’s boosters consider these to be good things ― earlier this month, hosts on “Fox & Friends” gleefully remarked that the “party’s over” at immigrant detention centers, grumbling about detainees being given clean sheets and outdoor recreation time.

In reality, immigrant detention centers ― some of which are inside jails facilities or former prisons ― are bleak places. Inmates report being denied medical care, held in solitary confinement, given inedible food and other mistreatment. This is all on top of the struggle of being locked up, often far from family and legal help.

There’s always a tension between ‘Do we get rid of the cage or do we make a better cage?’Ruthie Epstein, formerly of Human Rights First

The facilities are supposed to be for civil detention, not criminal detention like a prison ― being in the country without authorization is not in itself a crime. Advocates are concerned that the Trump administration’s discussion of new contracts for jails to detain immigrants is more proof that officials will disregard standards meant to make immigrant detention less punitive.

Chris Daley, an attorney with Just Detention International, said his group is “very afraid” those standards aren’t going to be enforced and that “we’re just going to lose any sense that folks are not there under criminal charges.”

. . . .

“If ICE is no longer tracking the use of solitary confinement or no longer requiring that people who are in mental health crisis are checked on every 15 minutes, that can kill,” said Carl Takei, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project.

It would be difficult for ICE to dismiss the standards set forth in the Prison Rape Elimination Act because they are regulations. But weakening other standards would hurt PREA’s effectiveness, Daley said.

“You can’t have effective sexual abuse prevention programs if you have folks who don’t have access to appropriate materials in the right language; who can’t communicate concerns they have about threats or violence; who are just held in solitary confinement as a matter of course or who otherwise are just being treated in a demeaning way that compromises their dignity,” he said.

ICE hasn’t made any major changes yet, other than eliminating its Office of Detention Policy and Planning. The office’s staff and mission will be absorbed into other parts of the agency, according to ICE spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez.

Officials are “examining a variety of detention models to determine which models would best meet anticipated detention needs” as part of one of Trump’s executive orders on immigration, Rodriguez said. “As new options are explored, ICE’s commitment to maintaining excellent facilities and providing first class medical care to those in our custody remains unchanged.”

The new contracts could be evaluated based on a checklist from the U.S. Marshals Service, The New York Times reported last week. That checklist is “ridiculous in its lack of detail,” Takei said. The contracts wouldn’t specify what policies jails holding immigrants must maintain for medical health, suicide prevention or solitary confinement, other than that they need to have some sort of policy, according to the Times.

Advocates are bracing for the worst.

“We’ve seen important but very incremental change, so to see change that’s taken so long to come about ― and that still had gaps but that was at least a step toward greater accountability and toward better conditions in these facilities ― to see that now be threatened to be reversed is troubling,” said Katharina Obser, senior program officer at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

They will be watching closely for human rights violations, from detainees being denied due process to poor conditions and even increased deaths in detention.

“These policies are a recipe for a human rights catastrophe in immigrant detention,” Takei said, “and we are prepared to sue as soon as that human rights catastrophe comes to pass.”

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Of course, an unstated reason for purposely allowing immigration detention conditions to deteriorate is to discourage migrants from 1) coming to the U.S. to seek refuge, 2) making claims for refuge, and 3) continuing to pursue those claims.

By locating U.S. Immigration Courts in private prisons and local facilities in obscure locations where counsel are not available, the Department of Justice purposely erodes due process for the purpose of making the courts part of the enforcement, deterrence. deportation mechanism.

At some point, the Article III Courts will have to decide how much of this unseemly travesty of justice they are willing to allow.

PWS

04-26-17

PRECEDENT: BIA Opines On “Divisibility” In Agfel Cases — Matter of CHAIREZ-CASTREJON, 27 I&N Dec. 21 (BIA 2017)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/959656/download

Here’s the BIA headnote:

“In determining whether a statute is divisible under Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016), Immigration Judges may consider or “peek” at an alien’s conviction record only to discern whether statutory alternatives define “elements” or “means,” provided State law does not otherwise resolve the question.”

PANEL: Appellate Immigration Judges Pauley, Greer, Malphrus

OPINION BY: Judge Pauley

CONCURRING OPINION BY: Judge Malphrus

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This case is unusual because BIA Judges seldom file “separate opinions” in published decisions these days.

In his concurring opinion, Judge Garry D. Malphrus appears to be both questioning whether the Supreme Court’s approach to statutory “divisibility” analysis comports with congressional intent in immigration matters and inviting Congress to perhaps change the INA so that the BIA and the Immigration Judges could examine the facts of the case, as set forth in the record of conviction, to determine whether the individual should be removed. Judge Malphrus says in his conclusion:

“Here, we must presume that the respondent committed the least of the acts criminalized within the range of conduct punishable under his statute of conviction. See Moncrieffe v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 1678, 1684–85 (2013). This is true even though the respondent’s plea agreement indicates that he did more—specifically, that he knowingly discharged a firearm at another, and thus he committed an aggravated felony crime of violence. See id.

The approach to divisibility required by Descamps and Mathis will result in immigration proceedings being terminated for many aliens who have committed serious crimes in the United States. See, e.g., Ramirez v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 1127, 1134–38 (9th Cir. 2016) (reversing the order of removal upon concluding that the California statute proscribing felony child abuse was not divisible, and thus it was improper to consider the conviction records in determining whether the alien’s conviction constituted an aggravated felony crime of violence). [footnote omitted]. It is for Congress to determine whether this approach is consistent with its intent regarding the immigration consequences of such criminal conduct.”

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Another observation: How could an unrepresented respondent charged under this section possibly defend himself consistent with due process when the law is so complex and convoluted. This particular respondent was fortunate enough to have a lawyer, and as we can see, he was able to achieve a favorable result. But, recent studies have shown that the overwhelming number of respondents in detention (as individuals charged as “agfels” must be) must proceed without counsel. http://wp.me/p8eeJm-Gv

PWS

04-24-17

JURIST: Christopher N. Lasch Says Sessions More Interested In Politics Than Justice!

http://www.jurist.org/forum/2017/04/the-political-attorney-general.php

Professor Lasch writes:

“As JURIST previously reported, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has threatened to cut Department of Justice funding to so-called “sanctuary” cities. The Attorney General’s comments during the White House press briefing on March 27, 2017, and on other occasions, demonstrate that our nation’s top law enforcement official is concerned far less with enforcing the law than with pursuing the Trump administration’s political agenda.

Ignoring the Law
Anti-sanctuary politicians like to claim that sanctuary cities defy or flout federal law. President Trump, for example, in his January 25 executive order on interior immigration enforcement, claimed that “[s]anctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States.” Echoing this, Attorney General Sessions on March 27 likewise tried to paint sanctuary policies as defying federal law. He said that the DOJ Inspector General previously “found that these policies … violate federal law.” PolitiFact rightly rated this claim “mostly false” after consulting with immigration law experts and reviewing the Inspector General’s report [PDF], which was fairly explicit in not reaching the conclusion that any particular policy violated the law.

Sessions’s inaccurate portrayal of the Inspector General’s report fits into a larger pattern of dishonesty about the law when it comes to sanctuary policies. His remarks on March 27 suggested that sanctuary policies might violate numerous federal laws. But only one specific statute has ever been cited by those (including President Trump, in his executive order, and Attorney General Sessions, in his March 27 remarks) who suggest sanctuary policies defy federal law: 8 U.S.C. § 1373.

8 U.S.C. § 1373 is a very narrow law, addressed only to prohibitions on local law enforcement sharing information with federal immigration officials concerning a person’s citizenship or immigration status. The overwhelming majority of “sanctuary” policies across the country have nothing to say about such information sharing. (San Francisco, for example, while perhaps the jurisdiction most often maligned by the anti-sanctuary campaign, takes the position that it complies with 8 U.S.C. § 1373). Instead, most policies address whether immigration “detainers” (requests by federal immigration officials for the continued detention of a state or local inmate who is otherwise entitled to release) will be accepted by local law enforcement.

Lack of compliance with detainers is what is really at stake in the current debate over sanctuary cities. We know this because while administration officials point to 8 U.S.C. § 1373 to support the claim that sanctuary policies violate federal law, they fail to discuss any claimed violations of 8 U.S.C. § 1373. Instead, they talk about jurisdictions failing to honor detainers—which is exactly where Attorney General Sessions took the conversation on March 27, trotting out the San Francisco case of Francisco Sanchez and the Denver case of Ever Valles as examples of prisoners released, despite ICE having lodged a detainer–only to be subsequently charged with murder.

We also know that detainers are what is really troubling the administration because the President’s executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security “on a weekly basis, [to] make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.” Attorney General Sessions cited this order on March 27 before turning to the Sanchez and Valles cases, claiming the DHS report showed “that in a single week, there were more than 200 instances of jurisdictions refusing to honor ICE detainer requests with respect to individuals charged or convicted of a serious crime.” The report, it turns out, was riddled with errors—”corrections” to the report issued by DHS included, for example, that Franklin County, Iowa; Franklin County, New York; and Franklin County, Pennsylvania were all erroneously listed as having declined detainers in the first report. Its issuance was discontinued after just three weeks.

Despite the obsession with declined detainers, Attorney General Sessions has in his remarks demonstrated utter obliviousness to the actual law governing detainers. On March 27, Sessions suggested honoring detainers was a “fundamental principle of law enforcement” and in February at a meeting of states’ attorneys general, Sessions called it a “shocking thing” that localities were not honoring detainers. These comments suggest unawareness of a steady stream of federal court decisions since 2014. The Third Circuit US Court of Appeals, in Galarza v. Szalczyk, established that localities cannot be compelled to honor detainers. A district court in Oregon held further that localities can be held liable for Fourth Amendment violations, given that the detention requested by federal officials amounts to a new warrantless arrest that must be justified under the Constitution. This line of precedent was sufficiently strong that the Obama administration put an end to the “Secure Communities” [PDF] program (which relied heavily on detainers) because of it.

If Sessions is aware of this body of law, he is not talking about it.

. . . .

These policy positions, however, are contradicted by all available data. Study [PDF] after study has shown that immigrants, regardless of status, commit crimes at lower rates than citizens. In the words of Michael Tonry [PDF[, “high levels of legal and illegal Hispanic immigration … [are] credited with contributing significantly to the decline in American crime rates since 1991.” And sanctuary policies have not made cities unsafe–the recent study by Tom K. Wong concludes that crime rates are lower and economic indicators are stronger in sanctuary jurisdictions.

JURIST guest columnist Ali Khan recently situated America’s current war on immigrants in global trends of nativism, racism and xenophobia. This, in my view, provides the answer to the question of what “countervailing principles” might cause Attorney General Sessions not only to ignore all available data on immigration, sanctuary, and crime, but to upend traditional Republican views on federal-versus-local control of policing. Trump’s anti-sanctuary rhetoric, I have argued [PDF], is racial rhetoric. It is part of an illogical, counterfactual, counter-legal, and highly successful political formula: Demonizing immigrants wins votes; deporting immigrants wins votes.

Sanctuary cities stand in the way of this political agenda. The Attorney General’s words and actions reveal that, when it comes to sanctuary cities, Jeff Sessions is not serving the role of chief law enforcement lawyer. He is just another politician chasing down votes for the President.”

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Sessions’s latest threats directed against so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions have drawn some “robust pushback:”

As Jay Croft reports in CNN:

“(CNN)Insulting.

Out of touch.

Inaccurate.

Mayors of some of the so-called sanctuary cities were not impressed Friday with the Trump administration’s latest volley in the dispute over immigration policy. The Justice Department told the local government officials to share immigration information by June 30 on people who have been arrested — or lose federal money.

‘Civil deportation force’

“If anybody in the Trump administration would actually do some research before firing off letters, they would see that the city of New Orleans has already provided the Department of Justice documentation that shows we are in compliance with federal immigration laws,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a statement.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu

“This is another example of the Trump administration acting before doing their homework. The New Orleans Police Department will not be a part of President Trump’s civil deportation force no matter how many times they ask.”

What ‘sanctuary cities’ stand to lose

He reiterated a point made by sanctuary mayors — that individuals are more likely to report crime and testify if they are not afraid of being questioned about their immigration status.

Values ‘not for sale’

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel didn’t pull any punches, either.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel

“We’ve seen the letter from DOJ. Neither the facts nor the law are on their side,” Emanuel said.

“Regardless, let me be clear: Chicago’s values and Chicago’s future are not for sale.”

Emanuel’s office said Chicago wants to be seen as a “welcoming” city for immigrants.

In Chicago, $3.6 billion in federal funds are at stake, possibly jeopardizing money to pay for everything from feeding low-income pregnant women to repairing roads and bridges, according an analysis by the Better Government Association, a nonpartisan state watchdog group.

NY mayor: Not ‘soft on crime’

The Justice Department claimed illegal immigration into the country has increased crime in these cities. It called New York City “soft on crime.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio

That didn’t play in New York.

“I have never met a member of the New York Police Department that is soft on crime,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

In a statement and on Twitter, de Blasio challenged President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to come to the city “and look our officers in the eye and tell them they are soft on crime.”

Spokesman Seth Stein went a step farther.

“This grand-standing shows how out of touch the Trump administration is with reality,” Stein said.

“Contrary to their alternative facts, New York is the safest big city in the country, with crime at record lows in large part because we have policies in place to encourage cooperation between NYPD and immigrant communities.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/21/politics/sanctuary-cities-mayors-respond-to-administration/index.html

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Session’s tone deaf, xenophobic approach shows little interest in effective law enforcement. Unlike Sessions, over my time at the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, I actually had to deal on a face to face basis with both gang members and their victims. Unlike Sessions, I have actually denied bond to and entered orders of removal against established gang members. I’ve also granted relief to victims of gang violence and watched the U.S. legal system intentionally “turn its back” on other victims in dire need of protection.

I have a daughter who as a teacher has had to deal on a day to day basis with some gang issues in the schools and the community in a constructive manner, rather than the harsh platitudes coming out of Sessions’s mouth.

From my perspective, a credible effort to reduce gang violence in the U.S. would require:

1) confidence and close cooperation with the migrant communities across the U.S. (for example, the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force, established with the help of Congress and the efforts of former Rep Frank Wolf has a much more nuanced and potentially effective “multi-faceted” approach to gang violence than the “talk tough, threaten, blame immigrants” approach Sessions is purveying; many of the gang-related cases I got at the Arlington Immigration Court stemmed from the efforts of the Task Force working positively in immigrant communities);

2) a sound voluntary working relationship with local police, community activists, and school officials that concentrates on reducing violent crime and making young people feel included and valued, not focused on “busting” undocumented migrants,

3) recognition that while deportations of gang leaders and members who are not U.S. citizens might be necessary, it will not solve the problem (indeed, since gangs control many of the prisons in Central America and have also have compromised the police and the some government officials, removal to, or even imprisonment in, the Northern Triangle is akin to a “corporate reassignment” for gang members);

4) an acknowledgement that U.S. deportations are what basically started, and then fueled, the “gang crisis” in Central America — MS-13 was actually “Born in the U.S.A.” (with apologies to Bruce — L.A. to be exact) and “exported” (or perhaps more properly “deported”) to El Salvador after the end of the civil war; and

5) a program of at least temporary refuge for those fleeing gang violence in the Northern Triangle, many of whom now are effectively being told by the U.S. that joining gangs or giving in to their demands for extortion or assistance represents their only realistic chance of survival.

A long-term program to address the problems of gangs, drugs, violence against women, endemic public corruption, poor education, substandard health care, and gross economic inequality at the “point of origin” in the Northern Triangle is also needed, along with cooperative programs to encourage other stable countries in the Americas, such as Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica to share the responsibility of providing at least “safe haven” to those fleeing the Northern Triangle.

Our current national policies, and particularly the ones advocated by Sessions and parroted by Secretary Kelly, actually appear likely to further the power and influence of gangs rather than curbing it. Indeed, as fear and distrust of our Government and the police spreads in migrant communities throughout the U.S., the power, protection, and authority of criminal gangs in the community is almost certainly going to be enhanced.

I think it’s also useful to “keep it in perspective.”Although the power of individual gangs has ebbed and flowed with time, gangs are a well-established historical phenomenon. Indeed, at least one historian has pointed to continuous battles between warring barons and their respective knights as the antecedents of today’s criminal gangs: ruthless, violent, structured on loyalty and fear, greedy, and insatiable. The United States probably does as good a job as any country of dealing with and controlling gang violence. But, it’s unlikely that even we are going to be able to completely eliminate it, any more than we will be able to completely eradicate crime.

PWS

04-22-17

REUTERS: Mica Rosenberg Reports On Trump’s “Under The Radar” Plan To Bar “Freedom Fighters” & “Victims Of Terrorism” From The U.S.!

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-terrorism-exceptions-idUSKBN17N13C

Mica and Yegenah Torbati report:

“Now the Trump administration is debating whether to rescind the waivers that have allowed Raj, and tens of thousands of others, to immigrate to the United States in the past decade (See graphic on waivers: tmsnrt.rs/2oPssIo). Some immigration hardliners are concerned the exemptions could allow terrorists to slip into the country.

U.S. President Donald Trump directed the secretaries of State and Homeland Security, in consultation with the attorney general, to consider abolishing the waivers in an executive order in March. That directive was overshadowed by the same order’s temporary ban on all refugees and on travelers from six mostly Muslim nations.

The bans on refugees and travel were challenged in lawsuits, and their implementation has been suspended pending full hearings in court. But the waiver review was not included in the court rulings, so that part of the order remains in effect.

Rules governing the waivers have been hammered out over the last decade with both Democratic and Republican support. But in recent years they have drawn fire from some conservative lawmakers, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he was a senator.

A State Department official said this week the department is working with DHS to review the waivers and is “looking at actually pulling them back in accordance with the executive order.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to give details on the timing of the review or its likely outcome. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

KURDS, KAREN, HMONG

Following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Congress expanded the definition of who could be considered a terrorist and what constituted “material support” to terrorism in rules now known as the Terrorism Related Inadmissibility Grounds.

Those changes ensnared people like Raj who were coerced or inadvertently provided support to terrorists, as well as members of persecuted ethnic groups that supported rebel organizations, and even U.S.-allied groups fighting against authoritarian regimes.

Without an exemption, members of Kurdish groups that battled Saddam Hussein’s forces in Iraq, Hmong groups who fought alongside U.S. troops in Vietnam, or some Cubans who fought Fidel Castro’s regime would not be allowed to immigrate to the United States.

Under the exemptions, U.S. authorities have the discretion to grant people residency in the United States after they have passed background checks and are found to pose no threat to national security.

Congress initially passed waivers to the terrorism bars in 2007 with bipartisan support, and in the years that followed both the Bush and Obama administrations added additional groups and circumstances to the exemptions.

“PHANTOM PROBLEM”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has granted nearly 22,000 TRIG exemptions in total over the last decade, according to the latest data available, which goes through September 2016. The State Department also grants TRIG exemptions, but a spokesman could not provide data on how many.

Refugees from Myanmar are the largest single group of beneficiaries to date of TRIG exemptions granted by USCIS, with more than 6,700 waivers.

The wave of Myanmar refugees dates to 2006, when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled that thousands of members of the Karen ethnic group, then living in a camp in Thailand, could resettle in the United States, even if they had supported the political wing of an armed group that had fought the country’s military regime.

One high-profile supporter of scrapping the waivers is House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia whose staffers were instrumental in drafting Trump’s travel ban. Goodlatte told Reuters he was “pleased that the Trump Administration is reviewing the dangerous policy.”

Groups favoring stricter immigration laws have also applauded the review. Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations at NumbersUSA, called the waivers “a potential security risk.”

“I personally don’t think that a bureaucrat should be deciding how much support for terrorism is enough to be barred,” she said.

A USCIS spokeswoman, when asked if a recipient of an exemption had ever been involved in a terrorism-related case after arriving in the United States, referred Reuters to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which said it was a question for the State Department to answer.

“I don’t know of any cases where beneficiaries of exemptions have gotten into trouble after arriving,” the State Department official said, noting that the department does not typically track people after they arrive in the United States.

Trump’s order to review the waivers “is another example of an attempt to address a non-existent phantom problem,” said Eric Schwartz, who served in the State Department during the Obama administration.

Schwartz and immigration advocates say the waivers are granted after lengthy review and are extremely difficult to get.

“These are case-by-case exemptions for people who represent no threat to the United States but rather have been caught in the most unfortunate of circumstances,” said Schwartz.

For Raj, the initial ruling that his ransom payment supported a terrorist group led to more than two years in U.S. immigration detention, followed by more years of electronic monitoring. His waiver allowed him to bring his wife to the United States after nine years apart. She now studies nursing.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Additional reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin)”

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Just to illustrate the lunacy of the already over-broad definition of “terrorist,” all of our “founding fathers” would be “terrorists” under this definition.

I heard a number of so-called”terrorist cases” over my time as a trial judge at the Arlington Immigration Court. A few of the folks on the detained docket (during the years I was assigned to that docket) might have potentially been dangerous.

But, most so-called “terrorists” were basically harmless individuals who actually appeared on my non-detained docket even during the “last years” when I was handling the “non-priority docket” (which was actually the overwhelming majority of cases at Arlington).

Most were folks who had supposedly provided “material support” like giving a ride to a rebel who commandeered the respondent’s car at gun point, carrying supply bags a few miles for guerrillas under threat of death, allowing rebels to ransack the family kitchen at gunpoint (sometimes called the “taco rule”), or giving money to a dissident group that was actually being supported by the U.S. in a battle against an oppressive government” (otherwise referred to as “freedom fighters”).

Most of them had lived in the U.S. for years without incident and were stunned to find out that being a victim of terrorism or helping a dissident group that the U.S. supported could be a bar to immigration. For example, anyone assisting rebels in the fight against the Assad Government or against ISIS would be considered a “terrorist” by our definition. And, ask yourself, why would any “real” terrorist have appeared on my non-detained, non-priority docket?

Of course, as a mere Immigration Judge I could not grant the “waiver” discussed in Mica’s article. But, I was required to make essentially an “advisory holding” that “but for” the “terrorist bar” I would have granted the respondent’s application.

I am aware that some of the cases I handled were referred to USCIS by the Office of Chief Counsel (the respondent can’t initiate the waiver process on her or his own) and eventually granted. Thereafter, I “vacated” on “joint motion” the removal order I had previously entered against the respondent. The whole process seemed convoluted.

Just another example of how the xenophobes in the Trump Administration are wasting time and taxpayer money making an already bad situation even worse.

A further example of how pointless the “terrorist bar” is in it’s current form: many of the individuals covered by the bar would also be entitled to “Deferral of Removal” under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). The “terrorist bar” can’t be applied to “CAT deferral.” Therefore, individuals who are denied asylum but qualify for CAT deferral can’t be removed from the country. In effect, all that the terrorist bar does in such cases is keep individuals who are no threat to the U.S. in “limbo,” rather than allowing them to regularize their immigration status.

PWS

04-21-17

LA TIMES: Immigration Courts Not Only “Broken Piece” Of Trump’s Removal Regime — DHS Can’t Keep Up With Removals Even Now! — “Haste Makes Waste” Rush To Hire More Agents Likely To Dilute Standards, Threaten National Security!” — New IG Report Blasts Current Practices!

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-ice-oig-20170420-story.html

Joseph Tanfani reports:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hampered by poor organization and an overworked staff, will have trouble keeping up with the Trump administration’s plans to ramp up deportations of people in the country illegally, government inspectors have concluded.

ICE has “overwhelming caseloads,” its records are “likely inaccurate” and its deportation policies and procedures “are outdated and unclear,” said a report released Thursday by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department.

“ICE is almost certainly not deporting all the aliens who could be deported and will likely not be able to keep up with the growing number of deportable aliens,” the 19-page report concludes.

The harsh assessment is the latest dash of cold reality for Trump, who was swept into Washington promising vastly tougher enforcement of immigration laws, including more removals, thousands more Border Patrol agents and deportation officers, and construction of a formidable wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

. . . .

An internal memo in February from Kevin McAleenan, acting director of Customs and Border Protection, revealed that Border Patrol was able to vet and hire only about 40 agents a month last year despite aggressive efforts to streamline the hiring process.

Reports this year that Customs and Border Patrol might stop using polygraph tests, intended to ferret out unqualified agents, drew a storm of criticism. So did the reason: Two out of three new applicants had failed the lie detector.

The agency first required polygraph tests for prospective employees in 2012 after an Obama-era hiring surge led to a sharp increase in agents getting charged or arrested for bribery, drug smuggling and other crimes on or near the border.

Moreover, the Border Patrol — the nation’s largest federal law enforcement agency — has more than 2,000 jobs empty even before a Trump-led hiring surge. The force fell below 20,000 agents this year for the first time since 2009, when Obama came to office.

Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said Sunday that Customs and Border Protection would continue to use the polygraph as a hiring tool, although he added that the agency was considering changes to make the process less “arduous.”

. . . .

Moreover, the latest report from the inspector general’s office at Homeland Security said ICE agents, who are supposed to identify, detain and deport people in the country illegally, are ill-equipped to monitor those on their caseloads.

ICE tries to keep track of about 2.2 million foreigners who are not in jail, including more than 368,000 convicted criminals, the report said. Some officers have more than 10,000 cases, the report said, criticizing agency officials for not managing the problem.

“Although many ICE deportation officers … reported overwhelming caseloads and difficulty fulfilling their responsibilities, ICE does not collect and analyze data” that could be used to ease the pressure.

In one office, according to the report, officers complained that they had to manage so many thousands of cases that they couldn’t keep track of some migrants who had been flagged as risks to national security.

The report faulted ICE for insufficient training and failing to issue “up-to-date, comprehensive and accessible” guidelines on deportation. Resolving the failures, it said, “may require significant time and resources.”

“These management deficiencies and unresolved obstacles make it difficult for ICE to deport aliens expeditiously,” it said.

. . . .

Randy Capps, research director at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the Trump administration may have promised more than it can deliver given the systemic problems.

“Sooner or later, they are going to have to narrow down [deportation priorities] or the system is going to be overwhelmed,” he said. “That’s certainly what the Obama administration found. There’s a certain size past which the system is very hard to manage efficiently.”

I think Randy Capps has it exactly right. The system is not “infinitely expandable.” That’s also true of the U.S. Immigration Court system. At some point, reasonable priorities will have to be set. With perhaps as many as 12 million undocumented residents in the U.S., we simply can’t have line agents arresting anyone who “might” be removable.

Seems like it’s high time for some bipartisan congressional oversight of what we taxpayers are getting for our dollars over at the DHS. I say this acknowledging that over the years I have been impressed with the individual talent and dedication of the vast majority of DHS (and “Legacy INS”) employees I have come in contact with in my various “lives” in immigration law. But, management, mission focus, technology problems, and communications difficulties have always been agency-wide issues that in some ways make “the whole less than the sum of its parts.” Sure seems that it would be better to get these problems fixed before adding lots of “new parts.”

PWS

04-21-17

THE ATLANTIC: Priscilla Alvarez Exposes Nation’s Largest Failing Court System: U.S. Immigration Court — Quoting Me: “A fully trained judge, which new judges won’t be, can do about 750 cases a year. So 125 new judges could do fewer than 100,000 cases a year once they’re up and trained, . . . .” — No Amount Of Resources Can Overcome Screwed Up Priorities, Political Meddling, & Management Problems Inherent In The Current “Designed To Fail” System — Due Processes Takes A Back Seat!

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/trump-immigration-court-ice/523557/

Priscilla writes in an article that also contains quotes from highly respected DC area immigration practitioner Dree Collopy (emphasis added in below excerpt):

“Responding to the 2014 migrant wave, the Obama administration temporarily redirected immigration judges to the southern border to preside over removal proceedings and bond hearings, and review whether any individuals’ claims of fear of persecution were credible. Immigration cases being heard in other parts of the United States had to be put on hold, said Jeremy McKinney, an attorney and board member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “The surge was the first time we saw a deployment of immigration judges to the border, resulting in non-detained dockets in the United States getting much worse,” McKinney said, referring to cases that do not require detention. “That situation already put a strain on the interior immigration courts.”

The Justice Department, which hires judges for immigration courts, was also tied up by the budget sequester from 2011 to 2014, so there weren’t enough judges to try cases, he added. Over time, the backlog grew from around 327,000 cases at the end of the 2012 fiscal year to half a million in 2016.

Judge Paul Schmidt, who was appointed in 2003 by Attorney General John Ashcroft, had around 10,000 immigration cases pending when he left his job last year. “When I retired, I was sending cases to 2022,” he told me. Schmidt, who primarily served in the Arlington Immigration Court in northern Virginia, was assigned to those not considered a priority—say, people who had traffic violations. The current national backlog, Schmidt said, largely consists of cases like the ones he handled.

The Trump administration has taken steps that could quicken the courts’ work. For one, ICE officers can now deport someone immediately, without a hearing, if they fit certain criteria and have lived in the United States for up to two years. Under the last administration, that timeline was up to two weeks, and the individual needed to be within 100 miles of the border.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions also announced, in a speech on the Arizona-Mexico border, that the Department of Justice will add 125 immigration judges to the bench over the next two years: 50 this year and 75 in 2018. He urged federal prosecutors to prioritize the enforcement of immigration laws. “This is a new era. This is the Trump era,” Sessions said. “The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch-and-release practices of old are over.”

“You have to give Sessions credit for this,” Schmidt said. “He took note of the 18-to-24-month cycle for filling judges and said he was going to streamline that.” The math still doesn’t exactly work out, however. “A fully trained judge, which new judges won’t be, can do about 750 cases a year. So 125 new judges could do fewer than 100,000 cases a year once they’re up and trained,” he said. Factor in the fact that it takes up to two years to become “fully productive,” he said, and altogether, it could take five to six years for the 125 new judges to cut down the backlog.

All the while, new cases will continue to come in as the administration enforces its new, broader policies on deportation. Newly detained individuals will be prioritized over other cases, which will be pushed further down the road. “I think it has a particular impact on asylum-seekers, because the sense of being in limbo really seems to prolong their trauma and their sense of statelessness that they have,” said Dree Collopy, an immigration lawyer in Washington, D.C. And hearing delays can affect asylum-seekers’ credibility, as well as evidence to support their cases: “Over time, especially when trauma is involved, memories begin to fade.” If a person can’t testify until years after entering the United States, “that can obviously cause problems.”

When Collopy first started practicing immigration law in 2007, cases generally would take about a year or two to complete. That’s no longer the case: “Now, it’s taking four or five years on average,” she told me. With the Trump administration rounding up undocumented immigrants quicker than courts can process cases, that delay isn’t likely to shorten.”

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

Read Priscilla’s full article at the above link.

A “smart” strategy would address the 542,000 pending cases before piling on new priorities. Under a more rational policy, those in the current backlog with equities in the U.S., “clean records,” or only minor criminal histories, could be offered “prosecutorial discretion” (“PD”) and taken off the Immigration Court’s docket to make room for higher priority cases.

However, instead of encouraging more use of PD, which was starting to make some difference by the end of the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration has basically made “everything” a potential “priority.” Moreover, as a “double whammy” the Administration has basically “disempowered” those at DHS who know the Immigration Court system the best, the local ICE Assistant Chief Counsel, from freely exercising PD to take non-criminal cases off the docket.

Ironically, at the same time, DHS appears to be giving line enforcement agents the “green light” to arrest just about anyone who might be removable for any reason. However, the line agents unlikely to understand the limitations of the current Immigration Court system and what is already “on the docket.”

The Immigration Court system is basically the opposite of most other law enforcement systems where prosecutors, rather than policemen or agents, determine what cases will be brought before the court. And, in most functioning court systems, the individual sitting judges control their own dockets, rather than having priorities set by politically-driven non-judicial bureaucrats in other places. It certainly appears to be a prescription for disaster. Stay tuned!

PWS

04-21-17

NOTE: In an earlier version of this article I “blew” Priscilla’s name by calling her “Patricia.” My apologies. I’ve now corrected it.

“Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money . . . .” — But, Bipartisan Legalization Is What Undocumented Residents REALLY Need, Says N. Rappaport in THE HILL!

Quote from “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” by Warren Zevon, check it out here: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/w/warren_zevon/lawyers_guns_and_money.html

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

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/329310-noncriminal-immigrants-facing-deportation-need-legalization

Nolan writes in a recent op-ed from The Hill:

“The absence of due process protections is permissible because IIRIA “clarified” that aliens who are in the United States without inspection are deemed to be “arriving.” In other words, they are not entitled to the rights enjoyed by aliens who have been admitted to the United States because, technically, they are not in the United States. This legal fiction has been accepted now for more than 20 years.

Previous administrations arbitrarily have limited expedited removal proceedings to aliens at the border and aliens who entered without inspection and were apprehended no more than 100 miles from the border after spending less than 14 days in the country.

But Section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(ll) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes expedited removal proceedings for any alien “who has not been admitted or paroled into the United States, and who has not affirmatively shown, to the satisfaction of an immigration officer, that the alien has been physically present in the United States continuously for the 2-year period immediately prior to the date of the determination of inadmissibility.”

President Trump can use expedited removal proceedings to deport millions of noncriminal aliens without hearings before an immigration judge or the right to appeal removal orders to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

The only way to stop him is to find a way to work with him on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a legalization program. And time is running out.

The Trump administration is quickly identifying ways to assemble the nationwide deportation force that President Trump promised on the campaign trail.

Preparations are being made for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to hire 5,000 new officers and for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hire an additional 10,000. Also, ICE has identified 27 potential locations that could increase its detention space by 21,000 beds, and CBP plans to expand its detention capacity by 12,500 spaces.

But it is not too late to work on a deal that would meet the essential political needs of both parties … yet.”

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

Go over to The Hill at the link to read Nolan’s complete op-ed.

I agree with Nolan that given the huge backlogs in the U.S. Immigration Courts, the Administration will use every device at its disposal to avoid the Immigration Courts and completely eliminate due process protections for as many individuals as possible. Moreover, as I have pointed out in a recent blog, to date the Article III Courts have been willing to turn a blind eye to the rather obvious due process and statutory issues involved in expedited removal. See http://wp.me/p8eeJm-IG.

To state the obvious: “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum” is meaningless without a fair opportunity to be heard on the asylum application before an impartial adjudicator, with a meaningful opportunity to present evidence, and represented by counsel of one’s choice. And, the idea that individuals who have spent months in detention in the U.S. aren’t entitled to “due process” in connection with their asylum applications (which are “life or death” applications) is facially absurd.

Yeah, I know that the Third Circuit in Castro v. DHS spent the whole decision on a turgidly opaque discussion of jurisdiction and and “suspension of habeas.” Surprising how folks living in the “ivory tower” with lifetime job security can sometimes drain all of the humanity out of “real life” tragedies.

But, frankly, in four decades of being a “highly interested observer” of immigration litigation, I’ve never seen an Article III Court, including the Supremes, be deterred from running over supposed statutory limitations on judicial review when motivated to do so. Perhaps it will take some Federal Judge’s nanny, maid, gardener, driver, handyman, neighbor, fellow church member, student, or in-law being swept up in the new “DHS dragnet” to “motivate” the courts here.

In the meantime, as pointed out to me by Nolan in a different conversation, there is some hope for due process in the Third Circuit’s dictum in Castro. In “footnote 13,” the court actually indicates that there might be a “constitutional break point” for review of expedited removal:

“Of course, even though our construction of § 1252 means that courts in the future will almost certainly lack statutory jurisdiction to review claims that the government has committed even more egregious violations of the expedited removal statute than those alleged by Petitioners, this does not necessarily mean that all aliens wishing to raise such claims will be without a remedy. For instance, consider the case of an alien who has been living continuously for several years in the United States before being ordered removed under § 1225(b)(1). Even though the statute would prevent him from seeking judicial review of a claim, say, that he was never granted a credible fear interview, under our analysis of the Suspension Clause below, the statute could very well be unconstitutional as applied to him (though we by no means undertake to so hold in this opinion). Suffice it to say, at least some of the arguably troubling implications of our reading of § 1252 may be tempered by the Constitution’s requirement that habeas review be available in some circumstances and for some people.”

I suspect that the Administration eventually will push expedited removal and credible fear denials to the point where there will be some meaningful judicial review. But, lots of folks rights are likely to be trampled upon before we reach that point.

Nolan’s suggestion for a bipartisan legislative solution certainly seems reasonable and highly appropriate from the viewpoint of both sides. The Administration is about to invest lots of resources and credibility in a “war to deport or intimidate just about everybody” that it is likely to lose in the long run. But, advocates are likely to be bleeding resources and losing individual battles for some time before the tide eventually turns, if it ever does. Anything that depends on litigation as the solution has many risks and unpredictable outcomes that might leave both sides unsatisfied with the results.

Sadly, nobody in the Administration seems interested in solving this issue. The policy appears to be driven by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a lifelong opponent of immigration reform who seldom if ever has a kind word to say about any immigrant, legal or undocumented.

Secretary Kelly has become “Sessions’s Parrot,” apparently devoid of any original or constructive thoughts on the subject of immigration. In particular, his recent “put up or shut up” outburst directed at Congressional Democrats who sought some meaningful oversight and clarification of his enforcement policies did not seem to be an entree for better dialogue.

Although there almost certainly is a majority of Democrats and Republicans in favor of reasonable immigration reform, which the majority of the country would also like to see, leadership of both parties seems fairly discombobulated. There seems to be “zero interest” in putting together a legislative coalition consisting of Democrats and a minority of Republicans to get anything done. And, even if such a coalition were to coalesce, President Trump likely would veto any constructive result in the area of immigration.

As I’ve pointed out before, there are a number of reasons why folks don’t always act in their best interests or the best interests of the country. But, I appreciate Nolan’s efforts to promote “thinking beyond conflict.” I want to think that it can come to fruition.

PWS

04-20-17

PRECEDENT: BIA Gives Guidance On Admin Closing & Avetisyan — PD Should Not Be A Factor Unless Parties Agree — Matter of W-Y-U-, 27 I&N Dec. 17 (BIA 2017)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/958526/download

BIA Headnotes:

“(1) The primary consideration for an Immigration Judge in evaluating whether to administratively close or recalendar proceedings is whether the party opposing administrative closure has provided a persuasive reason for the case to proceed and be resolved on the merits. Matter of Avetisyan, 25 I&N Dec. 688 (BIA 2012), clarified.

(2) In considering administrative closure, an Immigration Judge cannot review whether an alien falls within the enforcement priorities of the Department of Homeland Security, which has exclusive jurisdiction over matters of prosecutorial discretion.”

Panel: Appellate Immigration Judges Malphrus, Mullane, & Creppy

Opinion by Judge Malphrus.

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

While at first blush it might appear that the unrepresented respondent “won” this appeal, the victory is likely to be phyrric at best.

There was a time (now apparently gone) when the DHS gave individual Assistant Chief Counsel broader authority to offer prosecutorial discretion (“PD”) in cases that were not enforcement priorities.

In Arlington, where I was an Immigration Judge, the Assistant Chief Counsel were very reasonable and fair, and usually agreed to “short docket” hearings on well-documented asylum cases that fell squarely within the BIA precedents. Consequently, when they offered “PD” in an asylum case it usually was a “signal” that they saw the equities in the case, but also had difficulties with the asylum application that would require them to fully litigate the case and probably appeal a grant. Since the Assistant Chief Counsel in Arlington did not normally contest asylum cases unless there were significant proof or legal issues involved, their views had great credibility with both the private bar and with me.

Generally, in such situations I “suggested” that counsel accept the proffer of PD and continue to work with the Assistant Chief Counsel on overcoming her or his problem with the asylum case. If the parties eventually were able to reach agreement that the case could be heard on the “short docket” (30 minutes or less), I would be happy to restore the case to the docket upon joint motion. Usually, counsel got my “message.”

The few cases that went forward after “PD” had been turned down by counsel usually proved to be “losers” for the respondent, either before me or before the BIA. In a couple of cases, where I could see the respondent’s case “going south in a hurry,” I simply stopped the hearing and granted the DHS motion for Administrative Closing for PD over the respondent’s objection. I don’t think anyone ever appealed. But, under Matter of W-Y-U-, I probably could not have done that.

I suspect that when this unrepresented respondent eventually gets his wish and has a merits asylum hearing, he will lose. At that point, the DHS, even prior to the Trump Administration, would be unlikely to exercise PD, even if there were outstanding equities.

Sometimes in litigation you get what you ask for, and later wish you hadn’t asked.

PWS

04-19-17

USA TODAY: Even Without Trump’s “Fully Enhanced” Enforcement, U.S. Immigration Courts Are Drowning In Cases — Limits On “Prosecutorial Discretion” By DHS Already Adversely Affecting Dockets!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/04/17/immigration-courts-new-rules-trump/98674758/

Rick Jervis, Alan Gomez, and Gustavo Solis report:

“In San Antonio, an immigration judge breezes through more than 20 juvenile cases a day, warning those in the packed courtroom to show up at their next hearing — or risk deportation.

A Miami immigration lawyer wrestles with new federal rules that could wind up deporting clients who, just a few weeks ago, appeared eligible to stay.

Judges and attorneys in Los Angeles struggle with Mandarin translators and an ever-growing caseload.

Coast to coast, immigration judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys are straining to decipher how the federal immigration rules released in February by the Trump administration will impact the system — amid an already burgeoning backlog of existing cases.

The new guidelines, part of President Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration, give enforcement agents greater rein to deport immigrants without hearings and detain those who entered the country without permission.

But that ambitious policy shift faces a tough hurdle: an immigration court system already juggling more than a half-million cases and ill-equipped to take on thousands more.

“We’re at critical mass,” said Linda Brandmiller, a San Antonio immigration attorney who works with juveniles. “There isn’t an empty courtroom. We don’t have enough judges. You can say you’re going to prosecute more people, but from a practical perspective, how do you make that happen?”

Today, 301 judges hear immigration cases in 58 courts across the United States. The backlogged cases have soared in recent years, from 236,415 in 2010 to 508,036 this year — or nearly 1,700 outstanding cases per judge, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research group at Syracuse University.

Some judges and attorneys say it’s too early to see any effects from the new guidelines. Others say they noticed a difference and fear that people with legitimate claims for asylum or visas may be deported along with those who are criminals.

USA TODAY Network sent reporters to several immigration courts across the country to witness how the system is adjusting to the new rules.”

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

Read the entire article, with reports from the Miami, Los Angeles, and San Antonio U.S. Immigration courts at the above link.

As I mentioned in the previous post, http://wp.me/p8eeJm-IG, one of the ways the Trump Administration apparently plans to deal with the U.S. Immigration Court “bottleneck” is by avoiding the court altogether through expanded use of “Expedited Removal” before DHS officers.

Additionally, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced plans to “streamline” the existing hiring process for U.S. Immigration Judges and to seek an additional 125 Immigration Judges over the next tow years (although those new judgeships would require congressional approval). http://wp.me/p8eeJm-Gp

PWS

04-17-17

DEPORTATION EXPRESS: U.S. Courts Appear Ready To “Green Light” Summary Removal Of Asylum Seekers Without Regard To Due Process — Advocates Striking Out In Attempts To Get Meaningful Judicial Review Of Expedited Removal — Trump Administration’s Plans To Expand Expedited Removal Likely To Deny Thousands Day In Court!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/politics/supreme-court-castro-expedited-removal/index.html

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter writes:

“(CNN)The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court opinion rejecting claims by undocumented Central American women and children — who were apprehended immediately after arriving in the country without authorization — seeking asylum.

Lawyers for the families sought to challenge their expedited removal proceedings in federal court arguing they face gender-based violence at home, but a Philadelphia-based federal appeals court held that they have no right to judicial review of such claims.

The court’s action means the government can continue to deny asylum seekers placed in expedited removal a chance to have their cases heard by federal court.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has his first full week on the court starting Monday, did not participate in the decision.

The case, initially brought under the Obama administration, comes as the Trump administration has vowed to more strictly enforce immigration laws.

Originally, 28 mothers and their children entered the US border in Texas in late 2015. They were immediately placed in expedited removal proceedings. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, they argue they suffered “gender-based violence, including sexual assault, by men from whom they could not escape” and that they were targeted by gangs because “they are single women residing without a male household member to protect them.” They sought to challenge their removal proceedings in federal court, arguing that they did not receive substantive procedural rights to which they were entitled.

A federal appeals court ruled against the petitioners, arguing that Congress could deny review for those who have been denied initial entry into the country who were apprehended close to the border. The court essentially treated the petitioners as equal to those who arrived at the border but had not yet entered.

“We conclude that Congress may, consonant with the Constitution, deny habeas review in federal court of claims relating to an alien’s application for admission to the country, at least as to aliens who have been denied initial entry or who, like Petitioners, were apprehended very near the border and, essentially, immediately after surreptitious entry into the country,” wrote the majority of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

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

Here’s a link to the Third Circuit’s decision in Castro v. DHS: http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/161339p.pdf

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

This could be the real “sleeper” in the Trump Administration’s “get tough” immigration enforcement plan. Given the 540,000+ backlog in the U.S. Immigration Courts, the Administration appears to be looking for ways to circumvent the court process entirely wherever possible.

DHS could easily change the existing regulations to “max out” so called “Expedited Removal” by DHS enforcement officers by applying it to everyone unable to establish at least two years’ continuous residence in the U.S. (Currently, the cutoff is 14 days if apprehended within 100 miles of the border.)

Even individuals who meet the two-year requirement could be subsumed in the Expedited Removal regime. Without a right to be represented by counsel, to have a full hearing before an impartial decision maker, and to appeal to the Article III Federal Courts, an individual wrongly placed in the expedited process would have little chance of avoiding summary removal without a chance to apply for relief that might be available before the Immigration Court.

While the Supreme Court’s refusal to grant certiorari in Castro is not a decision on the merits, to date no circuit has ruled in favor of the claimants. Unless and until that happens, it is unlikely that the Supremes will even consider the advocates’ arguments for at least some degree of judicial review of Expedited Removal.

PWS

04-17-17

DHS “Jacks Up” Noncriminal Arrests!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration-arrests-of-noncriminals-double-under-trump/2017/04/16/98a2f1e2-2096-11e7-be2a-3a1fb24d4671_story.html

Maria Sacchetti reports in the Washington Post:

“Immigration arrests rose 32.6 percent in the first weeks of the Trump administration, with newly empowered federal agents intensifying their pursuit of not just undocumented immigrants with criminal records, but also thousands of illegal immigrants who have been otherwise law-abiding.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 21,362 immigrants, mostly convicted criminals, from January through mid-March, compared to 16,104 during the same period last year, according to statistics requested by The Washington Post.

Arrests of immigrants with no criminal records more than doubled to 5,441, the clearest sign yet that President Trump has ditched his predecessor’s protective stance toward most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Advocates for immigrants say the unbridled enforcement has led to a sharp drop in reports from Latinos of sexual assaults and other crimes in Houston and Los Angeles, and terrified immigrant communities across the United States. A prosecutor said the presence of immigration agents in state and local courthouses, which advocates say has increased under the Trump administration, makes it harder to prosecute crime.

“My sense is that ICE is emboldened in a way that I have never seen,” Dan Satterberg, the top prosecutor in Washington state’s King County, which includes Seattle, said Thursday. “The federal government, in really just a couple of months, has undone decades of work that we have done to build this trust.”

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

Unfocused enforcement pouring cases into an already “saturated” U.S. Immigration Court system is a prescription for disaster. Moreover, because it would be impossible to remove all of the approximately 11 million individuals here without authorization, just arresting anyone an agent might encounter who is potentially removable will be highly arbitrary.

PWS

04-16-17

PRECEDENT: BIA Finds “Assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to produce great bodily injury under California law is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude.” — Matter of Wu, 27 I&N Dec. 8 (BIA 2017)

Here’s the link to the full opinion:

https://www.justice.gov/file/957431/download

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

BIA PANEL: Appellate Immigration Judges Malphrus, Mullane, & Creppy

OPINION BY: Judge Malphrus

PWS

04-14-17

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