Immigration Detention – Page 134 – immigrationcourtside.com

MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/watchdog-report-finds-moldy-food-mistreatment-in-immigrant-detention-centers/2017/12/15/c97b380a-e10d-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html

Maria’s always “on top” of the almost daily examples of cruel, intentionally inhumane, unconstitutional, wasteful “Gonzo” Enforcement by the Trump regime. Here is some of what she reports on the deadly conditions in “NAG:”

“The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security has criticized several immigration detention facilities for having spoiled and moldy food and inadequate medical care, and for inappropriate treatment of detainees, such as locking down a detainee for sharing coffee and interfering with Muslims’ prayer times.

Acting Inspector General John V. Kelly, who took over Dec. 1, said the watchdog agency identified problems at four detention centers during recent, unannounced visits to five facilities. The Dec. 11 report , released Thursday, said the flaws “undermine the protection of detainees’ rights, their humane treatment, and the provision of a safe and healthy environment.”

“Staff did not always treat detainees respectfully and professionally, and some facilities may have misused segregation,” the report found, adding that observers found “potentially unsafe and unhealthy detention conditions.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement jails tens of thousands of immigrants for civil immigration violations, holding them until they are deported or released in the United States. The jails are not supposed to be punitive, according to the report.

ICE concurred with the inspector general’s findings and said it is taking action to fix the problems, some of which have already been addressed.

“Based on multi-layered, rigorous inspections and oversight programs, ICE is confident in conditions and high standards of care at its detention facilities,” the agency said in a statement. “To ensure the safety and well-being of those in our custody, we work regularly with contracted consultants and a variety of external stakeholders to review and improve detention conditions at ICE facilities.”

The Office of Inspector General said it launched the surprise inspections after receiving complaints from immigrant advocacy groups and on its hotline about treatment of detainees. The inspectors also interviewed staff members and detainees and examined records.

Advocates for immigrants said the report reaffirmed their long-standing calls for the detention facilities to be closed. Advocates have complained about reports of physical and sexual assaults, deaths in detention and other concerns for years under past presidents — and say their worries are increasing under President Trump.

Trump has pledged to dramatically increase deportations and is seeking congressional approval for more than 51,000 detention beds this fiscal year, up from about 30,000 under President Barack Obama.

Trump’s pick for the permanent director of ICE, Thomas D. Homan, previously ran the ICE detention system.

“The realities documented by the OIG inspectors, and many more, are endemic to the entire detention system,” Mary Small, policy director at Detention Watch Network, a nonprofit group that monitors immigration detention, said in a statement. “ICE has proven time and time again to be incapable of meeting basic standards for humane treatment.”

In a statement, Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director of Project South, in Atlanta, cited the death in May of Jean Jimenez-Joseph. The 27-year-old Panamanian national was held in solitary confinement for 19 days at the Stewart Detention Center in rural Georgia, according to Project South.

Shahshahani said his death “should have served as a final wake-up call and resulted in the immediate closure of the facility.”

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The Administration tries to hide, obscure, cover up, and bureaucratize what’s happening in the NAG. But, thanks to courageous reporters like Maria, the truth isn’t going to be suppressed. Read the rest of Maria’s report at the link.

Is this YOUR America? Is this the America you want YOUR children and grandchildren to read about and inherit?

Gee whiz, what were my parents and grandparents doing while neo-Nazis were invading the government and recreating the “Fourth Reich?”

And, when are the Article III Courts going to get some backbone to go with their lifetime sinicure and stand up for the Constitution and human decency before it’s too late? When good people stand by and do nothing, tyrants like Trump, Sessions, Homan, Bannon, and their corrupt supporters will have their way!

Tell your legislators:

NO to Tom Homan as ICE Director;
NO to funding for the NAG;
NO to funding DOJ’s corrupt defense of the NAG and Gonzo Immigration Enforcement;
NO to additional unneeded DHS Enforcement agents;
YES to legislative and criminal investigations of the unconstitutional activities of Gonzo, Nielsen, Homan, and their cronies and the human rights abuses they are knowingly creating by misusing the immigration laws;
YES to “Dreamer Relief” with “no strings attached;”
YES to immigration reform that legalizes law-abiding residents already here and provides additional legal visas for the future to end the “false criminalization” of needed workers and refugees!

Stand up for America as a Nation of Immigrants — Stand up for human decency — Stand against Trump, Nielsen, Sessions, Homan, Bannon, Miller and the other neo-Nazis promoting the NAG!

PWS

12-18-17

DOUG JONES “THEORETICALLY” WOULD HAVE “JUST SAID NO” TO GONZO AS AG — “too harsh on voting rights and criminal-justice issues!” — So What Else Is New?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/12/15/doug-jones-eager-to-speak-for-the-south-embraces-the-spotlight/

David Weigel reports for the Washington Post:

“Doug Jones, weeks away from taking office as Alabama’s first Democratic senator since 1996, is not done talking about his win. On Wednesday, as national TV cameras rolled, he spent 26 minutes talking about his goals for 2018. On Thursday, he talked to the hosts of “Pod Save America” — a tastemaking podcast for liberals — about how he won. And on Sunday, he will be interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox broadcast channel, and the show will be repeated later in the day on Fox News — a cable channel on which many Democrats refuse to appear.

So far, Jones has not made much news since his victory, ducking the Democratic fight over whether he should be seated in time to cast a vote on the GOP tax bill. (“We’ve still got a process in Alabama that we have to go though,” he said on “Pod Save America.”) He’s said more about how he won — as a “kitchen table” pragmatist and critic of Republican policy — and his hope that the South’s Republican dominance may start to crack.

“I believe we are on the road to having a competitive two-party state,” Jones said at Wednesday’s news conference.

Jones had been talking like that for months, though rarely before a national audience, and not in stump speeches. But as Republicans knew, and as they failed to exploit Tuesday, Jones did not run as a conservative and rarely took the Trump administration’s side on key issues. Most of Jones’s television ads, especially in the last month, portrayed the election as a choice between a Democrat who could “work with anybody” and a Republican who would engage in futile, embarrassing grandstanding.

In interviews, however, Jones often spoke of a different choice for Alabama — whether they wanted to send a new representative of the Deep South to the national stage. In an August interview with The Washington Post, before much national attention had driven toward his campaign, Jones said he would have theoretically opposed Jeff Sessions’s nomination for attorney general. He rattled off the reasons: Sessions was too harsh on voting rights and criminal-justice issues.”

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

Jones might have added “bigot, racist, xenophobe, White Nationalist, homophobe, Islamophobe, bully, liar, theocrat, sexist, and “D-grade legal mind,” to the reasons. But, we get the point. Even in Alabama, Sessions’s obvious bias, retrograde views, and general lack of qualifications for high office were well known.

In other words, if you remove the pedophelia, the ridiculous leather vest, poor little pony, waving pistol, and totally obnoxious wife, then “Gonzo” is “Ayatollah Roy.”

Unfortunately, Gonzo has been able to do even more damage to our country, our Constitution, and our future (e.g.,our “Dreamers“) as an appointed official than he was in the Senate (perhaps because he was so, well, “Gonzo,” that even in his own party nobody took his “parallel universe” 1950’s segregationist view of America seriously). Probably happy enough to get rid of him as a colleague, the GOP inflicted him on the entire nation!

But, the majority of Americans who don’t believe in Gonzo’s “Apocalyptic Vision” don’t have to put up with this travesty indefinitey. Hopefully, working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and drawing on the abysmal record of “Gonzo in action,” Doug Jones will be able to use “the system” to work cooperatively with others to remove the most stunningly unqualified Attorney General since John Mitchell from office.

We can all hope.

PWS

12-15-17

AMERICA THE UGLY: YOU ARE FUNDING THE NEW AMERICAN GESTAPO AT DHS: ABUSING CHILDREN, SOWING FEAR, DENYING WOMEN’S RIGHTS, DESTROYING THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY! — Cruelty For Cruelty’s Sake – How Will YOU Explain To Your Children & Grandchildren How YOU Stood By and Watched Trump, Sessions, & Their White Nationalist Lieutenants Create the “Fourth Reich” in America? – “Will They Take Me Too”?” – What About YOU? — Who Will Stand Up for YOUR Rights When the White Nationalist State Knocks On YOUR Door?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/magazine/will-they-take-me-too.html

Brooke Jarvis reports for the NY Times:

“More than a thousand children are counting on Nora Sándigo to become their guardian if their undocumented parents are deported. How many of those promises will she now have to keep?

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Because she didn’t know what to tell her children, she tried not to tell them anything. When they asked where their father was, she gave flimsy excuses: Yes, he came home last night, but he left while you were still asleep. He’s working late, he’s working early, he just stepped out, he’ll be back soon. “You just missed him,” she found herself repeating.

The strategy worked, for a few days at least, with the youngest three. They were all under 5 and were used to the world going about its strange business without them. But then there was Kelly. She was 8 and sharp-eyed, a good student who preferred English to Spanish and wanted to someday be a doctor, or maybe a gymnast, and who had watched a presidential candidate on television say he wanted to send people back to Mexico, where both her parents grew up.

Kelly came home from school one day in October last year and demanded to know where her father was. Because his construction job started so early in the morning, Javier was usually the first home. That was part of how he and Kelly’s mother, T., fell in love. They boarded in the same house more than a decade ago, when she was 19 and freshly arrived in South Florida, having followed her sister from their small village in southern Mexico. T., who is being identified by her first initial to shield her identity, quit school after sixth grade. She helped her parents plant corn and beans but dreamed of something better for herself and her infant son; she decided to leave him in her mother’s care and support him from afar. Javier was from the same region, and because he finished work early, he cooked for her while she was still out in the Florida sun. The food was delicious and tasted like home. Soon they were a couple, and then Kelly was born, and her father, who fainted with anxiety in the birthing room, adored her, and she adored him back.

“He’s late from work,” T. told her daughter.

But Kelly wasn’t having it. Before heading to school that morning, she saw uniformed men come to the door and ask her mother for her father’s passport; she heard her mother on the phone, asking what had happened, what to do. “Don’t lie to me,” Kelly said, and started to cry. “Where did they take him? What did he do?”

By now T. knew. One of her first phone calls was to an immigrant advocate and former refugee named Nora Sándigo, who, in this poor area south of Miami, was the most powerful person in many people’s worlds: She knew lawyers, county commissioners, even members of Congress. After T. called her, Sándigo quickly discovered that Javier had been detained by the Department of Homeland Security. T. didn’t tell Kelly the details she had learned from Sándigo, or from Javier, when he was finally able to make a brief call. That they arrested him just a few yards away from their home, as he stood waiting for his ride to work. That now he was on the edge of the Everglades, in a gray-and-tan detention center adjacent to a state prison, a half-hour’s drive away, a distance that, for T., had suddenly become unbridgeable. “He was arrested,” she told Kelly, simply. “We have no papers to be here, like you do.”

“Will they take me, too?” Kelly asked. She didn’t know what papers her mother was talking about, what this thing was that she had and her parents didn’t.

T. didn’t tell her daughter the other reason she called Sándigo. Across South Florida, T. knew, undocumented parents of citizen children were preparing for possible deportation by signing power-of-attorney forms that allowed Sándigo to step in should their own parenthood be interrupted by a surprise visit from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. If they were taken away, at least Norita, as they called her, could provide stability while the family sorted out what to do; she could also sign forms on their children’s behalf at school, or at the hospital, or in federal court.

Sándigo’s responsibilities extended to many hundreds of children, and were growing all the time. Parents, some of whom had never met her in person, were desperate for any solution. Her qualifications were simple. She was compassionate. She was willing. And, like their children, she was a United States citizen.

For years, T. never felt the need for such an extreme contingency plan. Now she was thinking of adding her own children to Sándigo’s list. “Imagine if they detained me too,” she said after Javier was gone. She couldn’t envision taking her American children with her to Mexico, where she “wouldn’t be able to give them education, shoes, clothes,” and where they would be separated from their friends and lives and ambitions, from the only home they had ever known. But what would happen if they stayed behind, with no parents left to care for them?

There’s a common misconception that having a citizen child — a so-called anchor baby — allows undocumented parents to gain legal status in the United States. In fact, parents of citizen children are deported annually by the tens of thousands, according to ICE’s own reports to Congress. Randy Capps, a demographer with the Migration Policy Institute, estimates that as many as a quarter of the people deported from the United States interior (who are counted separately from those deported at a border) are the parents of American children. Though immigration law prioritizes family connections, including legal status for the family members of Americans who petition on their behalf, children are the exception. They cannot, by law, petition for anyone until they turn 21 — by which time, of course, they won’t need their parents nearly as much.

Continue reading the main story

Photo

Gifts for children in Sándigo’s home. CreditChristopher Morris/VII, for The New York Times

Families like Kelly’s are known as “mixed status” — a reminder that the way we talk about immigration, with clear lines of legality separating groups of people, is often a fantasy. The reality is a world of families with separate legal statuses but intertwined fates. More than four million American children are estimated to have a parent in the country illegally. If deported, those parents face a difficult choice: Take their children to a country they do not know, whose language they may not speak and one that lacks the security and opportunities they have in the United States; or leave them behind, dividing the family. Courts have regularly responded to the argument that a parent’s deportation will deny a child, as one lawyer put it, “the right which she has as an American citizen to continue to reside in the United States,” with the counterargument that such children are not, in fact, deprived, because they retain the right to stay in their country and the right to live with their parents — just not both at the same time. “That’s what I call a choiceless choice,” says David B. Thronson, a professor at the Michigan State University College of Law, who helped found the Immigration Law Clinic.

But it’s a choice that’s familiar to millions of families, including Sándigo’s. “I lived that,” she said one day when I met her at her office in the suburbs of Miami, a one-story stucco house that serves as the headquarters of the Nora Sándigo Children Foundation. When she was 16, her parents sent her away from Nicaragua to escape the violence of its civil war; her family, she says, was targeted for opposing the Sandinistas. “I feel like I am one of those kids,” she continued, “because I came with the same problem. I had my father and mother, but I was an orphan without them. Separate from their parents, they become orphans, like me.” She remembers sobbing as she watched the country of her birth recede from the plane window.

When she left Nicaragua, Sándigo went to Venezuela, then France, “trying to get something legal,” and in 1988 finally ended up in the United States, where the organization that helped her settle here offered her a job working with other refugees from Central America and advocating for their asylum. The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act was passed in 1997. In Miami, she helped other immigrants with paperwork and resettlement matters, like looking for apartments or jobs. She also started a business of small nursing homes, which, along with a plant nursery, helps cover her foundation’s bills. She never went back to Nicaragua, not even when her father was dying. He told her to stay in the United States and be safe. It was her country now, he said.

As Sándigo’s reputation grew, it became common for strangers in Miami’s immigrant communities to seek her out, asking for help; the requests opened Sándigo’s eyes to the depth of people’s need. She remembers bringing six towels to a woman with five children, who was shocked at the abundance: “So many!”

One call, in 2006, was for a new kind of assistance: A Peruvian woman, whom Sándigo had never met, was being held in a detention center, and she wanted to give Sándigo power of attorney to make decisions about her children’s care. (Unlike full legal guardianship, which is conferred by a court, power-of-attorney forms don’t involve a transfer of parental rights.) Others in the center had warned her that if she didn’t do something, she might lose her children to the child welfare system. Sándigo doesn’t know why the woman thought of her, but she felt honored, and obligated, by her trust: “When she called she had the papers signed and notarized already in my name.”

The Peruvian woman’s children never called on Sándigo, but word of what she had done got out. In 2009, a brother and sister, ages 9 and 11, showed up at Sándigo’s door with their uncle; their mother, they said, was in detention, and they weren’t going to eat until she was released. Sándigo remembers the oldest, Cecia, now a student at Georgetown University, saying, “We’ll stay with you,” to which she replied, “But this is an office, baby.” Still, she made a place for them. Jerryann, one of Sándigo’s two biological daughters, recalled: “You were like, ‘Oh, they’re going to stay the night.’ And then one night became forever.” The children moved in — they ended up staying for six years — the case attracted a lot of publicity and soon there was a steady stream of requests. “That gave the perception to the people, probably, that I was accepting the power of attorney from everyone in the same situation,” Sándigo said.

Many of the people who contacted Sándigo wanted only a temporary backup, a documented adult whom their kids could call in the moment of crisis to avoid ending up in the child-welfare system. According to an ICE spokeswoman, “ICE is committed to ensuring that the agency’s immigration-enforcement activities, including detention and removal, do not unnecessarily disrupt the parental rights of alien parents and legal guardians of minor children.” But navigating the immigration and child-welfare systems simultaneously can be difficult. Emily Butera, a senior policy adviser at the Women’s Refugee Commission, told me that many parents have come to believe that they will lose their rights automatically: “We’ve started explicitly saying to people, ‘Your children are not the property of the U.S. government.’ ”

Other parents planned for their children to stay with their undocumented friends or relatives, but wanted Sándigo to sign papers or fill official roles that they couldn’t. Still others hoped that their children would live with her, maybe for the remainder of their childhoods — something Sándigo wasn’t promising and worried that people assumed she was. But still, she never said no. When people came to her looking for help, Sándigo found it impossible to deny them. The numbers grew into the dozens, and then to the hundreds. “We never planned this,” Sándigo said one day. “It was planned by nobody. It just came.”

. . . .

Two days later, nine adults and 36 children gathered at Sándigo’s house to pack into three rented vans for the 18-hour drive to Washington. T. tried to find space under a seat for a stroller — she was bringing all four daughters — while Sándigo stood in front of local news cameras, speaking in Spanish. “How can they be American citizens if in their own country they’re treated so harshly?” she asked. Kelly wandered into the frame, and Sándigo pointed to her: “Her father was deported,” she said. “It’s very hard.” Kelly noticed the cameras turning to her and darted away. “We hope they’ll listen to these American children,” T.’s sister told Telemundo.

Finally, space was found for all the diaper bags and suitcases and gallons of frozen milk. The kids lined up for a group photo around an American flag. The plan was to drive through the night, a challenge with so few licensable drivers among the adults. The vans pulled out past a small lineup of news cameras.

A few minutes later, they were back. Sándigo had gotten a call from the only English-language station to respond to her news release: The cameraman was running late. Sándigo agreed to redo the exit scene. “For us, the English news is the most important,” she said. Its viewers were the ones whom she most wanted to hear from the children, their fellow citizens.

Kelly and the others dutifully spilled out of the van into the sunshine. Valerie, in her native, teenage English, told the new camera the same things she’d told the others in Spanish: about missing her parents, about how hard it was. She was proud that she’d finally learned to talk about them without crying.

Then the children all climbed back inside for another try at reaching their nation’s capital.

The cameraman stood in the empty street for a long time, watching them disappear.”

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Read the complete, much longer story, at the link.

What are we going to tell our fellow citizens when they grow up and become essential parts of our society? What’s going to happen when they come into power in various forms. How will the descendants of Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and his “fellow travelers” expect fairness, forgiveness, and mercy from others when their ancestors had and gave none? What are we doing to resist the current regime and insure their eventual removal from office?

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Meanwhile, over at Newsweek, CHRISTIANNA SILVA reports on how, led by Chief Scofflaw Jeff “Gonzo Apocalyoto” Sessions, the Trump Administration continues its assault on our Constitution, women, Latinos, immigrants, and the REAL rule of law by attempting to force immigrant teenagers to carry pregnancies to term against their will:

“The Trump administration is attempting to block two young undocumented immigrant women in federal custody from obtaining an abortion, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union to head back to court today.

The two women, known to the court as Jane Roe and Jane Poe, requested to have an abortion. The Office of Refugee Resettlement refused their request.

The organization says this refusal, which has become common under Trump, shouldn’t be acceptable. The administration has been requiring these young women to go to religiously affiliated “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” that require patients to “have a medically unnecessary sonogram” and urges them to carry their pregnancy.

This case comes after the recent “Jane Doe” case in which the civil rights group stepped in and helped another immigrant receive the care she requested.

“We’ve already stopped the Trump administration from blocking one young woman’s abortion,” Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a press release. “But the Trump administration is relentless in its cruelty, blocking abortion access for the most marginalized people in our country.”

The Jane Doe case was the first major abortion battle under Trump, in which a 17-year-old came to the U.S. from Central America in September. She was detained and learned that she was pregnant. When she was at the government-funded shelter, she attempted to get an abortion but the government didn’t allow it. That was the first undocumented immigrant abortion case the ACLU took to the court to fight the Trump administration.

According to a previous report by Newsweek, The ACLU told the court that the Trump administration unlawfully barred Jane Doe from having an abortion for a month. The court agreed with the ACLU and Jane obtained an abortion the next day, but the fight is still on between the group’s lawyers and the Trump administration.

After winning in court and receiving her abortion, Jane Doe said in a statement that she came to the U.S. for a better life.

“No one should be shamed for making the right decision for themselves,” she said in a statement released by the ACLU on October 25. “I would not tell any other girl in my situation what they should do. That decision is hers and hers alone.”

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So, how are Gonzo and other Trump Administration scofflaws not in jail for contempt of court?

What’s the REAL difference between “America First” and “Deutschland Uber Alles?”

How long will we suffer through this national travesty of having a racist, anti-Constitutionalist, White Nationalist, scofflaw in charge of our Department of “Justice” and perhaps ever more appallingly our U.S. Immigraton “Courts?”

Easy to understand why there are so many “Sanctuary Jurisdictions” in the U.S. Hard to understand why all jurisdictions aren’t “Sanctuaries?” But, history will show who resisted and who went along with the “Fourth Reich!”

PWS

12/15/17

NPR: INSIDE THE TRUMP-SESSIONS – NIELSEN “AMERICAN GULAG” – DHS INTERNAL REPORT FINDS CRUEL, INHUMAN, LIFE-THREATING CONDITIONS ARE WIDESPREAD – 4 OF 5 (80%) OF PRISONS STUDIED “FLUNK” MINIMUM STANDARDS – WHY AREN’T THE CABINET OFFICIALS & SENIOR EXECS WHO ARE “DOUBLING DOWN” ON THESE UNLAWFUL PRACTICES IN PRISON THEMSELVES (OR AT LEAST BEING SUED IN COURT FOR ORDERING CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS)!

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/14/570984026/federal-investigation-finds-significant-issues-at-immigrant-detention-centers

Richard Gonzales reports for NPR:

“Updated Dec. 15

Immigrants detained at four large centers used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are subject to inhumane treatment, given insufficient hygiene supplies and medical care, and provided potentially unsafe food, according to a federal report.

The “concerns” about the treatment of detained immigrants in facilities in California, Georgia, New Jersey and New Mexico is summarized in a report issued by the Inspector General’s Office of the Department of Homeland Security.

As NPR’s Joel Rose reports,

“The findings are similar to those of outside groups that have alleged ‘extensive’ human rights abuses at ICE detention centers.

“The inspector general’s report comes as the Trump administration is asking Congress for funding to expand the immigration detention system.

“ICE says some of its existing facilities are short-staffed. And the acting director has agreed to the report’s recommendations.”

The report was based on inspections of five detention facilities, four of which failed to meet certain federal standards, although “not every problem was present in all of them.”

The report summarized the results of the inspections:

“Upon entering some facilities, detainees were housed incorrectly based on their criminal history. Further, in violation of standards, all detainees entering one facility were strip searched. Available language services were not always used to facilitate communication with detainees. Some facility staff reportedly deterred detainees from filing grievances and did not thoroughly document resolution of grievances. Staff did not always treat detainees respectfully and professionally, and some facilities may have misused segregation. Finally, we observed potentially unsafe and unhealthy detention conditions.

Detainees … reported long waits for provision of medical care, poor conditions in bathrooms and insufficient hygiene supplies. OIG inspectors also observed expired, moldy, and spoiled foods in the kitchen in four facilities.”

The report also recommends that ICE improve its oversight of detention facility management and operations. In an official response, ICE concurred with the findings and promised to strengthen oversight and improve overall conditions.

Critics of President Trump’s immigration policies say the findings are not new as they predate the current administration.

A 2015 report by the National Immigrant Justice Center questioned ICE’s ability to oversee the detention centers it uses.

In a statement on the 2017 report, the Center’s Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy said:

“ICE’s inability to provide for the safety and health of the tens of thousands of immigrants in its custody has been documented for years. Today, we are calling on Congress to demand accountability and drastically reduce ICE’s detention budget.

“While the Inspector General’s report provides documentation of extensive abuses, its remedy is incredibly insufficient: it directs ICE field office directors to review the areas of concern. We know from earlier directives that ICE’s internal review processes fail to generate meaningful change.”

The Women’s Refugee Commission said the report is consistent with what the organization and its partners have “documented for years” from visits to ICE detention facilities as well as with research it has conducted over 20 years. Katharina Obser, senior program officer at WRC said in a statement:

“This week’s OIG report spells out what WRC and our partners have documented for years, making clear the critical need for greater oversight and reform. Instead, the Trump administration is intent on lowering or eliminating standards for immigration detention – putting detainees’ lives at risk – all while promising to ramp up detentionon a grand scale. As Congress continues to debate DHS FY 18 appropriations, the OIG’s findings show that now is not the time to expand a detention system that ICE is not capable of effectively and safely running. Detention must be reduced and, where needed, humane alternatives to detention, implemented in its place.”

Three years ago, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s office reported on a series of unannounced visits to detention centers for unaccompanied children. The inquiry found evidence of inadequate food, temperature control problems and inconsistent employee-to-detainee ratios.”

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These are hardly “new” developments! So, why are Sessions and his DHS “stooges” “doubling down” on detention of non-crimninal aliens in private facilities, rather than fixing these life-threatening, unconstitutional conditions first. Sounds like clear Civil Rights violations to me. Why isn’t the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division “all over this like a cheap suit?” The answer to that is pretty obvious: They would have to prosecute their boss for knowingly creating and furthering these conditions. All part of his “Gonzo deterrence strategy.” What if it were a member of YOUR family being held in inhumane conditions like these?

The solution?” Simple: Let the non-dangerous immigrants (about 98% of them) out; put Sessions, Nielsen, Homan, and Miller in prison until the problems are fixed. Now THAT would finally be a use of detention that would have some real and appropriate deterrent value!

The true “rule of law” won’t be “restored” to America until “Gonzo” Sessions is removed from office.

PWS

12-15-17

TIS INDEED THE “SEASON OF MIRACLES” — I WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND FOUND MYSELF IN COMPLETE AGREEMENT WITH CHARLES KOCH!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-must-act-on-the-dreamers/2017/12/14/3dc0ab98-e053-11e7-bbd0-9dfb2e37492a_story.html

From the Washington Post:

Opinions

Congress must act on the ‘dreamers’

A woman holds up a sign outside the U.S. Capitol in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Dec. 5. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

By Tim Cook and Charles Koch December 14

Tim Cook is chief executive of Apple. Charles Koch is chairman and chief executive of Koch Industries.

The holidays are upon us, and families across the United States are coming together to celebrate. Yet for about 690,000 of our neighbors, colleagues and friends, this holiday season is marked by uncertainty and fear.

These are the “dreamers” — children of undocumented immigrants who are working, in countless ways, to make the United States stronger. Unless Congress acts, this holiday season might be the last one the dreamers get to spend in the country they love and call home.

We must do better. The United States is at its best when all people are free to pursue their dreams. Our country has enjoyed unparalleled success by welcoming people from around the world who seek to make a better life for themselves and their families, no matter what their backgrounds. It is our differences that help us to learn from each other, to challenge our old ways of thinking and to discover innovative solutions that benefit us all. To advance that prosperity and build an even stronger future, each successive generation — including, today, our own — must show the courage to embrace that diversity and to do what is right.

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We have no illusions about how difficult it can be to get things done in Washington, and we know that people of good faith disagree about aspects of immigration policy. If ever there were an occasion to come together to help people improve their lives, this is it. By acting now to ensure that dreamers can realize their potential by continuing to contribute to our country, Congress can reaffirm this essential American ideal.

This is a political, economic and moral imperative. The sooner Congress resolves this situation — on a permanent basis — the sooner dreamers can seize the opportunity to plan their lives and develop their talents.

This extraordinary set of circumstances has brought the two of us together as co-authors. We are business leaders who sometimes differ on the issues of the day. Yet, on a question as straightforward as this one, we are firmly aligned.

As a matter of both policy and principle, we strongly agree that Congress must act before the end of the year to bring certainty and security to the lives of dreamers. Delay is not an option. Too many people’s futures hang in the balance.

Both of our companies are fortunate to have dreamers on our teams. We know from experience that the success of our businesses depends on having employees with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. It fuels creativity, broadens knowledge and helps drive innovation. For our nation to maximize progress and prosperity, we need more, not fewer, talented people at the table.

Another foundation of our country’s success is our consistent and equal application of the law. In a free nation, individuals must be able to trust that when our government makes a promise, it is kept. Having laws that are reliable is what gives people the confidence to plan their futures and to invest in their businesses, their communities and themselves.

The United States should not hold hard-working, patriotic people hostage to the debate over immigration — or, worse, expel them because we have yet to resolve a complex national argument. Most Americans agree. In fact, more than 8 in 10 Americans support a straightforward solution to allow dreamers to stay.

No society can truly flourish when a significant portion of its people feel threatened or unable to fulfill their potential. Nor can it prosper by excluding those who want to make positive contributions. This isn’t just a noble principle; it’s a basic fact, borne out through our national history.

Dreamers are doing their part. They have shown great faith in the United States by coming forward, subjecting themselves to background checks, and submitting personal and biometric data.

Now, the rest of us need to do our part. Congress should act quickly, ideally before year’s end, to ensure that these decent people can work and stay and dream in the United States. As a nation, we must show that the dreamers’ faith in our word and goodwill was not misplaced. And we should make clear that the United States welcomes their contributions as part of our national life.

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I agree with every word.

My only question: Why are Ol’ Charlie and his bro David (the “Koch Bros”) bankrolling a GOP that has been taken over by repulsive, dishonest, backward looking, fundamentally dumb, anti-American guys like Trump, Sessions, Bannon, Miller and their racist, White Nationalist, xenophobic, homophobic, religiously intolerant, exclusionary agenda of hate, fear, and loathing, which if followed to its logical conclusion, would destroy America and quite possibly the world?

Even though the Koch Bros are White, many of the employees they depend on to maintain their billionaire status aren’t White, Christian, straight, or U.S. citizens. They have no place in the Trump GOP’s vision of America. Trump and his band wouldn’t exempt the Koch Bros from their planned Armageddon just because of their Whiteness or past services to the party.

So, why keep supporting these heinous individuals and their anti-American agenda? The only reason we have this problem is because a minority of voters with incredibly poor judgement and total disregard for the common good, in an intentionally gerrymandered America, voted for the absurdly unqualified Trump rather than the clearly more qualified candidate. And, if the Kochs had supported Clinton, America would be closer to the place that Charlie Koch and Tim Cook describe in their article. Indeed, the whole costly, divisive, and totally unnecessary self-created “Dreamer Disaster” need never have occurred. What do you expect when you enable a racist xenophobe like Jeff Sessions (who doesn’t know much, if any, law either) to serve as our Attorney General?

At some point, decent folks (and, I’d be willing to admit the Kochs into that company even if I don’t agree with them on most things) who believe in America have to either 1) support Democrats, or 2) form an honest Third Party that excludes the White Nationalist haters. Today’s GOP is not that party.

Realizing that I actually have a fundamental area of agreement with the Koch Bros makes their overall conduct all the more inexplicable.

PWS

12-14-17

TWO NEW FROM TAL@CNN: 1) Will “Radical Moderation” Be The Next Great Political Movement? – 2) How Will Dems Negotiate The DACA Endgame?

Here’s what Tal has to say:

1) Will “Radical Moderation” Be The Next Great Political Movement?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/14/politics/congress-moderate-republicans-revenge/index.html

Can moderates get their revenge on DACA?

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

As year-end funding decisions loom, a familiar pattern is repeating, with House conservative Republicans playing hardball to pull their colleagues to the right.

And moderates are increasingly tiring of it — especially after Tuesday’s repudiation of a candidate seen as emblematic of the GOP’s right flank in the Alabama special election.

Government funding and efforts to abolish Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a popular program for young undocumented immigrants, have some moderates increasingly wondering: Why can’t we play hardball, too?

Moderate Republicans and House members in districts that are either generally competitive or which Hillary Clinton carried in the 2016 presidential election are starting to grow frustrated with the effectiveness of groups like the House Freedom Caucus in influencing legislation, often by withholding their votes as a bloc until demands are met.

“Yes,” Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo said with exasperation when CNN asked Wednesday if the time had come for centrists to borrow tactics from the far right.

“We cannot be spectators here,” Curbelo said. “Other groups have used their leverage to influence the process, and we must do so as well, especially when there are 800,000 lives which could be radically changed for the worse if we don’t take care of (DACA).”

“I think last night’s election’s going to cause a lot of people to re-think where we are and what we’re doing,” said New York Republican Rep. Pete King of Democrat Doug Jones’s victory in Alabama.

While the current focus is on passing tax reform, one Republican staffer said patience could be limited once it’s dispensed with, as vulnerable moderates are frustrated with being forced to take tough votes seen in many cases as messaging exercises to appease the conservative base.

“It’s the moderates who are going to have to run in tough elections on this sh**,” the staffer said.

But there remains skepticism that, despite the frustration, moderates can hold together as a group the way conservatives have been able to do, or are willing to stomach the tough tactics the right flank employs.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus, for example, almost tanked a procedural measure on tax reform in a public show of force on the House floor earlier this month to send a message to Speaker Paul Ryan about year-end funding.

And according to a Republican source, rumors have been building around the Capitol that the farther right lawmakers are prepared to challenge Ryan’s speakership immediately if he calls a stand-alone fix for DACA to the floor.

Nearly three dozen moderates, on the other hand, sent a carefully worded letter to Ryan urging him to move on a fix for DACA, which protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children, by the end of the year, without making any concrete threats to withhold any votes on government funding.

Curbelo has committed to oppose government funding without clear progress toward a DACA fix, and is urging fellow Republicans to do the same.

Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican who has decided to not seek reelection, said he agreed with Curbelo that a DACA fix should go on an upcoming must-pass bill, though it could potentially be in January.

“The power of 25 here can force a lot of things,” Dent said, referring to the GOP margin of the majority in the House. “And Freedom Caucus has been effective at it, they can put their votes together, and we need to do that from time to time, (though) we need to pick our fights carefully.”

But one conservative Republican source noted that moderates have always had difficulty being as united as more conservative groups. That sentiment was echoed by King, who referred to the group that former House Speaker John Boehner once called “legislative terrorist(s)” as “crazies” even as he distanced himself from moderates.

“I consider myself actually a blue-collar conservative, I’m not really in the moderate wing, I’m just against some of the crazies,” King told CNN, speaking of his unsuccessful fight against the GOP tax bill he sees as devastating for his state. “It’s hard to unify everybody.”

Some moderates gave credit to the Freedom Caucus, saying their effectiveness should only be a source of inspiration.

“I don’t fault anybody for doing what they believe is best in their way of representing their district,” said Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, who helped organize the DACA letter. “I respect that. …(But) it’s also incumbent upon me to do the same thing.”

2) How Will Dems Negotiate The DACA Endgame?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/14/politics/daca-likely-slip-january/index.html

Democrats wrestle with likelihood DACA slips to January

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Washington (CNN)Democrats are increasingly grappling with the likelihood that Congress could push a decision on a popular immigration program into January, even as they’ve spent weeks saying it should be dealt with by the end of the year.

“To some extent, yes,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus member and Arizona Democrat Rep. Raúl Grijalva said Thursday on Capitol Hill when asked if there’s a growing realization that the issue will likely slip to January.

“Some of us are holdouts, but if you talk about reality, yeah,” he continued. “I mean, if leadership is not pushing it, they’re not holding the line with members and we have a CR that includes (children’s health funding), which is really, really important, funding for community health centers, then not seeing it before the end of the year becomes more and more precarious.”

Can moderates get their revenge on DACA?

Democrats and even some Republicans have not given up on trying to get done a deal to maintain a version of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation but which President Donald Trump has opted to terminate.

Advocates note the issue is more urgent than portrayed by the administration. More than 20,000 DACA recipients either did not renew or were rejected in the window the government offered, meaning more than 100 lose their status every day before the March 6 deadline the administration intended to set.

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But even as negotiations continue and intensify on both sides of the Capitol to reach a bipartisan compromise on the issue, the likelihood of being able to pass something by the end of the year is rapidly slipping away.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, hosted a meeting of the Senate negotiators on Thursday afternoon, including Republicans Lindsey Graham, James Lankford, Cory Gardner, Jeff Flake and staff from Sen. Thom Tillis. But all exiting the meeting said while negotiations progressed, no break-throughs have been reached yet. And while some wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility, none expressed much optimism it could be done by the end of the year.

“It’s starting to take form, but we’re still negotiating,” Durbin said.

Tillis, R-North Carolina, said earlier Thursday that negotiators are working on a consensus on how to handle the DACA component of the deal, reconciling different bill approaches that are out there.

“What we’re trying to do is figure out where we have common ground there,” Tillis said. “But we’ll be reaching a point pretty soon to where we have to have a discussion about chain migration, which is very important, the President’s told us, and border security and other things. I would say when we talk about ‘we’re close to an agreement,’ we’re only talking about one half of the broader agreement, so maybe we’re a third of the way there.”

“I think people are having good faith discussions,” he continued. “I can’t imagine it being done by year end.”

Strategic maneuvering

Democrats know that their greatest leverage for many of their priorities is on government funding, which expires a week from Friday. Republicans will likely need Democratic votes to pass a full year of funding, in the Senate and likely in the House where budget hawks traditionally reject domestic spending levels.

But they also have a laundry list of priorities for negotiation, including an overall deal on domestic spending, community health centers, children’s health insurance, pensions and immigration. And five legislative days before funding runs out.

For Democrats, a tough choice on DACA

The current plan, according to multiple lawmakers and aides, is for the House to pass a bill that would fund defense for a year, reauthorize children’s health insurance, and punt the rest into January. That bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, where 44 Democrats have gone on record opposing it. The belief is that the Senate will send something back to the House, likely with Obamacare payments or possibly just a short-term funding extension into January. All the while, parties negotiating a DACA deal in both chambers remain optimistic about the progress of talks.

Such a plan could squeeze Democrats, especially in the Senate, to weigh rejecting an opportunity to keep negotiating and risk the government shutting down, or to hold out for more offers from Republicans.

It’s possible that a short-term extension could pass the House without Democratic votes, taking pressure of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who with her caucus has been more vocal about rejecting anything that doesn’t include DACA by the end of the year. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said many of his members, who are the more troublesome Republicans for the party on funding, could support a punt.

“If it’s just looking at a (continuing resolution) that gets us to January 19 where we can negotiate on a bigger omnibus, I think most of my members will support that,” Meadows, R-North Carolina, told reporters Thursday. “There are some who won’t, but most would be supportive of that.”

In the Senate, Democratic aides believe that January could be an option. They feel there would be no need to force a bad deal now, if a good deal is still attainable in a few weeks’ time. Senators have also been more cautious than their House colleagues.

DACA state of play: Time is running short

“I’m hopeful that it will happen. And we’re not there yet on what will happen if it doesn’t happen,” Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono said at a press conference Thursday about pushing for all of Democrats’ priorities by the end of the year, asked whether members would reject a deal to keep making progress on some issues.

Warnings to Democratic leadership

Still, Democrats are warning their leadership that they can’t appear to surrender.

“I think there is a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C, a Plan D and a Plan E in the House, I can see that there are more heightened negotiations in the Senate, and I’m dedicated to working 24/7 and I have to say my caucus has been doing that,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday. “We want something to vote on next week, and we are making that clear to leadership. … So I think we have to stay the course and any conversation that we can wait even 15 days is cruel, unjust, wrong and there’s real harm.”

“I’m not ready to wave the white flag and say let’s see what happens,” Grijalva echoed. “I think the pressure has to be constant on this thing or it will fail.”

The deputy chair of the Democratic Party, Minneosta Rep. Keith Ellison, said Democratic leadership should know that the party base will not accept less than a full fight.

“My advice to anybody in leadership in the House of Representatives is we better do everything imaginable to deliver on DACA or we better we be visibly shown to have done every single thing that could be done,” Ellison said. “Our grassroots base is expecting us to deliver on DACA, and that’s it. … I feel so strongly about this. We cannot fail on this.”

CNN’s Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.

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

Tal is amazing! As you probably can tell, I’m a big fan of her reporting: Timely, informative, balanced, easy to read. I’m glad she is on the CNN “immigration beat” — particularly for the “Dreamers” story which is so critical to the fate of our nation (not to mention the Dreamers).

The “Freedom Caucus” is in fact the “Bakuninist Wing” of the GOP: Out to destroy American Government and perhaps take the world with it. They are an existential threat to every American, nearly on the same level as the Trump Administration itself.

Somewhere, Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin –– the “Grandaddy of all Anarchists — must be smiling at how these “valueless bad dudes” can actually “con” constituents into voting for their own (and everyone else’s destruction). Of course, on the way to destruction, they don’t mind freeloading off the public purse. They just mind it when others get their fair share of the pie.

The Dems need to peel off enough GOP moderate support to enact a decent Dream Act. They definitely can’t go with the White Nationalist inspired — essentially racist (let’s be upfront about it) — end of so-called “chain migration.”

Chain migration is actually the White Nationalists’ misnomer for “Beneficial Family Migration” that has helped make America great and is essential to our future success. Yeah, they aren’t all White Christians who arrive with PhDs speaking English (although some family members undoubtedly fit this mold). And, that’s a good thing for both us and them that “they aren’t, and they don’t.”

While I can see a case for some additional immigration enforcement resources, increases should be limited to technology, management improvements, and increased legal resources for the ICE Offices of Chief Counsel.

Under NO circumstances should more immigration agents be authorized unless and until DHS improves their current hiring and training practices; abandons “Gonzo enforcement” for a rationally tailored enforcement program along the lines of other law enforcement agencies; and closes down the majority of their unnecessary, wasteful, and counterproductive “American Gulag,” starting with substandard and corrupt private immigration detention facilities.

With the border largely under control, interior enforcement without any discernible plan, rational objectives, or meaningful results, and the U.S. Immigration Courts in complete disarray under Sessions, there is no need for yet more immigration agents at present.

What on earth would they do? “Bust” more janitors, maids, landscapers, mothers, and students who are helping America? Then what? Throw them into the collapsing Immigration Courts which already have enough work for the balance of this Administration?

It’s much more likely that White Nationalists Trump, Sessions, and their cronies would build up an internal security police, to be used against America, than that additional agents would be put to any reasonable, permissible, and constructive use. It’s a prescription for disaster. And, ironically, one that should worry the GOP “Bakuninists.” Hard to see how expanding Government domestic police resources without rational assignments or goals should be a priority for folks who want to “shrink government, then drown it in a teacup.”

And anyone who says that the so-called “Trump Executive Orders” (an exercise in “Gonzo racist irrationalism” if I’ve ever seen one) is some sort of “reasonable blueprint” has been smoking some stuff stronger than can legally be bought in Colorado. Yeah, Trump can issue any Executive Order he wants to. But, he can’t fund most of his unnecessary initiatives without Congressional permission. This is Congress’s chance to force some rationality back into the U.S. Immigration enforcement system, which has taken a decidedly irrational, racist, and xenophobic turn under Trump and Sessions.

PWS

12-14-17

MILESTONE: Nolan Publishes 50th Article In “The Hill” — Read It Here! — “Like it or hate it, Trump’s immigration enforcement is failing”

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/364839-like-it-or-hate-it-trumps-immigration-enforcement-program-is-failing

Nolan writes:

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released its FY2017 immigration enforcement report. It indicates that President Trump has reduced the number of illegal border crossings, but it shows no progress at all on reducing the number of undocumented aliens who are in the United States already.

An immigration court backlog crisis is making it extremely difficult for him to move new cases through removal proceedings.

. . . .

Trump’s internal removal statistics show an average of 7,637 removals a month over an eight-month period. If he maintains this rate, he will remove approximately 91,644 undocumented aliens a year from the interior of the country, which would only be 366,564 removals by the end of his term in office.

That isn’t even enough to keep up with the number of aliens that become a part of the undocumented population in a single year as overstays. According to the Fiscal Year 2016 Entry/Exit Overstay Report, 739,478 aliens who entered the United States in FY2016 on temporary nonimmigrant visas did not leave at the end of their authorized period of stay.

According to the Pew Research Center, the undocumented immigrant population in 2015 was 11.3 million, and I think the actual number is much larger. I explain why in my analysis of PEW’s methods for making such estimates.

The backlog crisis.

At a Center for Immigration Studies panel discussion on the immigration court backlog, Immigration Judge Larry Burman said, “I cannot give you a merits hearing on my docket unless I take another case off. My docket is full through 2020, and I was instructed by my assistant chief immigration judge not to set any cases past 2020.”

This is going to get much worse.”

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

Congratulations, Nolan, on your milestone! I know that writing 50 published articles is a monumental achievement and contribution to the immigration dialogue. Thanks for sharing your analysis with all!

Read Nolan’s complete article (with charts that I omitted) at the link.

PWS

12-14-17

EXPOSED! — AILA’S JOHNSON SHOWS HOW “GONZO” INTENTIONALLY MISUSES DATA TO CREATE A FALSE ANTI-ASYLUM, ANTI-LAWYER NARRATIVE TO CONCEAL THE REAL GLARING PROBLEM DRIVING US IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOGS — AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING (“ADR”) DRIVEN BY POLITICOS ATTEMPTING TO STACK THE COURT SYSTEM AGAINST DUE PROCESS AND TILT IT IN FAVOR OF DHS/ADMINISTRATION ENFORCEMENT INITIATIVES!!!!!!! — SURPRISE — By Far The Biggest Increase In Continuances Comes From DHS & EOIR Itself!

http://www.aila.org/advo-media/press-releases/2017/ag-sessions-cites-flawed-facts-imm-court-system

From AILA Executive Director Ben Johnson:

“Once again, the Attorney General cites flawed facts to castigate the immigration bar for the significant case backlog and inefficiencies in our immigration court system,” said Benjamin Johnson, AILA Executive Director. “He blames immigration attorneys for seeking case continuances, disregarding the fact that continuances are also routinely requested by counsel for the government, or are issued unilaterally by the court for administrative reasons. In fact, although the report cited by the Attorney General indicates an 18% increase in continuances requested by respondents, that same report found a 54% increase in continuances requested by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and a 33% increase in ‘Operational-related’ continuances. That said, continuances are often a necessary means to ensure due process is afforded in removal proceedings. The number one reason a continuance is requested by a respondent is to find counsel. Other reasons include securing and authenticating documentary evidence from foreign countries, or to locating critical witnesses. And when the government refuses to share information from a client’s immigration file and instead makes them go through the lengthy process of a Freedom of Information/Privacy Act request, a continuance is often a client’s only lifeline to justice. For the AG to blame immigration lawyers for imagined trespasses is both malicious and wrong. We will not let that misinformation pass without setting the record straight.

“The immigration court backlog is a function of years and years of government spending on enforcement without a commensurate investment in court resources. Our nation would be better served if the immigration courts were an independent judiciary, free from the auspices of the Department of Justice, where every immigrant has access to counsel. Immigration court is not small claims court or traffic court; each decision has the potential to tear apart families or keep them together, to destroy businesses or build our economy, to send someone back to certain death, or bring hope for a new and better life. Immigration judges should make those decisions with all information at hand, without any undue influence or arbitrary case completion requirements. That is a goal we can all work toward.”

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Sure matches my observations from the latter part of my career at the U.S. immigration Court in Arlington, VA!

Probably 75% of the cases on my “Non-Detained Docket” were there NOT at the request of a respondent or his or her attorney. No, they were “mass transferred and continued” to my docket unilaterally by EOIR to fulfill “Border Priorities” established by the DOJ during the Obama Administration as an adjunct to changing DHS Enforcement priorities.

And, these weren’t “short continuances” to find a lawyer or prepare an application as might be requested by a respondent or a private bar lawyer. NO, these were “Merits Hearing” cases that had often been set for late 2016 or 2017 hearings before one of my colleagues, only to be “continued” by EOIR to my docket for dates many additional years in the future. Indeed, many of these cases were unilaterally removed by EOIR from “Individual Dockets” and “orbited” to my “Master Calendars” (arraignments) years in the future — indeed years after I would be retired. That’s because my docket was already completely full for several years when this chapter of ADR started.

And the same was true for my colleague Judge Lawrence O. Burman. Indeed, at the time I retired, Judge Burman and I were the ONLY judges hearing “nonpriority, non-detained cases” — even though those cases were BY FAR the majority of cases on the Arlington Court Docket. And, to make things worse, my “replacement” retired at the end of 2016 thus resulting in a whole new “round” of ADR.

Talk about ADR driven by incompetent administration and improper political meddling from the DOJ. And, from everything “Gonzo” has said and I have heard about what’s happening at EOIR, such impropriety has become “normalized” under the Trump Administration.

No court system can run efficiently and fairly when the perceived interests of one of the parties are elevated over fairness, Due Process, equal justice, and reaching correct decisions under the law. No court system can run efficiently and fairly when control over day-to-day dockets is stripped from the local US Immigration Judges and Court Administrators and hijacked by officials in Washington and Falls Church driven by political performance objectives not by practical knowledge and day-to-day considerations of how to construct and run a docket for maximum fairness and efficiency under local conditions (the most important of which is the an adequate number of pro bono lawyers to represent respondents).

NO OTHER MAJOR COURT SYSTEM IN AMERICA OPERATES THE WAY EOIR DOES! THAT SHOULD TELL US SOMETHING!

So, why is “Gonzo Apocalypto” being allowed to get away with misrepresenting the facts and intentionally running the Immigration Court system for the perceived benefit of one of the parties and against the interests of the other? There is a simple term for such conduct: Ethical Misconduct. Usually, it results in the loss or suspension of the offender’s license to practice law. Why is Gonzo above accountability?

PWS

12-12-17

THE GIBSON REPORT — 12-11-17

THE GIBSON REPORT 12-12-17

HERE ARE THE HEADLINES:

“TOP UPDATES

Concerning I-765 form and instructions, comments open until Dec. 12

Three worrisome changes caught by KIND:

requirement to provide a passport or US or foreign government-issued ID applies to those with asylum-pending or withholding granted (as well as SIJs, and T & U nonimmigrants); this is a major break with past practice, and huge obstacle.

if asylum is pending, requires arrest and conviction records. The EAD will be denied if you have been convicted of an aggravated felony, and USCIS will evaluate the arrest records to determine that. This is a procedural due process problem in that this is an ultimate question to be determined by the adjudicator of the asylum application.

option of using a “Safe Mailing Address” is buried deep in the instructions where it’s easy to miss, and limits it to VAWA, T and U applicants.

Update on Joint Motions

From the OCC duty attorney via Make the Road:

she generally reviews all proposed JMTRs, and makes a decision by written letter as to whether to join, decline, or request more information

she has a significant backlog such that she is still reviewing proposed JMTRs filed in November of 2016… (Note from EG: when I spoke with her in April of 2017, she was doing September of 2016)

without an “exceptional or unusual” circumstance such as urgent need to travel because of death or illness, she wouldn’t prioritize reviewing one sooner

if I am concerned about the wait, she encourages me to “seek prosecutorial discretion from ERO through a stay or deferred action.”

Sessions outlines principles to reduce immigration case backlog

DOJ: “[DOJ aims] to reduce the so-called “backlog” by realigning the agency towards completing cases, increasing both productivity and capacity, and changing policies that lead to inefficiencies and delay justice.”

EOIR Memo on Renewing Our Commitment to the Timely and Efficient Adjudication of Immigration Cases to Serve the National Interest

EOIR Strategic Caseload Reduction Plan

NYCB: Quotas in Immigration Courts Would Be Neither Efficient Nor Just (Full disclosure from EG: I helped draft this and am on the committee).

AILA: AG Sessions Cites Flawed Facts in Missive on the Immigration Court System

PRUCOL for Asylum Applicants (see attached)

Effective immediately, PRUCOL status will be granted to Asylum applicants with EAD cards for the purpose of Cash Assistance eligibility, which in turn has implications for rental assistance.

New Federal Lawsuit on Behalf of Lawful Permanent Residents Denied the Opportunity to Become U.S. Citizens Because of Disabilities

Legal Services NYC’s Bronx program, Immigrant Justice Corps, Alaska Immigration Justice Project, and WilmerHale filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of nine LPRs from New York, Massachusetts, and Alaska, who are statutorily eligible to apply for citizenship, but who have mental health or cognitive impairments which make it impossible for them to learn English and pass the English and civics tests ordinarily required to become U.S. citizens. The lawsuit was filed against the DHS and USCIS.

NIJC and Immigrant Rights Advocates Demand Civil Rights Investigation into ICE Raids that Targeted Sponsors of Unaccompanied Children

Eight immigrant rights organizations filed a complaint with DHS OIG and Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on behalf of some of the 400 people detained in raids during the summer of 2017 that used unaccompanied children to identify and target their relatives living in the United States. AILA Doc. No. 17120762

DOS Updates Guidance Due To New Court Orders on Presidential Proclamation

DOS provided updated guidance due to the 12/4/17 Supreme Court orders that granted the government’s motions for emergency stays of preliminary injunctions. Per the orders, restrictions will be implemented fully, in accordance with the Presidential Proclamation, around the world, beginning 12/8/17. AILA Doc. No. 17120830

CBP Muster: Policy Regarding Border Search of Information

CBP created a muster regarding border searches of electronic devices. Notes such searches may include searches of the information physically present on the device when presented for inspection or during its detention. Obtained by a FOIA request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. AILA Doc. No. 17120636.

DHS Provides ICE and CBP End of FY2017 Statistics

DHS released a summary of its end-of-the-year immigration enforcement numbers. In FY2017, CBP reported 310,531 apprehensions nationwide, 303,916 of which were along the Southwest border. In FY2017, ICE conducted 143,470 arrests and 226,119 removals. AILA Doc. No. 17120534

EOIR Final Rule on Denials of Suspension of Deportation and Cancellation of Removal

EOIR final rule adopting without change the rule proposed at 81 FR 86291 on 11/30/16. The final rule allows IJs and the BIA to issue final denials of suspension of deportation and cancellation of removal applications regardless of whether the annual cap has been reached. (82 FR 57336, 12/5/17) AILA Doc. No. 17120530

ACTIONS

Sign petition to Judge DiFiore – on keeping ICE out of NY courts.

IDP Push on State Pardons: We have reason to think that the Governor’s office may be more likely to grant pending pardon applications (and more in the future) if we package together compelling cases. If you have pardon applications currently pending (or that could be submitted soon) where someone would receive some kind of immigration benefit and would like to be included in this joint advocacy effort, please email awellek@immigrantdefenseproject.org by 12/13: 1-2 paragraphs about the applicant. It should cover who the applicant is, their equities, what their convictions are, and the current posture of their immigration case and how a pardon will help.

NYIC and CUNY survey of gang-related issues – deadline 12/15/17

RESOURCES

Protecting the Administration of Justice in New York State: Impact of ICE Arrests on New Yorkers’ Access to State Courthouses – The Fund for Modern Courts today released a report, which proposes four new policies and protocols to ameliorate the significant increase of enforcement actions by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (“ICE”) in state courthouses and to ensure the proper administration of justice.

Updated USCIS District Office Charts (attached) – IJC: In addition to the appointment of a new District Director, there has been some significant reorganization of case processing departments – instead of case-specific units, the office is now organized by geography/borough.

The Mixed Motives of Unaccompanied Child Migrants from Central America’s Northern Triangle – Using data from a 2016 survey carried out in 10 shelters for unaccompanied child migrants run by a Mexican government child welfare agency, the paper identifies the immigrating minor’s motives, which are oftentimes mixed.

· USCIS Provides FAQs on Rejected DACA Requests”

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Thanks, Elizabeth, for keeping the members of the “New Due Process Army” informed!

You’re the greatest!

PWS

12-12-17

WASHINGTON POST: GONZO’S IMMIGRATION COURT “REFORMS” WILL CREATE “KANGAROO COURTS!” —Recent “moves to evaluate judges based on the speed with which they handle dockets that typically exceed 2,000 cases, rather than on fair adjudication, is a recipe for assembly-line injustice.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-deportation-tough-talk-hurts-law-abiding-immigrants/2017/12/10/9a87524a-a93b-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html

The Post Editorial Board writes:

“The broader dysfunction in America’s immigration system remains largely unchanged. Federal immigration courts are grappling with a backlog of some 600,000 cases, an epic logjam. The administration wants to more than double the number of the 300 or so immigration judges, but that will take time. And its recent moves to evaluate judges based on the speed with which they handle dockets that typically exceed 2,000 cases, rather than on fair adjudication, is a recipe for assembly-line injustice.

Mr. Trump’s campaign bluster on deportation was detached from reality. He said he’d quickly deport 2 million or 3 million criminal illegal immigrants, but unless he’s counting parking scofflaws and jaywalkers, he won’t find that many “bad hombres” on the loose. In fact, legal and illegal immigrants are much less likely to end up in jail than U.S. citizens, according to a study by the Cato Institute.

The president’s sound and fury on deportation signify little. He has intensified arrests, disrupting settled and productive lives, families and communities — but to what end? Only an overhaul of America’s broken immigration system offers the prospect of a more lasting fix.”

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Read the full article at the link.

The Post also points out the damage caused by Trump’s racist “bad hombres” rabble rousing and the largely bogus nature of the Administration’s claims to be removing “dangerous criminals.” No, the latter would require some professionalism and real law enforcement skills. Those characteristics are non-existent among Trump Politicos and seem to be in disturbingly short supply at DHS. To crib from Alabama GOP Senator Richard Shelby’s statement about “Ayatollah Roy:” Certainly DHS can do better than Tom Homan.

And certainly America can do better than a US Immigration Court run by White Nationalist Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions. Gonzo’s warped concept of Constitutional Due Process is limited to insuring that he himself is represented by competent counsel as he forgets, misrepresents, misleads, mis-construes, and falsifies his way through the halls of justice.

Jeff Sessions does not represent America or American justice. The majority of American voters who did not want the Trump debacle in the first place still have the power to use the system to eventually restore decency, reasonableness, compassion, and integrity to American Government and to send the “Trump White Nationalist carpetbaggers” packing. The only question is whether or not we are up to the task!

PWS

12-12-17

THE TRUMP/SESSIONS XENOPHOBIC ANTI-REFUGEE BIAS THREATENS TO DESTROY EVERY ASPECT OF AMERICAN SOCIETY, INCLUDING OUR STAR CHEFS & OUR IMMIGRATION-INSPIRED CRUSINE!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/in-praise-of-refugee-chefs-they-came-from-syria-but-they-represent-an-american-ideal/2017/12/06/64e7c4be-c400-11e7-aae0-cb18a8c29c65_story.html

Marin Cogan reports for the Washington Post:

“On a Thursday morning in June, near the end of Ramadan, Majed Abdulraheem arrives for work at Union Kitchen. The brightly lit, shared commercial kitchen space in Northeast Washington is ﬁlled with chef’s tables, pastry racks and the bustling of a dozen cooks building ﬂedgling businesses. It’s Chef Majed’s second time at work today. Fasting makes the daytime heat of the kitchen too hard to manage, and so he was in the kitchen preparing orders late last night, into the early morning.

Abdulraheem, 29, works at Foodhini, a meal delivery service that employs immigrant chefs in Washington. The start-up was founded by Noobtsaa Philip Vang, a child of refugees from Laos, who discovered, after arriving from Minnesota to Georgetown three years ago to get his MBA, that he was missing the Hmong cuisine he grew up with. “I was really craving some of my mom’s food,” says Vang, “and I was thinking I wanted to find a grandma or auntie that was living in the neighborhood somewhere and just buy some of their food.”

He started mulling his own family’s immigration story: When his mom came to the United States, she had limited English skills, and finding work was difficult. His dad sometimes worked multiple jobs, sleeping in his car between shifts, to make sure the family had enough money to survive. What his mother did have, which might have been marketable if only she’d had the resources, was incredible skill as a chef. “There’s got to be a way to create opportunities for people like my mom,” he thought.

Abdulraheem is one of Foodhini’s first chefs. On its website, he offers a menu of his own design: bamiatan, a dish of crisp mini okra sauteed in garlic and topped with cilantro; mutabbal, an eggplant-tahini dip similar to baba ghanouj; and kebab hindi, meatballs cooked in a spiced tomato stew. Like Vang, his love for food and for family are inextricably intertwined: Many of the items on Abdulraheem’s menu are dishes his mother used to make for him when he was a kid growing up in a small town in southern Syria. Even after attending culinary school in Syria, and after years of working in restaurants, he still considers her, his original teacher, to be the better chef.

“You have to love cooking to be good at it,” Abdulraheem tells me through an interpreter. He is preparing the vegetables for fattoush, a staple salad of lettuce, tomato and crunchy pita chips. He stacks long leaves of romaine lettuce, one on top of the other, slicing them crosswise into small confetti ribbons as he talks, before perfectly dicing tomatoes. He cuts huge lemons in half, just once, and squeezes the juice out of them effortlessly. It’s a simple dish but one he loves to make, because it’s both universal and endlessly customizable. “I’m making fattoush, my wife will make fattoush, you can make fattoush,” he says. “But each time it will come out a little bit different, because it’s a reflection of you.”

Majed Abdulraheem and wife Walaa Jadallah at their home in Riverdale Park, Md. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

When Abdulraheem arrived here in 2016, he became part of a long history of immigrants — often refugees — who reached the United States and began making food. You can find this tradition in Eden Center, the Northern Virginia strip mall packed with pho restaurants and pan-Asian groceries, built up by Vietnamese refugees in the 1980s. You can see it in the popular Ethiopian restaurants on U Street; in the restaurants of Peter Chang, who fled Washington’s Chinese Embassy in 2003 and acquired one of the most loyal followings of any chef in America; or in the Thai and Indian restaurants in large cities and small towns across the country.

. . . .

What Abdulraheem and other refugee chefs bring when they come to America has implications beyond the kitchen. Cooking the dishes — sharing the foods of their home country — is a way of ensuring “that identity and heritage are not lost just because the homeland is,” says Poopa Dweck, author of the book “Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews.” They are “documenting history, in some way, for the next generation.”

It’s this diversity — the richness of so many cuisines and cultures, brought from all over the world — that makes American food so outstanding. At the moment, however, that tradition is under threat. The Trump administration has dedicated a lot of energy to barring Syrian refugees like Abdulraheem from coming into the country, while waging a multifront campaign against undocumented immigrants from Latin America. Continuing on this path would have a profound impact — not just on our food, but on our national identity.

It can be hard to explain to people who view immigration as a threat just what we stand to lose when we turn away from this ideal. Maybe a grand argument about American values isn’t the best place to begin. Maybe it’s best to start smaller, somewhere closer to home — somewhere like the dinner table.

Abdulraheem’s kebab hindi (meatballs cooked in a spiced tomato stew). (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

There are things that Majed Abdulraheem doesn’t usually talk about when he’s at work chopping vegetables. But they’re on his mind a lot: How, on his last visit to his parents’ home in 2013, they begged him not to return to his apartment in Damascus but to flee Syria across the border to Jordan instead. How he did as his parents asked. And how he never got to see his father, who became ill during his exile, before he died.

. . . .

The culinary education of refugee chefs is unusual. It is at once cosmopolitan — thanks to the fusing of different influences during the chef’s travels — and narrowly defined by both physical barriers and the limitations of circumstance. The journeys of refugee chefs often spark creativity, born of necessity. The education, just like the migration, is sui generis. Just like America.”

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

Read the complete article at the above link.

The irony is certainly not lost on me. Refugees overcome great obstacles to contribute to America’s greatness; immigrants (including, yes, those without legal status) help us prosper as a society; guys like Trump and Sessions are corrosive negative influences who contribute little of positive value and do great damage to our country, our society, and our collective future every day they hold power, despite having having been given every chance to make positive contributions.

America’s continued greatness, and perhaps our ultimate survival as a nation, depends on whether we can use the legal system and the ballot box to remove corrosive influences like Trump, Sessions, and their ill-intentioned cronies from office before they can completely destroy our country.

PWS

12-10-17

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? — Mexican Journalist Emilio Gutierrez Who Exposed Government Corruption Received A Press Freedom Award from the National Press Club In Washington, DC. In Oct. 2016 – Now He Says The Trump Administration Plans To Kill Him By Denying His Asylum Application!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/denied-asylum-and-facing-deportation-mexican-journalist-says-hell-be-killed-if-sent-home/2017/12/08/15e96746-dc4c-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?utm_term=.eb9496127724

Nick Miroff reports for the Washington Post:

“A Mexican journalist who sought asylum in the United States in 2008 was arrested by U.S. immigration agents this week and told he would be deported, though an appeals board temporarily halted his removal Friday — sparing his life for now, he said.

Emilio Gutierrez, 54, who in October received a press freedom award from the National Press Club in Washington, said he and his 24-year-old son, Oscar, were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday while trying to enter an appeal to their asylum claim.

“We can’t go back to Mexico. They’ll kill us,” Gutierrez said, using his attorney’s cellphone to speak from an ICE detention center in Sierra Blanca, Texas.

Gutierrez said he and his son fled northern Mexico’s Chihuahua state in 2008 after he published stories exposing the abuses committed by soldiers who robbed and extorted residents in his hometown, Ascención, a notorious drug trafficking hub.

After soldiers ransacked his home, Gutierrez said he learned his name appeared on a military “kill list,” so he fled across the border into Texas with his then-teeange son.

[I’m a reporter in Mexico. My life is in danger. The U.S. denied me asylum]

In July, after living nine years in the United States, Gutierrez’s asylum request was denied, and an appeal was rejected in early November. His attorney, Eduardo Beckett, said Gutierrez and his son were handcuffed and jailed Thursday when they presented themselves at an ICE processing center to enter an emergency appeal.

. . . .

With drug-related violence at record levels, Mexico has become one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the press, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. More than 40 Mexican reporters have been murdered since 1992 for performing their jobs, including at least five this year. Only Iraq and Syria were more dangerous for the press in 2017, according to CPJ.

Journalists working in small towns plagued by drug cartel violence are especially vulnerable, but the dead have included staffers at some of Mexico’s leading publications.

Bill McCarren, the executive director of the National Press Club, said the organization gave Gutierrez this year’s press freedom award to draw attention to the plight of Mexico’s imperiled journalists. McCarren was alarmed to find out ICE agents were trying to send Gutierrez back to a place where his life would be in danger.

“This is a critical, existential issue for Emilio, but also a critical issue for all journalists in Mexico,” McCarren said in an interview. “It’s a concern for us that the United States, that stands for free press as a bedrock principle of our democracy, would not make a place for him here when he’s so clearly at risk.”

. . . .

But Hootsen said his organization cautions reporters against seeking asylum in the United States because the requests are likely to be denied. “The United States is obviously the place that first comes to mind for Mexican reporters who need to flee the country,” said Hootsen, “so it’s important for U.S. authorities to take their claims seriously and give them a fair hearing.”

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

Read Miroff’s complete story at the link.

Jeff Sessions would have you believe that frivolous asylum cases and failure to crank denials off the Immigration Court assembly line more quickly are the biggest problems. Not true!

Those of us who have spent a lifetime working in the system and actually understand asylum law, the correct legal criteria, and the shortcomings of EOIR know that the real crisis here is that far too many meritorious claims for protection are being denied by stressed and rushed Immigration Judges who don’t correctly understand asylum and protection law, are unsympathetic to asylum seekers, are forced to deal with unrepresented or underrepresented asylum applicants, or are afraid to put their careers on the line to stand up to politicos in this and other Administrations who seek to artificially limit the number of asylum grants at the potential expense of individual’s lives and safety.

PWS

12-10-17

NO SURPRISE HERE! — TRUMP’S GONZO IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT PRODUCES LESS THAN ADVERTISED – Majority Of So-Called “Criminal” Arrests & Removals Apparently Involve Relatively Minor Offenders!

http://theweek.com/speedreads/741645/ice-isnt-rounding-violent-criminals-like-trump-promised

Kelly O’Meara Morales reports for The Week:

“U.S. immigration agents are going after minor offenders rather than the hardened criminals President Trump repeatedly warned about, a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement reveals. Illegal crossings into the United States have dropped and immigration arrests are up under the Trump administration, but the report suggests nearly three-quarters of those apprehensions have been for minor transgressions.

Of the 143,470 immigration arrests made in fiscal year 2017, less than 25 percent of the people arrested had been convicted of or charged with violent crimes. Although the ICE report notes that 92 percent of the people arrested between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, 2017, did have some criminal convictions or charges against them, the top four criminal charges against those arrested were described as DUIs, “dangerous drugs,” immigration-related violations, or traffic offenses.

In January, Trump signed an executive order to crack down on illegal immigration and declared that “many aliens who illegally enter the United States … present a significant threat to national security and public safety.” Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan indicated at a press conference Tuesday that the agency would have more “collateral arrests” of people who were not initially targeted in ICE raids: “We’re going to arrest them either way. Chances are when we go to their homes, or place of business, we’re going to find other illegal aliens that weren’t even on our radar to begin with.”

Deportations are down 6 percent from 2016, however, and there is currently a backlog of more than 650,000 cases in immigration courts. Read the full report on ICE arrests and deportations here. Kelly O’Meara Morales”

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The Administration apparently continues to focus on relatively “low hanging fruit” rather than engaging in the more difficult task of rounding up more dangerous criminals.

PWS

12-10-17

CHECK OUT MY 17-POINT “IMMIGRATION CONSUMERS’ PROTECTION PROGRAM” (“ICPP”)!

IMMIGRATION CONSUMERS’ PROTECTION PROGRAM (“ICPP”)

BY Paul Wickham Schmidt, United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

Get a lawyer.
Make sure lawyer is real & reputable.
- Confirm bar admission and check complaints online.
- Firm website should confirm that immigration is a primary area of practice.
- Google published immigration cases and check results.
Get it in writing.
- In a language you understand.
If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.
Play to tell the truth.
- With lawyer, court, DHS.
Keep your appointments with your lawyer.
- Time is money – YOUR money!
- Lawyer needs complete and accurate information to help.
Show up for all Immigration Court hearings at least 30 minutes early.
- Failing to appear (“FTA”) is the worst possible thing you can do in Immigration Court.
- FTA = Final Order of Removal = Arrest, Detention & Immediate Removal = YOU become “low hanging fruit” for DHS’s “jacked up” removal goals!
Dress the part.
- No cutoffs, t-shirts, flip-flops, halter-tops, crop tops, underwear showing, muscle shirts, flashy distracting jewelry, “rainbow hair,” shirts with (particularly political) slogans, baseball caps in Immigration Court.
- Dress as you would to go to the funeral of someone you respected.
Avoid the “Big Five:”
- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Domestic violence
- Gangs
- Driving violations of all types.
  - OWLs can be a problem and eventually turn into felonies in Virginia!
  - That’s what busses, trains, friends, co-workers, bikes, and strong legs are for.
- Keep all documents – originals and at least one copy.
  - Never give away originals (unless the judge requires it) or your only copy of a document.
- Pay taxes.
- Stay in school or keep employed.
- Ask questions.
  - Insist on an explanation that you understand in a language you understand.
- Don’t sign anything you don’t understand.
  - Make sure everything has been translated for you.
- Comply with all court orders.
- Use available resources:
  - Internet
  - 1-800 number
  - Immigration Court Practice Manual (“ICPM”) (online).
- Don’t forget family and friends.
  - They can be some of your best resources.

(12-10-17)

This outline contains some of the points that I emphasized during my two Spanish-language radio appearances in Richmond, Virginia on Friday, December 8, 2017!

PWS

12-10-17

LAW YOU CAN USE: HON. JEFFREY CHASE ANALYZES EFFECT OF SENDING CHILDREN TO COUNTRY OF ASYLUM – POTENTIALLY PROBLEMATIC, BUT NOT NECESSARILY FATAL!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2017/12/8/the-impact-of-returning-children-on-well-founded-fear

Dec 8 The Impact of Returning Children on Well-Founded Fear

I received a request to discuss the following hypothetical: an asylum-seeking couple has a U.S. citizen child. Because of the need for both parents to work, they send the child to their country of origin. The question is what impact the asylum seekers’ decision to send the child to the country of feared persecution has on their well-founded fear of persecution. If the asylum claim is based on past persecution, does the decision in any way rebut the presumption of a future fear of persecution? In claims based solely on prospective persecution, does the decision impact whether the parents have a genuine subjective fear of persecution?

Applicants who suffered past persecution

Where the parents suffered past persecution, the sending of the child to the parents’ country of origin does not rebut the presumption of future fear as a matter of law. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.16(b)(1)(i) provides two ways in which the presumption may be rebutted: through a showing (by a preponderance of evidence) of (1) “a fundamental change in circumstances such that the applicant’s life or freedom would not be threatened,” or (2) the applicant’s ability to avoid the threat of future harm by relocating to another part of the country. I am not aware of binding case law addressing children sent to the country of origin. However, circuit case law has considered the return of the asylum seekers themselves. In Kone v. Holder, 596 F.3d 141 (2d Cir. 2010), an immigration judge had ruled that the asylum seeker’s own return to the country of origin rebutted the presumption of well-founded fear arising from the past persecution. The circuit court reversed, noting that the IJ’s “cursory analysis” failed to make a finding of either a fundamental change in circumstances or the possibility of internal relocation as required for a rebuttal finding by 8 C.F.R. §1208.16(b)(1)(i). The circuit court thus concluded that the IJ’s finding “suggests the erroneous belief that voluntary return trips are sufficient, as a matter of law, to rebut the presumption of future persecution to which [the asylum seeker] is entitled.” The court referenced the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Boer-Sedano v. Gonzales, 418 F.3d 1082. In that case, the Ninth Circuit held that “the existence of return trips standing alone” could not rebut the presumption; such return trips could be considered “as one factor, among others, to rebut the presumption.”

If the presumption of well-founded fear is not rebutted by the return of the asylum seeker, it certainly is not rebutted by the return of the child. The decision to send the child, and the manner in which the child was treated, could be considered as a possible factor in determining whether a fundamental change in circumstances occurred or the possibility of internal relocation exists. However, it is a factor that must be considered in the context of the feared harm. For example, where the feared persecution is specific to the asylum applicant alone, or of a type that could not be visited on the child (i.e. the return of a male child where the feared harm is female genital cutting or forcible abortion), the return is not likely to have much significance. But the factfinder may find greater meaning where the claimant fears widespread attacks on members of her race, tribe, or religion, yet sends a child possessing the same trait to stay with family members similarly at risk.

However, even then, the courts have looked at the specific circumstances involved. In Mukamusoni v. Ashcroft, 390 F.3d 125-26 (1st Cir. 2004), a rape victim returned to Rwanda to pursue the free education available to her in that country; after departing, she returned one more time to obtain her transcript to allow her to continue her studies in the U.S. The court concluded that under the circumstances, the returns did not undermine the applicant’s claimed fear of future persecution, noting that “[f]aced with no viable means of support otherwise, people take risks in the face of their fears.”

2. Applicants whose fear is prospective only

The USCIS Asylum Officer Training materials on “well-founded fear” do not mention the return of children. However, they do address two related topics: the impact of the return of the asylum seeker him/herself to the country of feared persecution; and the persecution (or lack thereof) of individuals closely related to the applicant. Regarding the former, the USCIS materials rely on circuit court decisions to conclude that whether the applicant’s own return indicates a lack of subjective fear of persecution or alternatively “does not necessarily defeat the claim” is circumstance-specific, and depends on why the applicant returned, and what occurred when they did. See USCIS, RAIO Combined Training Course, Well-Founded Fear Training Module (June 15, 2014) Section 9, pp.22-24. The USCIS training materials note that the Ninth Circuit has held that the return of an asylum seeker “did not undercut the genuineness of her fear” where the purpose of the return was to retrieve her child after the death of the child’s custodian, or, in another case, to aid his uncle and sister who had been arrested. Id. at 22. The USCIS materials also look to what happened upon the asylum seeker’s return. The materials reference yet another Ninth Circuit case, Karouni v. Gonzales, 399 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2005), in which an asylum applicant returned once to his country to attend to his dying father, but cut his trip short because of his fear of persecution, leaving before the father’s funeral. The applicant returned a second time to attend to his dying mother, but had to delay the trip due to a fear of persecution so that he did not return until the mother had already passed away. The court concluded that these visits did not undermine the applicant’s fear.

Regarding the treatment of relatives, the USCIS training materials provide a hypothetical in which an asylum applicant’s sister is arrested based on her political opinion. The materials state that such arrest should be considered in determining the applicant’s own fear where, e.g. the sister lived in the same city and was active in the same political party as the applicant. However, the sister’s arrest need not be considered if the two were not close, lived in different regions, and were not members of the same party. See Id. section 6, pp. 18-19.

In transposing this approach to the example of children sent to the country of feared persecution, the inquiry would be into whether a connection exists between the child and the applicant’s reason for fearing persecution. When I was an immigration judge, ICE trial attorneys would sometimes comment in such cases that “no refugees sent their children back to Nazi Germany.” Of course, if the asylum applicant based his or her fear on a comparably extreme situation, i.e. that anyone who was a member of their race, nationality/ethnicity/tribe, or religion would be at grave risk, and that family remaining in the country were hiding in fear of discovery, then sending one’s child back to that country to stay with those relatives could open an inquiry into whether the applicant possessed a genuine subjective fear of persecution. However, where that is not the basis of the fear, the question would be what, if any, risk extends to the child? Furthermore, even if such risk was found to exist, as noted above, the reason for sending the child would be weighed against the risk. Whether the feared persecutors were aware of the children’s return, and if so, what their reaction was might also be considered, depending on the specific circumstances.

Copyright 2017 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

JEFF CHASE

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