Immigration Detention – Page 11 – immigrationcourtside.com

🇺🇸🗽⚖️🎇 JULY 4, 2023 — “On True American Patriotism” By Robert Reich In Substack! — “The true meaning of patriotism is the opposite of Trump’s exclusionary White Christian Nationalism.”

Naturalization Ceremony
USG Official Photo
Public Domain

https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-patriotism?r=330z7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=pos

Friends,

On Saturday, Donald Trump conducted the second formal rally of his campaign — in Pickens, South Carolina, where an estimated 50,000 turned up under the scorching sun to hear him.

There, he advanced his version of patriotism based on White Christian Nationalism.

He began by celebrating the town’s namesake, Francis Pickens, who was governor of South Carolina when it was the first to secede from the Union on the eve of the Civil War. Trump assured the crowd he wouldn’t let “them” change the town’s name.

He commended the Supreme Court for rejecting affirmative action “so someone who has not worked as hard will not take your place.”

He saluted the court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade so “radical left Democrats will not kill babies.”

He promised to stop “men competing in women’s sports” and prevent classroom teachers from teaching the “wrong” lessons about sexuality or history.

He condemned foreign governments that “send” over the border “people in jails and insane asylums” and promised to deny entry to “all communists and Marxists.”

And he declared America’s most dangerous opponents not to be Russia, China, or North Korea but “enemies within” America.

Rubbish.

The true meaning of patriotism is the opposite of Trump’s exclusionary White Christian Nationalism.

America’s moral mission has been toward greater inclusion — providing equal rights to women, Black people, immigrants, Native Americans, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, and agnostic.

True patriots don’t fuel racist, religious, or ethnic divisions. Patriots aren’t homophobic or sexist.

Nor are patriots blind to social injustices — whether ongoing or embedded in American history. They don’t ban books or prevent teaching about the sins of the nation’s past.

True patriots are not uncritically devoted to America. They are devoted instead to the ideals of America — the rule of law, equal justice, voting rights and civil rights, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom from fear, and democracy.

True patriots don’t have to express patriotism in symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving the American flag.

They express patriotism in taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going — sacrificing for the common good.

This means paying taxes in full rather than lobbying for lower taxes or seeking tax loopholes or squirreling away money abroad.

It means refraining from making large political contributions that corrupt American democracy.

It means blowing the whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job.

And volunteering time and energy to improving one’s community and country.

Nor is patriotism found in baseless claims that millions of people vote fraudulently. Or in pushing for laws that make it harder for people to vote based on the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

Patriotism lies instead in strengthening democracy — defending the right to vote and ensuring more Americans are heard.

Patriots understand that when they serve the public, their responsibility is to maintain and build public trust in the institutions of democracy.

They don’t put loyalty to their political party above their love of America. They don’t support an attempted coup.

They don’t try to hold onto power after voters have chosen not to reelect them. They don’t make money off their offices.

When serving on the Supreme Court, they recuse themselves from cases where they may appear to have a conflict of interest. They don’t disregard precedent to impose their own ideology.

America’s problem is not as described by Trump and his White Christian Nationalism — that the nation is losing its whiteness or dominant religion, that too many foreigners are crossing its borders, that men are competing in women’s sports or teachers are not celebrating the nation’s history.

America’s problem is that too many Americans — including its lawmakers — are failing to understand what patriotism requires.

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

Happy July 4!😎🇺🇸

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-04-23

🏴‍☠️🤯 USG’S FAILED DETERRENCE POLICIES HARM ASYLUM SEEKERS, ENRICH & ENABLE CARTELS! — New Report From Insight Crime! — “The prevention through deterrence policies used by the US government have created an increasingly lucrative black market for human smuggling.”

MEXICAN CARTELS NAME STEPHEN MILLER “BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PERSON OF THE YEAR” FOR HIS CONTINUING DEADLY INFLUENCE ON U.S. BORDER POLICIES! Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

Insight Crime reports:

https://substack.com/redirect/16f2dc60-a5f2-48e3-89db-9b2eb639d861?j=eyJ1IjoiMmQzZTIifQ.YnB6oyRxafApuirRPkrfQupKbpWIvJ3g2zVXvim2p28

Executive Summary

In 2019, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).1 What would become known as “remain in Mexico” was the latest in a decades-long effort by successive Republican and Democrat administrations to curb migration by making it increasingly difficult for migrants to enter and stay in the United States.

However, the policies have had numerous unintended consequences, including bolstering criminal organizations along the US-Mexico border. Whereas the smuggling of drugs and weapons used to dominate the cross-border contraband trade, human smuggling has morphed into one of the most lucrative industries for crime groups. It also has made it increasingly dangerous for migrants who face more risks en route and along the US border.

This report aims to highlight the role US policy has played in this transformation, which continues to evolve today. Specifically, it analyzes the ways in which Mexican organized crime groups have become involved in human smuggling as risks rose, prices surged, and migrants began to move through less-traveled corridors. The goal is to inform policymakers who are looking to address irregular migration and combat Mexico’s criminal organizations. We also aim to provide relevant stakeholders with opportunities for positive intervention to mitigate this human suffering by targeting the most violent criminal actors.

The findings are based on two years of desktop and field research across the Mexican states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sonora, and Tamaulipas, where human smuggling is prominent. It includes dozens of in- person and remote interviews with migrants, asylum seekers, US and Mexican prosecutors, security experts, government officials, religious leaders, and migrant advocates, among others. In addition, we analyzed government data on human smuggling investigations and prosecutions, judicial cases, and previous studies on the topic.

1 US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “Migrant Protection Protocols,” 24 January 2019.

insightcrime.org 4

Unintended Consequences: How US Immigration Policy Foments Organized Crime on the US-Mexico Border

2

Major Findings

insightcrime.org 5

1. The prevention through deterrence policies used by the US government have created an increasingly lucrative black market for human smuggling. Transnational criminal networks have assumed greater control over the movement of people and replaced the personalized, community-based nature of human smuggling that once existed.

2. The US government’s immigration policies have provided more opportunities for organized criminal groups to victimize migrants. The policies have, most notably, created a bottleneck along the US-Mexico border where northbound migrants are forced to congregate as they determine whether they are eligible to seek asylum and contemplate alternative ways to enter the country. As a result, they have become highly susceptible to extortion and kidnapping. And over time, restrictive immigration policies have expanded the scope of these lucrative, secondary criminal economies.

3. The US government’s immigration policies and the externalization of immigration enforcement to countries like Mexico have expanded the breadth of official corruption. As the US government has increased its reliance on third countries for enforcement and pushed migrants to remain in these countries, officials from these nations have expanded their illegal operations. These include extortion, kidnapping, and human smuggling rackets.

. . . .

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

Read and listen to the full report at the above link.

In many ways, this detailed report, based on two years of desk and field research, is a “Duh!” It mostly confirms what experts, advocates, and those who truly understand asylum law and border security have been saying for years. Arrogant politicos from both parties have “tuned out the truth” and suggestions for positive changes, for different reasons.

The GOP has no interest in the truth because it conflicts with and undermines their racist false narrative about “open borders” and “replacement theory.” The Dems, by contrast, basically recognize the racist lies behind the GOP “close the border” narrative. But, once in office, Dem “leaders” lack the political and moral courage to stand up for human rights, the rule of law, and to make the refugee, asylum, and legal immigration systems work, at the border, abroad, and in the interior.

In other words, while nominally opposing the GOP’s nativist/racist/alarmist rhetoric (particularly during elections when votes from progressives and ethic communities are needed), Dem leaders basically accept much of the restrictionist premise. That is, that increased regular legal immigration resulting from well-functioning refugee, asylum, and legal immigration systems that comply with existing laws and due process would be politically unpopular and that the Administration lacks the self-confidence and expertise to manage legal immigration, including asylum, in an orderly, professional, and competent manner that ultimately will greatly benefit both our nation and the immigrants.

Thus, experts and advocates find themselves continually isolated in a deadly and frustrating “no-persons’ land!’ They are armed with undeniable truth and the facts to back it up, yet for transcendent reasons, neither party will give them the time of day.

So, those with the answers are stuck in an endless cycle of law suits, toothless protests, letters in opposition, focus groups, op-eds, law review articles, talking heads, and blogs (like this one) none of which offer much hope of a durable solution. And, in the meantime, the cartels are loving every minute of political failure on the part of America!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-03-23

🤯COURTING FAILURE: GOP HAS “LEVERAGED” COURT CONTROL TO ENACT UNPOPULAR FAR-RIGHT ANTI-DEMOCRACY AGENDA BY FIAT — MEANWHILE, DEMS WON’T BRING PROGRESSIVE PRO-EQUAL-JUSTICE CHANGE TO COURTS THEY “OWN!”☹️ — The GOP Plays Hard Ball ⚾️, While Garland & Dems Play Whiffleball @ EOIR!🤮

Whiffle Ball — When it comes to playing “judicial hardball” with the GOP, Garland and the Dems are ill-equipped!
Creative Commons 3.0

Stephen Collinson writes at CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/conservatives-remake-america-courts

. . . .

In recent years, the [GOP’s] blind loyalty to Trump’s radicalism – especially his election lies – has caused it to even challenge the structure of democracy. A sense of national crisis and imminent political extinction, for example, ran through Trump’s rhetoric in the aftermath of the 2020 election, prompting some of his followers to use violence as a way of settling their political grievances on January 6, 2021.

Conservative Supreme Court decisions over the last two years have been especially hard for liberals to accept because they believe that the current majority is ill gotten.

The right’s dominance of the court happened in large part because then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even grant a confirmation hearing to Obama’s final pick for the top bench, Merrick Garland, who now serves as attorney general in the Biden administration. This allowed Trump to name Justice Neil Gorsuch as his first Supreme Court nominee in 2017. But McConnell later turned his back on his own questionable principle that Supreme Court nominees should not be elevated in an election year by rushing through the confirmation of Trump’s final pick, Amy Coney Barrett, in 2020 – which enshrined the current 6-3 conservative majority.

The move not only confirmed Trump’s status as a consequential president whose influence will be felt decades after he left office. It cemented McConnell among the ranks of the most significant Republican Party figures in decades and ensured conservative policies will endure even under Democratic presidencies and congressional majorities.

Recent revelations about questionable ethics practices by some of the conservative justices have further fueled fury about the legitimacy of the court among liberals.

But not all of the court’s recent decisions have infuriated the White House and Democrats. Earlier this week, for instance, liberals were hugely relieved when the court rejected a long-dormant legal theory that held that state courts and other state entities have a limited role in reviewing election rules established by state legislatures when it comes to federal elections. The so-called Independent State Legislature Theory, a favorite of the Trump campaign, had led to fears that Republican state legislatures in some states could simply decide how to allocate electoral votes regardless of results.

Still, the broad trajectory of the court – on issues including gun control, race, business, regulation, climate and many other issues – is firmly to the right.

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

It’s no coincidence that the Trumpist far-right assault on democracy began during the 2016 campaign with unprovoked attacks on Mexican migrants and bogus claims about the border and immigration. It was skillfully, if corruptly, followed up with weaponization of the immigration bureaucracy and packing of the Immigration Courts by the likes of Miller, Sessions, Barr, and Cooch.

We have seen the GOP’s assault and dehumanization of migrants carry over into attacks on a wide range of disadvantaged groups in American society including African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Muslim-Americans, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and many others.

Although the Supremes have held that every “person” in the United States is entitled to due process under law, that concept is ludicrous as applied to the U.S. Immigration Courts, where anti-asylum, anti-immigrant, pro-DHS bias still drives much of the decision making, prosecutors appoint the judges and write the rules, the Government can change results that don’t match its political agenda, and individuals are on trial for their lives without a right to appointed counsel or many times even the ability to fully understand the proceedings against them. Predictably, the overwhelming number of individuals stuck in this abusive system are persons of color, many women and children!

This is “colorblind” American justice? Gimmie a break!

Although Dems acknowledged many of these outrageous defects in the Immigration Courts while campaigning for votes in 2020, once in power, they have shown little inclination to correct this unacceptable situation that undermines our democracy.

In particular, given a chance to reform the Immigration Courts, re-compete on a merit basis judicial positions filled under questionable procedures (at best) during the Trump Administration, bring in competent judicial administrators laser-focused on due process and best practices, and remake the Immigration Courts into a bastion of great progressive judging — driven by due process and equal protection, Garland and the Dems have whiffed. In that way they have largely followed the Obama Administration’s failure to take seriously due process for persons who happen to be in Immigration Court.

The failure of Dems to take immigrant justice seriously, and their inexcusable blown opportunity to reshape the Immigration Courts into a training and proving ground for the best and most qualified candidates for Article III judgeships ties directly into the anti-democracy shift in the Article IIIs and the GOP’s ability to carry out its right-wing agenda through a Supremes majority highly unrepresentative of Americans and our values.

An informed observer might well wonder “If the Dems are unwilling and unable to reform and improve the Federal Courts they do control — and apparently are ashamed of the progressive values they espouse — how will they ever counter the right’s anti-democracy agenda?”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-02-23

☠️⚰️ DETENTION KILLS: R. Andrew Free Seeks YOUR Help, NDPA, To End The “DHS Detention Death Tax!”

Border Death — Sometimes, even “Detention Until Death” (“DUD”) is insufficient “punishment” for the USG to inflict on those whose “crime” is to assert their legal rights under U.S. law. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border.
Tomas Castelazo
In order to comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

https://action.mijente.net/petitions/end-the-detention-death-tax?source=rawlink&utm_medium=social&utm_source=actionrawlink&share=54194d63-6e64-4a5f-bb38-3b448745f7f3

Join Andrew F. in signing this petition.

TO: SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS

END THE DETENTION DEATH TAX

End the Detention Death Tax – a draconian policy that fails to make funds available to the families of people who die in ICE custody for the return and transportation of their loved ones’ remains.

We urge ICE to alter its Detainee Death policies so that Field Office Directors and the Director’s Office have discretion to authorize payment for the prompt return and transport of the remains of people who die in ICE custody.

It is, quite literally, the very least ICE could do when it fails to keep humans alive.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) currently has no defined limit on the amount of money it will spend to cage the body of a person in removal proceedings.

When one of ICE’s deadly cages claim the life from that body, the limit ICE will spend to return them to their loved ones is $0.

This Death Tax presents grieving family members with a bill alongside the devastating news that their loved one is gone forever. Forcing families to pay for the retrieval and transportation of loved ones is cruel, inhumane, and unnecessary.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-30-23

🏴‍☠️ FOURTH FINDS BIA’S NEXUS ABUSE CONTINUES UNDER GARLAND 🤮 — Dem AG Permits His “Courts” To Engage In Specious “Any Reason To Deny” Misconduct That Artificially Suppresses Asylum Grants! ☠️ — Marvin A.G. v. Garland (published)!

Four Horsemen — BIA Asylum Panel In Action — Garland, a former Article III Appeals Judge, employs appellate judges who routinely misconstrue asylum law to wrongfully deny legal protection, thus artificially suppressing what should be much higher success rates for asylum seekers in a functional legal system properly applying asylum law! The law and precedents establishing a properly generous application of the well-founded fear standard for asylum are routinely ignored or disingenuously avoided by Garland’s biased anti-asylum “courts!” BIA panels routinely butcher “mixed motive” cases to deny asylum to deserving refugees!
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221499.P.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca4-on-nexus-marvin-a-g-v-garland

“Upon our review, we conclude that the Board abused its discretion by applying an incorrect legal standard in its nexus analysis for the petitioner’s asylum and withholding of removal claims. We also hold with regard to these two claims that the Board abused its discretion by arbitrarily disregarding the petitioner’s testimony about the threat of future persecution. However, we reject the petitioner’s argument that the Board abused its discretion with regard to his CAT claim. The Board provided specific reasons for finding the petitioner’s testimony insufficient to meet his burden of proof, and appropriately evaluated the evidence under the futility exception. We thus grant in part and deny in part the petition for review, vacate in part the Board’s order denying reconsideration, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. … We thus conclude that the IJ erred by applying an incorrect standard in the nexus analysis, and that the Board abused its discretion because it “compounded the [IJ’s] error by failing to recognize it.” Perez Vasquez, 4 F.4th at 223. In addition, both the IJ and the Board failed to address substantively the petitioner’s testimony about the threat of future persecution. … The Board thus applied the incorrect legal standard for the nexus analysis and arbitrarily disregarded relevant evidence. Accordingly, we hold that the Board abused its discretion in denying the petitioner’s motion to reconsider his asylum and withholding of removal claims, and we remand for the agency to “meaningfully consider [the petitioner’s] evidence” under the correct legal standard.”

[Hats off to Eric Suarez!]

Eric Suarez ESQUIRE
Partner
Sanabria & Associates
PHOTO: Firm website

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EOIR judges and the BIA routinely butcher “mixed motive” cases like this one! This endemic problem at EOIR badly distorts asylum adjudication nationwide, produces false statistics suppressing the significant number of wrongful asylum denials (particularly targeting asylum applicants of color for unfair, unjust adjudications), and refutes the Article III’s disingenuous treatment of the BIA as an “expert tribunal” entitled to Chevron deference. In that way, it seriously undermines the integrity of our entire judicial system!

In this case, counsel specifically pointed our the BIA’s errors in a timely motion to reconsider, only to have it “blown off” with basically fabricated boilerplate BS!

The petitioner appealed the IJ’s decision to the Board. After the Board affirmed the IJ’s conclusions and dismissed the appeal, the petitioner filed a motion to reconsider. The Board denied the motion, concluding that the IJ did not clearly err in its nexus determination, and reiterating the IJ’s conclusion that family membership was “incidental or subordinate” to the other reasons the gang targeted the petitioner, namely, for monetary gain and gang recruitment.

Another of my favorite parts of this decision addresses the BIA’s pronounced tendency to invent specious “non-protected” reasons for the persecution and then dishonestly characterize that at the sole or primary motivations.

The Board’s cursory conclusion that the gang had targeted the petitioner for “monetary gain and gang recruitment” does not remedy the Board’s error. Indeed, we fail to see how family membership necessarily was subordinate to these other motivations when the sole basis the petitioner presented for his fear of future persecution was that the gang would target him due to his relationships with his siblings.

Friends, this is NOT the competent, impartial, professional, expert adjudication that due process and fundamental fairness requires! Nor is it the improvement from Trump’s institutionalized White Nationalist approach to asylum and immigration promised by Biden and Harris during their 2020 campaign! It’s basically a “bait and switch” by Dems! Additionally, it sets a horrible example for Immigration Judges (many of whom lack relevant expertise in asylum law) and Asylum Officers nationwide.

Garland’s has refused to “clean house” and employ solely competent, unbiased, impartial asylum experts as BIA Appellate Immigration Judges, selected on a merit basis from among those possessing the requisite practical asylum expertise, temperament, and widely-acknowledged qualifications for these critically important judgeships.

Garland’s failure to perform his job, in turn, is having a deleterious effect on every aspect of our asylum, protection, and immigration systems and is undermining the entire rule of law. It also promotes false narratives about asylum seekers and inhibits effective representation of this vulnerable and deserving group. It’s wrong; it’s inexcusable, and it’s a “big deal!’

I leave you with this thought from an expert who actually practices before EOIR and understands what competent asylum adjudication should be:

We really do need better judges at the BIA. [Hope that this] decision that will make a dent in their current dysfunction.

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges — Maybe HE should be in charge of selecting and training BIA Appellate Immigration Judges!

Or as my Round Table colleague Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase suggests:

Maybe the Board should read my article on the proper test for nexus:

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/12/21/the-proper-test-for-nexus1

Great idea! But, don’t hold your breath!

SeniorCircuit Judge Barbara Milano Keenan wrote the opinion, in which Judge Thacker and Judge Heytens joined.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-28-23

⚖️🗽INSPIRING AMERICA: NDPA SUPERSTAR 🌟 & BRILLIANT GEORGETOWN REFUGEE LAW & POLICY ALUM BREANNE PALMER “GETS IT!” — “For me, the line between the so-called ‘Great Replacement Theory,’ the targeting of Black Americans in Buffalo in May 2022, and the deleterious, disproportionate effects of Title 42 on Black asylum seekers couldn’t have been brighter.”

Breanne Justine Palmer, Esquire
Senior Legal Policy Advisor
Democracy Forward
PHOTO: Linkedin

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/breannepalmer_career-retrospective-the-leadership-conference-activity-7074007461837340672-_0EI?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

Breanne writes:

People talk frequently about forward and backward movement in one’s career, but less so about the gift of lateral moves. I have been lucky enough to make at least one facially “lateral” move that drastically changed the scope and reach of my immigration advocacy work: as the first Policy Counsel for Immigration at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights!

Through the work of incredible jacks-of-all-trades on staff like Rob Randhava, The Leadership Conference has played an integral role in a number of major moments in the immigration space and maintained an Immigration Task Force. The organization wanted to concretize this work by hiring a full-time staffer, and on the heels of my work at the UndocuBlack Network, I felt this role was the right fit. I grew up in a distinctly Jamaican household, visiting our home country most of my childhood summers, but I also sought a sterling education in the Black American experience.

One of my proudest moments at The Leadership Conference was also one of the most complex, challenging moments of my career—trying to connect the dots between seemingly disparate, painful topics to highlight the interconnectivity of our racial justice and immigrant justice movements. For me, the line between the so-called “Great Replacement Theory,” the targeting of Black Americans in Buffalo in May 2022, and the deleterious, disproportionate effects of Title 42 on Black asylum seekers couldn’t have been brighter. I felt The Leadership Conference was perfectly poised to connect those dots in a public way, by co-leading a sign-on letter to the Biden Administration. But I had to make my case with both internal and external partners with care and finesse, drawing on all of my education and experiences to guide me. No community wants to feel as though another community is opportunistically seizing a moment to elevate its interests while riding on the backs of others. I am proud to say that I persuaded a number of skeptics, many of whom were rightfully protective of their communities and civil rights legacies, to see the urgency of drawing these connections for those in power. Through this effort I was reminded that the work of connecting the Black diaspora is arduous, but can bear powerful fruit.

Read the rest on my blog!

https://breannejpalmer.squarespace.com/blog/career-retrospective-the-leadership-conference-on-civil-and-human-rights

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I’ve said it many times: There will be neither racial justice nor equal justice for all in America without justice for migrants!

Breanne obviously “gets it!” So do leaders like Cory Booker (D-NJ).

Sadly, however, many Democrats, including notable African-American leaders like President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris, AAG Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, and former AGs Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch don’t! They all blew or are squandering opportunities to make due process and equal justice for asylum seekers and other migrants a reality, rather than a hollow, unfulfilled promise!

In particular, the “intentional tone-deafness” of the Biden Administration on treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants of color has been astounding and shocking! Speaking out for justice for George Floyd and others while denying due process and the very humanity of Blacks and other people of color seeking legal asylum at the Southern Border is totally disingenuous and counterproductive!

Additionally, while there recently have been some improvements in merit-based selections by AG Garland, the U.S. Immigration Courts, including the BIA, are still glaringly unrepresentative of the communities affected by their decisions and the outstanding potential judicial talent that could and should be actively recruited from those communities. An anti-immigrant, pro-enforcement, uber-bureaucratic “culture” at EOIR, which metastasized during the Trump Administration, discouraged many well-qualified experts, advocates, and minorities from competing for positions at EOIR.

The inexplicable failure of Vice President Harris to establish herself as the “front person” to actively encourage and promote service in the Immigration Courts among minorities and women is highly perplexing. Additionally, the failure of the Biden Administration to recognize the potential of the Immigration Courts as a source of exceptionally-well-qualified, diverse, progressive, practical scholars for eventual Article III judicial appointments has been stunning!

Meanwhile, for an “upgrade” of the struggling EOIR, one couldn’t do better than Breanne Palmer: brilliant practical scholar, forceful advocate, courageous, creative innovator, and inspirational role model. As Breanne says on her website:

I try to live by one of Audre Lorde’s creeds:

“I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.”

Sure could use more of that intellectual and moral courage and “leadership by example” on the bench at EOIR! And, as I mentioned yesterday, there are or will be more judicial positions available at EOIR at both the appellate and trial levels. See, e.g., https://wp.me/p8eeJm-8KK.

Thanks Breanne for choosing to use your tremendous skills and abilities to further due process, equal justice for all, and racial justice in America. So proud of you!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-23-23

🇺🇸⚖️🗽👩🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️ CALLING NDPA PRACTICAL SCHOLARS/EXPERTS: NOW’S YOUR CHANCE TO BECOME A BIA APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGE AND HELP CHANGE THE TRAJECTORY OF AMERICAN LAW! — The “Supreme Court of Immigration” Needs Supremely Qualified, Expert Judicial Talent!

I want you — Don’t just complain about the awful mess @ the BIA! Get on the appellate bench and do something about it!
Public Domain

Summary

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) at the Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking a highly-qualified individual to join our team of expert professionals who serve as Appellate Immigration Judges.

This is an Excepted Service position, subject to a probationary period. The initial appointment is for a period not to exceed 24 months. Conversion to a permanent position is contingent upon appointment by the Attorney General.

Learn more about this agency

https://www.usajobs.gov/job/733279200

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Although there was no formal announcement from EOIR, it appears that Appellate Immigration Judge William Cassidy has finally retired from the BIA. As many of you know, Judge Cassidy, appointed by AG Billy Barr, was notoriously hostile to asylum seekers and to a fair application of the generous well-founded-fear standard for asylum enunciated by the Supremes in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca and by the BIA in Matter of Mogharrabi. His “final” TRAC Immigration asylum denial rate as an Immigration Judge in Atlanta was an appalling and bone-chilling 99.1%! https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judge2022/00004ATD/index.html.

This is a chance for a “real judge” with impeccable academic knowledge, practical solutions, and actual experience representing asylum applicants in the EOIR quagmire to bring some long-overdue and absolutely essential positive, progressive, change to the BIA – a group overall known for its too-often stilted, sloppy, improperly pro-Government, “go along to get along,” “don’t rock the boat by standing up for due process and human rights” decision-making.

The BIA’s lousy performance on the “stop time rule,” where they were twice rebuked by the Supremes for ignoring the language of the statute and the Court’s own holdings, is a classic example of why we need fundamental change at the top of EOIR. This substandard performance generated more unnecessary backlog and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” in a system that can ill afford it (2 million case backlog). It also created unnecessary confusion and uncertainty in a situation where clarity was both required and achievable. I daresay, it’s hard to imagine any NDPA “practical scholar” getting sidetracked the way the BIA did in its misguided rush to please DHS Enforcement and its political “handlers” at DOJ!

Also, because of “jurisdiction stripping” legislation over the years, limiting the review of the Article IIIs in many areas, the BIA often represents the last realistic chance for individuals to obtain justice and fair treatment! That the BIA too often acts like an “assembly line,” doesn’t diminish its potential to become part of the solution rather than a source of further problems and unfairness.

Don’t let this important Federal Judgeship, with real life or death power over the lives of individuals and the future of our democracy, go by default to another “insider” or asylum denier.

I hear complaints from practitioners nationwide about the BIA’s poor scholarship and failure to issue realistic, positive guidance. But, it’s not going to change unless the “best and the brightest” from the NDPA apply for these critical jobs at EOIR and become agents of change.

Don’t let this chance go by to make a difference in the lives of others and to use your hard-earned expertise and practical skills to fundamentally change our failing U.S. judicial system — starting at the critical “retail level.”

The deadline is July 5, 2023, conveniently during the July 4 holiday. But, don’t let mindless bureaucratic tactics and feeble efforts at recruitment deter you. Force the USG to recognize and employ “judicial excellence” – once the “vision” of EOIR (before “good enough for government work” became the motto). I urge well-qualified minority candidates to apply for this key position!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-23-23

🇺🇸⚖️🗽📚 CMS PROUDLY ANNOUNCES THE OSUNA COLLECTION: “Honoring The Late, Great Juan Osuna on Access to Justice, the Rule of Law and Due Process!”

Juan P. Osuna (1963-2017)
Judge, Executive, Scholar, Teacher, Defender of Due Process

Special Collection on Access to Justice, Due Process and the Rule of Law in Tribute to Juan Osuna

On November 15, 2018, CMS hosted an event on access to justice, due process and the rule of law to honor the legacy of Juan Osuna, a close colleague and friend who held high-level immigration positions in four administrations over a 17-year period. Prior to his government service, Mr. Osuna served as a respected editor and publisher and a close collaborator with many civil society organizations. As a follow-up to its gathering, CMS is publishing a series of blogs, essays, talks, and papers on the values and issues to which Mr. Osuna devoted his professional life. It will ultimately compile these papers into a CMS special collection in Mr. Osuna’s memory. CMS hopes that this special collection will contribute to the development of a removal adjudication system that operates in a fair, equitable, effective, and rights-respecting way.

Publications

Access to Justice, the Rule of Law, and Due Process in the US Immigration System: A Tribute to Juan Osuna
By Donald Kerwin
Date of Publication: June 16, 2023

The US Immigration Courts, Dumping Ground for the Nation’s Systemic Immigration Failures: The Causes, Composition, and Politically Difficult Solutions to the Court Backlog
By Donald Kerwin and Evin Millet
Date of Publication: May 25, 2023

Charitable Legal Immigration Programs and the US Undocumented Population: A Study in Access to Justice in an Era of Political Dysfunction
By Donald Kerwin and Evin Millet
Date of Publication: September 28, 2022

Strengthening the US Immigration System through Legal Orientation, Screening and Representation: Recommendations for a New Administration
By Donald Kerwin
Date of Publication: August 26, 2020

Universal Representation: Systemic Benefits and the Path Ahead
By Lindsay Nash
Date of Publication: August 19, 2019

An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Date of Publication: August 14, 2019

Reflections on a 40-Year Career as an Immigration Lawyer and Judge
By Hon. Dana Leigh Marks
Date of Publication: April 8, 2019

Access to Counsel and the Legacy of Juan Osuna
By Ingrid V. Eagly
Date of Publication: February 5, 2019

Access to Justice in a Climate of Fear: New Hurdles and Barriers for Survivors of Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence
By Kathryn Finley
Date of Publication: January 29, 2019

Moving Away from Crisis Management: How the United States Can Strengthen Its Response to Large-Scale Migration Flows
By Rená Cutlip-Mason
Date of Publication: January 23, 2019

No Agency Adjudication?
By Jill E. Family
Date of Publication: December 18, 2018

Immigration Adjudication: The Missing “Rule of Law”
By Lenni B. Benson
Date of Publication: August 8, 2018

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

Juan was my friend, colleague, fellow Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, and one of my successors as BIA Chair. My tribute to Juan at the time of his untimely death in 2017 was, I believe, the “most viewed item ever” on “Courtside.” For those who missed it, here it is. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-1gd.

I am honored to have one of my articles included with those of amazing immigration “practical scholars” in this connection!

Many thanks to Don Kerwin for alerting me to this “Tribute Collection” and for his work in putting it together. I know that Don was a close friend and admirer of Juan’s comprehensive and inspiring body of work! Don’s heartfelt introduction, Access to Justice, the Rule of Law, and Due Process in the US Immigration System: A Tribute to Juan Osuna, and several of his original works are included in this collection!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-18-23

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

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

Melissa del Bosque reports for the Border Chronicle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All-in on Fascism

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

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

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

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

. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-15-23

🇺🇸 MAINE VOICES: A “Woke” America Is A Better America, Says Don Bessey Of Old Orchard Beach — Speak Out Against the Agenda Of Hate, Marginalization, & Dehumanization Being Touted By Right-Wing Politicos & Their Followers! — “These people should not be leading our wonderful country.”

Ron DeSantis Dave Grandlund PoliticalCartoons.com Republished under license Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago! — Ron DeSantis
Dave Grandlund
PoliticalCartoons.com
Republished under license
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/06/10/maine-voices-woke-should-not-be-a-four-letter-word/

From the Portland Press Herald:

Maine Voices: ‘Woke’ should not be a four-letter word

Being aware of how we have treated and still treat other people in our society is so important to our society’s evolving that it should be honored, not vilified.

It is frustrating to see the continuous redefining of words and terms by the extremist conservative element in our society and government. One of these terms is “woke.” According to Merriam-Webster, the definition is “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues.” I will add in the qualification as well: “especially issues of ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For my entire life I have strived to embrace this philosophy, trying to listen to and understand other opinions, beliefs and religions, whether they agreed with mine or not, understanding that one cannot fully comprehend a point of view without appreciating the counterpoint. This certainly requires personal evolution and maturity. Being aware of the true history of our country, of how we have treated and still treat other people in our society, is so important to our society’s evolving that it should be honored, not vilified.

The term “woke” has now been unjustly transformed into a negative term. Let that sink in: Attention to important facts and issues, the truth, is something to avoid and discredit. Somehow, this makes sense to a significant number of our political leaders and fellow Americans. It appears that what is most troubling for those who would see “woke” as a vile four-letter word is the qualification above, that it applies to “issues of racial and social justice.”

One of the tag lines for objecting to this thought is that it may cause someone to feel uncomfortable or criticized by being confronted with these historical facts. Personally, I strongly desire to know the truth. I am delighted – admittedly, shocked sometimes – by learning about the history we were never taught, which was suppressed to a large extent for so many years by those who perpetrated many injustices. The historical truth has never made me feel bad about myself. In fact, it is enlightening. It expands my understanding of how and why we have come to this place in our evolution. It shows me how to be better and more empathetic, and it suggests the path forward.

I believe I do understand why this can be so threatening and discomforting to so many. I believe that the truth is like a mirror to them. They see their own racist views, their distrust of anyone they perceive as being “different” as a significant threat. I feel so sad for them, since in my life, through being open to other races, ethnicities, religions and thoughts, I have learned so much and have been blessed with a much more beautiful world, life and friends.

It is extremely troubling to see elected officials, the leaders of our political parties, and fellow Americans embracing and endorsing this philosophy of derision, division and hateful rhetoric that has its roots in the cesspool of white supremacist thought. They are leading us into the abyss of an authoritarian kakistocracy, or government by the worst of us. We must all, every rational one of us, stand and reject this thinking. We must only, and always, embrace truth, the actual facts. These people should not be leading our wonderful country.

Don Bessey is an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War and a resident of Old Orchard Beach.

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

Well said, Don! Thanks for speaking out so forcefully!

Don’s views echo several previous postings from Courtside:

Walter Rhein: “When people say they are ‘anti-woke,’ I interrupt them and say ‘You mean ‘anti-black.’ They become enraged and act like they’re the victims (like racists always do).”https://wp.me/p8eeJm-8tJ

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

As [Villanova University President] Father [Peter M.] Donohue said at yesterday’s celebration, “‘Woke’ means social justice!” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-8vF

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-11-23

🤯🗽 AT THE REAL BORDER WITH TODD MILLER OF THE BORDER CHRONICLE: Less Due Process, More Robo-Dogs! — The “Bogus Invasion Of Due Process Seekers” Overhyped By The White Nationalist GOP, The Biden Administration, & An Indolent Media Never Came — But, “The Border Industrial Complex,” Well-Fed By Biden, Is Alive & Prospering As Never Before!

https://www.theborderchronicle.com/p/the-real-border-surge-the-end-of?utm_medium=email

Todd writes in the Border Chron:

On May 11th, I was with a group of people at the bottom of the Paso del Norte bridge in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t have the small change needed to cross the bridge and return to El Paso, Texas, where I was attending the 16th annual Border Security Expo. Worse yet, this was just three hours before Title 42, the pandemic-era rapid-expulsion border policy instituted by the Trump administration, was set to expire. The media was already in overdrive on the subject, producing apocalyptic scenarios like one in the New York Post reporting that “hordes” of “illegals” were on their way toward the border.

While I searched for those coins, a woman approached me, dug 35 cents out of a small purse — precisely what it cost! — and handed the change to me. She then did so for the others in our group. When I pulled a 20-peso bill from my wallet to repay her, she kept her fist clenched and wouldn’t accept the money.

Having lived, reported, and traveled in Latin America for more than two decades, such generosity didn’t entirely surprise me, though it did contradict so much of the media-generated hype about what was going on at this historic border moment. Since Joe Biden took office in 2021, the pressure on his administration to rescind Trump’s Title 42 had only grown. Now, it was finally going to happen — and hell was on the horizon.

But at that expo in El Paso that brought together top brass from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), its border and immigration enforcement agencies, and private industry, I was learning that preparations for such a shift had been underway for years and — don’t be shocked! — the corporations attending planned to profit from it in a big-time fashion.

Seeing the phase-out of Title 42 through the lens of a growing border-industrial complex proved grimly illuminating. Border officials and industry representatives continued to insist that just on the other side of the border was a world of “cartels,” “adversaries,” and “criminals,” including, undoubtedly, this woman forcing change on me. By then, I had heard all too many warnings that, were the United States to let its guard down, however briefly, there would be an infernal “border surge.”

As I later stood in the halls of that expo, however, I became aware of another type of surge not being discussed either there or in the media. And I’m not just thinking about the extra members of the National Guard and other forces the Biden administration and Texas Governor Greg Abbott only recently sent to that very border. What I have in mind is the surge of ever higher budgets and record numbers of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts guaranteed to ensure that those borderlands will remain one of the most militarized and surveilled places on planet Earth.

. . . .

At $29.8 billion, the CBP/ICE portion of the DHS budget he praised was not just the highest ever but a $3 billion jump above 2022, including $2.7 billion for “new acquirements in our southwestern border.” In other words, the coming surge at the border was distinctly budgetary.

For context, when Donald Trump took office in 2017 his CBP/ICE budget was $21.2 billion. By 2020, it had gone up to $25.4 billion. In other words, it took him four years to do what the Biden administration essentially did in one. The last time there had been such a jump was from $9.4 billion in 2005 to $12.4 billion in 2007, including funding for huge projects like the Secure Fence Act that built nearly 650 miles of walls and barriers, SBInet which aimed to build a virtual wall at the border (with special thanks to the Boeing Corporation), and the largest hiring surge ever undertaken by the Border Patrol — 8,000 agentsin three years.

But if that’s what $3 billion meant in 2005-2007, what does it mean in 2023 and beyond? Gone was the Trump-era bravado about that “big, beautiful wall.” Hysen’s focus was on the Department of Homeland Security’s launching of an Artificial Intelligence Taskforce. A technocrat, Hysen spoke of harnessing “the power of AI to transform the department’s mission,” assuring the industry audience that “I follow technology very closely and I am more excited by the developments of AI this year than I have been about any technology since the first smartphones.”

Robo-Dog — This cuddly robo version of “man’s best friend” can be fully outfitted to “go into barracks and blow a motherfucker’s face off.” And, it can be triggered by an agent 30 miles away! How great is that! Sadly, in the midst of all this techno-warfare at the border, the Biden Administration can’t scrape together the resources to humanely resettle and fairly and timely process those asylum seekers they DO let into the country. It’s a question of priorities.
PHOTO: Border Chronicle
CAPTION BY COURTSIDE

That robo-dog in front of me caught the state of the border in 2023 and the trends that went with it perfectly. It could, after all, be controlled by an agent up to 33 miles away, according to the vendor, and apparently could even — thank you, AI — make decisions on its own.

The vendor showed me a video of just how such a dog would work if it were armed. It would use AI technology to find human forms. A red box would form around any human it detects on a tablet screen held by an agent. In other words, I asked, can the dog think?

I had in mind the way Bing’s Chatbox, the AI-powered search engine from Microsoft, had so infamously professed its love for New York Times reporter Kevin Roose. A human, using an Xbox-like controller, the vendor told me, will be able to target a specific person among those the dog detects. “But,” he reassured me, “it’s a human who ultimately pulls the trigger.”

In Mexico, when I walked to a spot where the Rio Grande flowed between the two countries, I ran into a small group of migrants camped out at the side of the road. Near them was a fire filled with charred wood over which a pot was cooking. A pregnant Colombian woman told me they were providing food to other migrants passing by. “Oh,” I asked, “so you sell food?” No, she responded, they gave it away for free. Before they had been camped out for months near the immigration detention center in Ciudad Juárez where a devastating fire in March killed 40 people. Now, they had moved closer to the border. And they were still waiting, still hoping to file applications for asylum themselves.

Behind where they sat, I could see the 20-foot border wall with coiling razor wire on top. There was nothing new about a hyper-militarized border here. After all, the El Paso build-up had begun 30 years ago with Operation Hold the Line in 1993. A desert camo Humvee sat below the wall on the U.S. side and a couple of figures (Border Patrol? National Guard?) stood at the edge of the Rio Grande shouting to a Mexican federal police agent on the other side.

The clock for the supposed Title 42 Armageddon was ticking down as I then crossed the bridge back to El Paso, where more barriers of razor wire had only recently been emplaced. There was also a slew of blue-uniformed CBP agents and several jeeps carrying camouflaged members of border units. Everyone was heavily armed as if about to go into battle.

At the Border Security Expo, Hysen pointed out that fear of a Title 42 surge had resulted in an even more fortified border, hard as that might be to imagine. Fifteen hundred National Guard troops had been added to the 2,500 already there, along with 2,000 extra private security personnel, and more than 1,000 volunteers from other agencies. Basically, he insisted, they had everything more than under control, whatever the media was saying.

. . . .

At the Edge of Everything — and Nothing At All

On the morning of May 12th, I was with border scholar Gabriella Sanchez at the very spot where the borders of Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua meet near El Paso. Title 42 had expired the night before and I asked her what she thought. She responded that she considered this the border norm: we’re regularly told something momentous and possibly terrible is going to happen and then nothing much happens at all.

And she was right, the predicted “surge” of migrants crossing the border actually decreased — and yet, in some sense, everything keeps happening in ways that only seem grimmer. Perhaps 100 yards from where we were standing, in fact, we soon noticed a lone man cross the international boundary and walk into the United States as if he were taking a morning stroll. Thirty seconds later, a truck sped past us kicking up gravel. For a moment, I thought it was just a coincidence, since it wasn’t an official Border Patrol vehicle.

Then, I noted an insignia on its side that included the U.S. and Mexican flags. The truck came to a skidding stop by the man. A rotund figure in a gray uniform jumped out and ran toward him while he raised his hands. Just then, a green-striped Border Patrol van also pulled up. I was surprised — though after that Border Security Expo I shouldn’t have been — when I realized that the initial arrest was being made by someone seemingly from a private security firm. (Remember, Hysen said that an extra 2,000 private security agents had been hired for the “surge.”)

In truth, that scene couldn’t have been more banal. You might have seen it on any May 12th in these years. That banality, by the way, included a sustained violence that’s intrinsically part of the modern border system, as geographer Reece Jones argues in his book Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move. In the days following Title 42’s demise, an eight-year-old Honduran girl died in Border Patrol custody and a Tohono O’odham man was shot and killed by the Border Patrol. In April, 11 remains of dead border crossers were also recovered in Arizona’s Pima County desert alone (where it’s impossible to carry enough water for such a long trek).

In the wake of Donald Trump, everything on the border has officially changed, yet nothing has really changed. Nothing of note is happening, even as everything happens. And as Hysen said at that border expo meeting, big as the record 2023 border budget may be, in 2024 it’s likely to go “even further” into the stratosphere.

Put another way, at the border, we are eternally at the edge of everything — and nothing at all.

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

Read Todd’s complete report in the Border Chron at the link.

From Ike’s “Military-Industrial Complex” to Biden’s “Border-Industrial Complex” — my life has spanned it all! But, while Ike was trying to warn us about the dangers ahead, Biden (and the GOP) are trying to lull us into accepting unending and largely unaccountable border militarization as the inevitable wave of the future — even a good thing!

I’ve got nothing against technology! But, it should employed to make humanity better, not just for its own sake. As I suggest below, the “Armed Robot-Dogs v. CBP One” (or EOIR’s venture into the virtual world) strongly suggest the lack of a healthy balance!

Human migration is even older and more permanent than never-ending border militarization, industrialized cruelty, and dehumanization. The latter are now routinely practiced by the very Western nations who once, long ago, fought against Nazism and vowed, apparently somewhat disingenuously, “never again!”

Human migration was in motion long before the creation of the modern nation-state. It will be with us as long and there is life on earth.

Moreover, the realities of climate change and the future migrations and political reckonings it will force go well-beyond our already overly restrictive legal refugee regimes. Like it or not — and those of us fortunate to live in potential “receiving countries” shouldn’t fear it — there will be more, not less, human migration in the future.

In this context, I’m highly skeptical that “armed robo-dogs” — even those miracles of modern technology fully weaponized to “go into barracks and blow a motherfucker’s face off” — are the durable solutions to inevitable events that we need.

It struck me that the woman who insisted that Todd keep her 35 cents, and the patient folks camped out around a wood cooking fire just south of the fence, waiting for appointments and hearings that might never come from the poor technology (how would an armed robo-dog react to the badly flawed “CBP One App” inflicted on human asylum seekers — state of the art technology seems rather one-sided at DHS, as most advocates would tell you) and our broken asylum legal system, probably are closer to having the answers to the future than any of the “hot air” politicos calling the shots or aspiring to do so.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-10-23

🛡⚔️ THE ONGOING QUEST FOR THE “HOLY GRAIL OF JUSTICE” — Round Table Files Brief In Support Of Due Process, Rule of Law In East Bay Sanctuary v. Biden!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Gi2JbTNOI9C1kVWN1NuULgAuYCWziVd/view?usp=sharing

KEY EXCERPT:

INTRODUCTION

As former immigration judges and former members of the Board, we submit this amicus brief to ask the Northern District of California to strike down the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways Rule, 88 Fed. Reg. 31314 (May 11, 2023). The Rule, which came into effect in the immediate aftermath of Title 42’s sunset and which applies to non-Mexican asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, automatically forecloses a migrant’s asylum claim unless the person (i) arrives at an official port of entry having secured an immigration appointment through a complex mobile application, (ii) receives advance permission to travel to the U.S., or (iii) comes to the U.S. after applying for and being denied asylum in a transit country. Absent proof one of these narrow exceptions or a medical or other emergency, asylum-seekers will be unable to seek asylum regardless of whether they have compelling claims to relief.

Immigration judges serve an important role in the Congressionally-mandated process for reviewing the claims of asylum-seekers at or near the U.S.-Mexico border. This decades-old process, known as Expedited Removal, has its own flaws, but it does provide a credible fear review system that provides important protections for those seeking asylum. Specifically, and as explained in more detail below, the Expedited Removal statute requires that asylum-seekers, regardless of how they entered the United States, be interviewed by asylum officers to determine whether they have a credible fear of persecution and therefore can proceed to a full asylum hearing under Section 240 of the INA. The statute further mandates that immigration judges provide de novo review of asylum officers’ negative credible fear determinations, and thus make the final decision about whether an asylum-seeker at the U.S.-Mexico border has shown a credible fear of persecution and will have the opportunity to progress to a full asylum hearing.

The Rule unlawfully undermines this statutory scheme. First, the Rule creates clear bars to asylum for most migrants, disingenuously labeling these as “rebuttable presumptions.” As a result, almost all claims for asylum are pretermitted without the full asylum credible fear interviews required by the statutory Expedited Removal process. Rather, the credible fear interview will be turned into a “reasonable fear” interview to determine whether the migrant can proceed to claim withholding of

removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), lesser forms of relief compared to asylum. Asylum-seekers are thus denied the opportunity to obtain full review of their asylum credible fear claims, including the de novo review by an immigration judge as required by Section 235 of the INA, 8 C.F.R. § 235.3. Instead, asylum-seekers may only seek review from an immigration judge as to the application of the narrow exceptions under the Rule or the lesser claims for relief. Accordingly, the Rule significantly and unlawfully curtails the role of immigration judges in asylum adjudication as set forth in the INA.

Moreover, the idea that the Rule heightens efficiency in the asylum adjudication process is an illusion. When an asylum-seeker is denied the ability to provide a credible fear of persecution, Expedited Removal still requires a review of potentially more complicated claims for withholding of removal and protection under the CAT. Thus, immigration judges on the one hand find their hands tied, unable to review the claims of bona fide asylum-seekers, but on the other hand are required to delve into the standards of withholding and CAT. Thus, the Rule turns a straightforward (and efficient) asylum credible fear review into a three-part analysis: the Rule exceptions, withholding, and CAT.

Finally, by creating exclusions that deny asylum to refugees who appear at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Rule violates U.S. obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Longstanding canons of statutory and regulatory construction require consideration of international law; in this case, the Rule violates both the INA and international law.

. . . .

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

Read the complete brief skillfully prepared by our friend Ashley Vinson Crawford and her team at Akin Gump!

Our brief basically reiterates, expands, and applies points we made in our recent comments opposing the Biden Administration’s “Death to Asylum,” regulations! See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/03/27/⚔%EF%B8%8F🛡-round-table-joins-chorus-of-human-rights-experts-slamming-biden-administrations-abominable-death-to-asylum-seekers-☠%EF%B8%8F-proposed/

Rather than heeding our comments and those of many other experts, the Administration proceeded with its wrong-headed changes, rammed through a farcically truncated “comment period” that showed that process was little but a sham. This is the exact kind of mockery of justice and prejudgement that one might have expected from the Trump Administration. It’s also one of the many things concerning immigration that Biden and Harris “ran against” in 2020 but lacked the will and integrity to achieve in practice.

Notably, we’re not the only group of “concerned experts” weighing in against the Biden Administration’s ill-advised rules. The union representing the USCIS Asylum Officers were among the many expert organizations and individuals filing in support of the plaintiffs in East Bay Santuary. See, e.g., Asylum Officers, Ex-Judges Back Suit On Biden Asylum Rule – Law360.

Among other choice commentary, the Asylum Officers argue that the rule “effectively eliminates asylum” at the southern border! What on earth is a Dem Administration doing betraying due process and the rule of law in favor of the most scurrilous type of nativist anti-asylum pandering — stuff right out of the “Stephen Miller playbook?” Who would have thought that we would get rid of Miller & company in 2020, yet still have to deal with his ghost in a Biden/Harris Administration that clearly and beyond any reasonable doubt has “lost its way” on immigration, human rights, racial justice, and the rule of law?

As Round Table spokesperson “Sir Jeffrey” Chase says, “We are in very good company!” Too bad that the Biden Administration has wandered off course into the morally vacant, disingenuous “never-never land” of anti-asylum, racially-driven nativism! It certainly did not have to be this way had effective, principled, expert leadership taken hold at the beginning.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-09-23

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

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

Mackenzie Mays reports for the LA Times:

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

By Mackenzie Mays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . . .

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

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

. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-97-23

🏴‍☠️🤯 112 NGOs BLAST BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S BAD APPROACH TO CREDIBLE FEAR, DEMAND IMMEDIATE END (Good Luck With That)! “ — “These policies punish people seeking safety and prioritize political optics over the administration’s stated aim of working to ‘restore and strengthen our own asylum system, which has been badly damaged by policies enacted over the last four years that contravened our values and caused needless human suffering.’”

Border Detention — Due process and fundamental fairness are elusive in DHS’s “New American Gulag!” Administration policy wonks absent themselves from the border to avoid witnessing the unnecessary human trauma and suffering their illegal and ill-advised policies cause.
PHOTO: Public Realm

https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2023/6/5/the-biden-administration-must-immediately-stop-conducting-credible-fear-interviews-in-cbp-custody

Refugees International June 5, 2023

The Honorable Alejandro N. Mayorkas

Secretary

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

2707 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE

Washington, D.C. 20528

Ur M. Jaddou

Director

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

5900 Capital Gateway Drive

Camp Springs, Maryland 20588

Troy A. Miller

Acting Commissioner

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20229

David L. Neal

Director

Executive Office for Immigration Review

5107 Leesburg Pike

Falls Church, VA 22041

Dear Secretary Mayorkas, Director Jaddou, Acting Commissioner Miller, and Director Neal,

We, the undersigned 112 civil, human rights, faith-based, and immigration groups write to express our deep concern with your return to the Trump-era policy of forcing asylum seekers to explain by phone the life-threatening harms they’re fleeing mere hours after arriving in the U.S., while being held in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention, and essentially cut off from legal help. In March 2023, nearly 100 organizations reminded President Biden of his commitment to end the Trump policy, urging him not to rush back to the broken, anti-asylum policies that this administration rightly terminated. We are incredibly disappointed that this administration has chosen to move forward, full steam ahead. We call on the Biden administration to immediately cease conducting credible fear interviews (CFIs) in CBP custody and instead ensure that asylum seekers are given full and fair access to the U.S. asylum system, including meaningful access to counsel.

Since taking effect, President Biden’s iteration of this policy has produced systemic due process barriers similar to its predecessor policy, with asylum seekers being rushed through CFIs and immigration judge reviews with little to no access to counsel. President Biden’s asylum ban, another iteration of Trump-era policies, is further exacerbating these mass due process violations and fueling the systematic deportation of individuals who may qualify for protection in the U.S., in violation of the non-derogable principle of non-refoulement.

The Biden administration is effectively denying asylum seekers any meaningful chance to consult with counsel and rushing them through a sham process to quickly deport them, including by:

Conducting CFIs shortly upon an individual’s arrival in CBP detention without providing or allowing them to access the time and resources needed to recover from their journey or the harm they survived;

Barring attorneys from entering the CBP facilities where asylum seekers are jailed and CFIs are conducted;

Truncating the minimum time period individuals have to attempt to telephonically consult with an attorney to a mere 24 hours after receiving notice of the credible fear process. This change is especially absurd given that new policies, such as the asylum ban and the return of certain nationalities to Mexico, expand the content about which an individual may need to consult an attorney;

Failing to provide asylum seekers hard copies of the M-444 Information About Credible Fear Interview in contravention of 8 CFR § 208.30(d)(2), hard copies of the list of pro bono legal service providers, and advanced written notice of the CFI;

Heightening the standard for requests to reschedule a CFI to a showing of “extraordinary circumstances,” likely making it nearly impossible for asylum seekers to reschedule a CFI in order to secure representation or prepare for the interview;

Restricting asylum seekers’ access to telephones, in contravention of 8 CFR § 208.30(d)(4), and denying them writing utensils, in effect forcing them to attempt to commit key information to memory, including their attorney’s contact information and information about the CFI process;

Requiring an applicant’s signature on the Form G-28 for attorneys to enter an appearance with the Asylum Office, which often cannot be timely obtained by attorneys who are remotely representing jailed clients, thereby obstructing their ability to obtain information about their clients;

Conducting CFIs, including outside of normal business hours and on weekends, without the attorney of record present, in contravention of 8 CFR § 208.30(d)(4);

Failing to provide advance written notice to attorneys of record prior to a scheduled CFI or immigration court review hearing, including by not updating the EOIR Cases and Appeals System (ECAS) to reflect upcoming court hearings;

Failing to afford individuals time and opportunity following negative fear determinations to consult with counsel who could advise them about their rights and the review process;

Failing to serve asylum seekers and their attorneys with their record of credible fear determinations in contravention of 8 CFR § 208.30(g)(1);

Blocking attorneys from entering an appearance with the immigration court, including by not docketing immigration court review cases in a timely manner, thereby preventing them from representing their clients;

Refusing to permit attorneys to actively participate in immigration court reviews and rejecting evidence submitted in advance of the immigration court review; and

Conducting Immigration Judge reviews of negative credible fear findings without the attorney of record present.

Forcing asylum seekers in CBP detention to proceed with their CFIs while facing nearly insurmountable barriers to legal counsel –while also subjecting them to an asylum ban – upends any notion of fairness. Instead, it is an evisceration of our asylum system. The installation of new phone booths, which you claim differentiate Biden’s program from the Trump policy, fails entirely to address any of these systemic obstacles. Additionally, the Biden administration’s decision to conduct immigration court reviews immediately following these lightning-fast CFIs, while the individual is still in CBP custody, unacceptably further heightens the due process barriers asylum seekers must overcome to avoid summary deportation.

We have also received troubling reports of the terrible conditions that asylum seekers face in CBP custody while awaiting their CFIs, in line with years of reports of abusive, dehumanizing, and sometimes life-threatening conditions that include medical neglect, inedible food and water, and lack of access to showers and other basic hygiene. It has been less than a month since the unforgivable death of eight-year-old Anadith Tanay Reyes Álvarez, who was jailed in one of the CBP facilities where your administration conducts CFIs. We are horrified that the administration has systematized the detention of asylum seekers in these same deadly conditions while rushing them through fear screenings.

Notably, the administration has a choice: it is not required to use expedited removal and has the authority to refer people for full asylum hearings, rather than subjecting them to rushed CFIs in dehumanizing CBP detention while cut off from legal help. Sacrificing fairness for speed by jailing people fleeing persecution and torture, subjecting them to a ban on asylum, and forcing them to proceed with a life-or-death interview without meaningful access to counsel must not be this administration’s response to people wishing to exercise their fundamental human right to seek asylum. These policies punish people seeking safety and prioritize political optics over the administration’s stated aim of working to “restore and strengthen our own asylum system, which has been badly damaged by policies enacted over the last four years that contravened our values and caused needless human suffering.”

Respectfully,

Acacia Center for Justice

Afghans For A Better Tomorrow

African Human Rights Coalition

Al Otro Lado

Alianza Americas

Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, ACCE

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

American Gateways

American Immigration Council

Americans for Immigrant Justice (AI Justice)

Amnesty International USA

Angry Tias and Abuelas

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC

Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP)

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action

Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)

Bridges Faith Initiative

Border Kindness

Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition

Center for Constitutional Rights

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

Center for Victims of Torture

Central American Resource Center of Northern CA – CARECEN SF

Church World Service

Cleveland Jobs with Justice

Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)

Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Inc. (CAB)

Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (CLSEPA)

Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services Inc.

Dorcas International Institute of RI

Fellowship Southwest

First Focus on Children

Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project

Franciscan Action Network

Freedom Network USA

Greater Boston Legal Services

Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program

HIAS

Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative

Human Rights First

Human Rights Initiative of North Texas

Immigrant Defenders Law Center

Immigrant Legal Resource Center

Immigration Equality

Immigration Law & Justice Network

Immigration Hub

Innovation Law Lab

Interfaith-RISE

Interfaith Welcome Coalition – San Antonio

International Center of Kentucky

International Institute of Los Angeles

International Institute of New England

International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)

ISLA: Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy

JAMAAT – Jews and Muslims and Allies Acting Together

Jewish Family Service of San Diego

Jewish Vocational Service of Kansas City

Just Neighbors

Justice in Motion

Kino Border Initiative

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

Latino Community Foundation

Lawyers for Good Government

Legal Aid Justice Center

Lost and Found Church of the Nazarene

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services

Mariposa Legal, program of COMMON Foundation

Massachusetts Law Reform Institute

Metrowest Legal Services

Minnestoa Freedom Fund

MLPB

Mujeres Unidas y Activas

Muslim Advocates

National Employment Law Project

National Immigrant Justice Center

National Immigration Law Center

National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

National Partnership for New Americans

NCLR (National Center for Lesbian Rights)

Northeastern University School of Law Immigrant Justice Clinic

Open Immigration Legal Services

Oromo Center for Civil and Political Rights

Oxfam America

Phoenix Legal Action Network

Physicians for Human Rights

Public Law Center

RAICES

Refugees International

Resource Center Matamoros / Asylum Seeker Network of Support, Inc.

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network

SIREN, Services Immigrant Rights and Education Network

Southwest Asylum & Migration Institute (“SAMI”)

Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice

Survivors of Torture, International

Team Brownsville

Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors

The Advocates for Human Rights

The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

The Reformed Church of Highland Park

UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic

Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

United Sikhs

U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)

USAHello

Vera Institute of Justice

Washington Office on Latin America

Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center

Witness at the Border

Women’s Refugee Commission

Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights

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

Interesting way for a Dem Administration to treat human rights, due process, and fundamental fairness! Remarkable rejection of values that got them elected! Is “dismissive dissing” of the views of the “folks who brought you to the dance” really the key to future success?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-07-23

⚖️🧑‍⚖️ THERE’S STILL TIME (BUT NOT MUCH) TO REGISTER FOR CMS’S “DEEP DIVE” INTO EOIR’S DYSFUNCTION, WITH TRUE EXPERTS

View this email in your browser

TOMORROW, June 6 at 12:30pm ET, the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) will host a webinar and discussion on its latest paper entitled, The US Immigration Courts, Dumping Ground for the Nation’s Systemic Immigration Failures: The Causes, Composition, and Politically Difficult Solutions to the Court Backlog, by Donald Kerwin and Evin Millet.

Experts on the immigration court system will highlight the systemic problems in the US immigration system that have caused and sustained the backlog, and offer recommendations for reversing the backlog.

Speakers include:

Donald Kerwin, former executive director of CMS and Editor of the Journal of Migration and Human Security
Mimi Tsankov, President, National Association of Immigration Judges and member, Expert Advisory Group
Richard A. Boswell, Professor of Law, UC College of Law, San Francisco, and member, Expert Advisory Group

As well as additional members of the Expert Advisory Group:

Gregory Chen, Senior Director of Government Relations, American Immigration Lawyers Association
Anna Gallagher, Executive Director, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
Karen T. Grisez, Pro Bono Counsel, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Jacobsen, LLP
Hon. Dana Leigh Marks (retired), President Emerita, National Association of Immigration Judges (in her personal capacity)
Michele Pistone, Professor of Law, Villanova University
Andrew Schoenholtz, Professor from Practice, Georgetown University Law Center
Denise Noonan Slavin, retired judge, Adjunct Professor, St. Thomas University School of Law
Charles Wheeler, Senior Attorney/Director Emeritus, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

Click the button below to register for FREE!

The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) is a New York-based educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. For more information, please visit www.cmsny.org.

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Center for Migration Studies, New York · 307 East 60th Street · New York, NY 10022 · USA

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

To be bluntly honest, this panel of experts appears to be the group that an Administration seriously committed to restoring due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices to the “retail level” of U.S. justice would have hired in January 2021, to clean house 🧹 and institute lasting institutional reforms at America’s worst courts!

They have been “hiding in plain sight” for the past 2.5 years while Garland has been flailing and failing to bring order and long-overdue reforms to his tragically broken system!

Clown Car — Isn’t it time to finally get the “EOIR Clown Show” off the road before it causes more fatalities? Many experts think so!
PHOTO CREDIT: Ellin Beltz, 07-04-16, Creative Commons License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Creator not responsible for above caption.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-05-23

Happy July 4!😎🇺🇸

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Stephen Collinson writes at CNN:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

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🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Summary

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From the Portland Press Herald:

Don’s views echo several previous postings from Courtside:

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🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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KEY EXCERPT:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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Mackenzie Mays reports for the LA Times:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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