immigration – Page 275 – immigrationcourtside.com

IMMIGRATIONPROF BLOG: Three Cheers For NY! — State Becomes First To Guarantee Representation For All Detained Immigrants!

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2017/04/new-york-state-becomes-first-in-the-nation-to-provide-lawyers-for-all-immigrants-detained-and-facing.html

Dean Kevin Johnson writes:

“The Vera Institute of Justice and partner organizations today announced that detained New Yorkers in all upstate immigration courts will now be eligible to receive legal counsel during deportation proceedings. The 2018 New York State budget included a grant of $4 million to significantly expand the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), a groundbreaking public defense program for immigrants facing deportation that was launched in New York City in 2013.

New York has become the first state to ensure that no immigrant will be detained and permanently separated from his or her family solely because of the inability to afford a lawyer. Without counsel, a study shows, only 3% of detained, unrepresented immigrants avoid deportation, but providing public defenders can improve an immigrant’s chance of winning and remaining in the United States by as much as 1000%.

NYIFUP has been operating in two of the four affected upstate immigration courts on a limited basis since 2014 with funding from the New York State Assembly and the IDC. In the just-ended fiscal year, the funding was sufficient to meet less than 20% of the need upstate. In New York City, NYIFUP has been representing all financially eligible, otherwise unrepresented detained immigrants since 2014 with funding from the City Council.

Research has shown that keeping immigrant families together saves money for the state’s taxpayers in increased tax revenues and less need for families left behind to draw on the social safety net. New York State employers also receive significant economic benefits from avoiding the loss of productivity when their employees are detained and deported, and the consequent need to identify and train replacement workers.

The first public defender program in the country for immigrants facing deportation, the NYIFUP Coalition includes Vera, the Immigration Justice Clinic of Cardozo Law School, the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Make the Road New York, and The Center for Popular Democracy. The Erie County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project is a NYIFUP Coalition partner upstate. Brooklyn Defender Services, the Legal Aid Society, and The Bronx Defenders are Coalition partners in New York City.

Several cities and states, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and California have recently begun efforts to design similar programs.”

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Good for New York! I hope that other states follow suit.

Representation is the most important contribution that those “outside the system” can make to improving due process in the U.S. Immigration Courts. And, nowhere is it needed more than in often out of the way detention centers. As noted in the article, there is no doubt that representation makes a difference in outcome — a huge difference.

In fact, the statistical difference is so great that one might think that those officials responsible for the U.S. Immigration Court system would long ago have determined that no case could proceed in accordance with due process unless and until the respondent had a lawyer. But, that would be some other place, some other time.

In the meantime, let’s all be thankful for the outstanding example that New York has set!

PWS

04/10/17

JAMESTOWN NY POST-JOURNAL: GW Law Immigration Clinic Students Sarah DeLong & Maley Sullivan On “Bridging The Gap” With Immigrants!

http://www.post-journal.com/opinion/2017/04/bridging-the-gap-between-us-and-immigrants/

“As third-year law students and student-attorneys of the Immigration Clinic at The George Washington University Law School, we have the honor of representing immigrants from around the world while guiding them through our very complex immigration system.

Through this experience, we’ve learned that immigrants are just like us. They share our values of family and community; education and opportunity; freedom and security. They’re individuals who are trying to make the best decisions for themselves and for their loved ones.

But in many ways immigrants are not like us. There are some things that you and I will never fully understand. There are some things that we, having grown up under the cloak of privilege afforded us by our status as natural born citizens of the United States, will never have to endure.

So how do we bridge this gap? Why should we take time from our uniquely challenging lives to appreciate and understand our privilege? To what end?

For many student-attorneys, the answer is simple: I am an immigrant. I was an immigrant. My parents are or were immigrants. For the two of us, and countless others, however, what we view as our obligation to welcome and accommodate immigrants has been challenged regularly by our government, our communities, and even our families.

. . . .

We have learned countless lessons from working in the Immigration Clinic. Not the least, we have learned that, although our privilege may protect us from ever having to stand in the shoes of our clients, it has afforded us the extraordinary opportunity to confront the status quo and encourage reconciliation.”

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I encourage everyone to read the complete article at the link. Thanks to Professor Alberto Benitez of the GW Immigration Clinic for bringing this to my attention. And, thanks to Sarah and Maley for your caring, your insights, and all that you are doing for America.

PWS

04-09-17

HuffPost: Larry Strauss — Trump, Sessions, & Co. Are On The Wrong Side Of History — “If you are knowingly hurting children, there is something wrong with you, whether or not you have the law on your side.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deportations-immigration-trump-children_us_58e66103e4b0773c0d3ebbb5?0tr

Larry Strauss, veteran high school teacher and basketball coach; author, “Students First and Other Lies” writes in HuffPost:

“Trump and his supporters have their own moral arguments. They say we must put America and Americans first. Of course these phrases express geographic ignorance, since many of the people they wish to expel are, in fact, Americans (the U.S. being but one country in America). But we know what they mean. Why should citizens of the United States be sympathetic to people from other places when so many of our own people are struggling so mightily? One can argue that undocumented individuals are not actually taking away jobs or other resources from those born here, but it’s a tough sell to someone whose financial fortunes have collapsed in the last five or ten or twenty years. The students in my classroom who were brought here or born to parents who came here will almost uniformly go further than those parents and enjoy prosperity far beyond that of those parents. It is not surprising that they are resented by those Americans (of the U.S. variety) whose prospects are far less than those of their parents and grandparents.

But politics and policies born of resentment cannot be good for the soul of our country. Nor can any law — ANY LAW ANYWHERE — that, for any reason, hurts children. If you are knowingly hurting children, there is something wrong with you, whether or not you have the law on your side.

Every year the school at which I teach enrolls students in my classes and whoever those children are I teach the hell out of their class for them — and so do most of my colleagues.

When you work with kids you don’t decide who deserves to be taught and encouraged. Where they come from and how they got here just doesn’t matter. I once taught the grand-daughter of a Nazi who’d escaped to El Salvador after World War II. The girl owed me no apology or explanation. Just her best effort and her homework on time — most of the time.

So I am not sympathetic to those who wish to punish the children of those who snuck into our country — or those who came on false pretenses.

I wish that Jeff Sessions and his ICE men and women would restrict their deportations to serious criminals — those no country wants. Why are federal agents wasting time and resources on people who’ve committed minor crimes? Are such actions any better than a municipality shutting down a lemonade stand because of a city ordinance?

Here’s an idea: if the crime of an undocumented immigrant does not exceed the crime of Jeff Sessions himself (perjury, that is) then let them stay. And if the harm of the deportation exceeds the harm of the deportee’s crime then let’s have a little collective heart.

We are a nation of laws but if those laws are being used to harm people for political expedience by indulging bigotry and ethnic paranoia, then those laws do not deserve out respect and the politicians exploiting them do not deserve our support.

Those who deported Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the 1930s were within the law — but on the wrong side of history.

Those who interned Japanese Americans in the 1940s were within the law — but on the wrong side of history.

Those who forced Native American children into border schools to assimilate them were within the law — but on the wrong side of history.

Trump and Sessions are within the law — at least they are on immigration enforcement — but their cruelty is dragging us all onto the wrong side of history.”

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I couldn’t agree more with Strauss’s sentiments, although I’m not willing to say that everything Trump, Sessions, Kelly, and company are proposing is within the law. In fact, they seem to be heading toward some massive violations of the due process guaranteed by law.

However, “nations that turn their backs on children will be dealt with harshly by history” is the gist of an earlier op-ed that I wrote criticizing the Obama Administration’s inhumane and wrong-headed prioritization of recently arrived women and children for removal. http://wp.me/P8eeJm-1A.

While the “Obama priorities” were rescinded upon the change of Administration, the Trump Administration appears to have an even crueler and more inhumane fate in store for women and children seeking refuge from the Northern Triangle: detention, expedited removal, attempts to deny the fair opportunity to apply for asylum, intentional restriction of access to counsel, criminal prosecution of parents seeking to save their children, and an overall atmosphere of coercion and mistreatment meant to encourage those who have recently arrived to abandon their claims for refuge and to discourage others from coming to seek refuge under our laws. Only time will tell whether the Article III Courts will allow the Administration to get away with it.

I particularly like Strauss’s use of the “Sessions standard” — anybody who has done no more than perjure themselves under oath should be allowed to stay. And, talk about someone who has lived on the “wrong side of history” for his entire life, yet stubbornly refuses to change: well, that’s the very definition of Jeff Sessions’s depressingly uninspiring career. Given a chance for some redemption late in life, he’s instead choosing to “double down” on his biases and narrow outlook. Jeff had better hope that there’s forgiveness for his sins out there somewhere in the next world.

PWS

04-07-17

WashPost: ICE Arrests 82 In DC Area — 75% Have Criminal Convictions!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/ice-arrests-82-in-five-day-sweep-in-virginia-maryland-and-dc/2017/04/05/9b5b6304-1a30-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_iceraid-756pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.8c98e3403a5e

Patricia Sullivan reports:

“Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 82 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District last week, including one who they said was identified as an officer in command of a Somali organization known for human rights abuses, rape, torture and killings.

The arrests included 68 people with previous criminal convictions, ICE said in a news release that described the five-day operation as a routine, “targeted immigration enforcement.”

Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the U.S. illegally after being deported, can be immediately removed from the country. Others will remain in custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending deportation arrangements.

The Somali, a 50-year-old male, was picked up in Falls Church and was a second lieutenant in the Somalian National Security Service and had a felony drug conviction, ICE said.

Agents also took into custody two people who have ties to the MS-13 street gang, ICE said, two who already had been given final deportation orders and three who had overstayed their visas.

ICE said two of the targeted individuals had pending local charges and one was wanted by a foreign law enforcement organization. Three more had unlawfully entered the U.S., the agency said.

Most were arrested in Virginia but two were arrested in the District and one in Maryland. Their names were not released.”

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On its face, this appears almost identical to the “targeted enforcement” that the Obama Administration was doing by 2016. What if the Trump Administration had said that it was simply going to refine and build on the prioritization of criminals system already established by the Obama Administration? Would they have engendered so much opposition? Did the melodramatic Executive Orders, the dumb statements by guys like Stephen Miller, and boneheaded expansion of the “criminal alien” concept actually hinder community support for targeting individuals convicted of serious crimes? Has the Trump Administration converted the beginnings of a “smart enforcement” program into a “dumb enforcement” program without actually changing much of the substance?

PWS

04-05-17

Kim Gould In The WSJ Opinion/Letters: “This Immigrant Problem Is More Imagined Than Real”

http://This Immigrant Problem Is More Imagined Than Real

“I suspect that the readers who comment negatively about today’s immigrants not assimilating into American culture don’t know any and have spent no time with them (Letters, March 28 responding to Bret Stephens’s “‘Other People’s Babies,’” Global View, March 21). Challenge yourself to do this: Go volunteer at your local school and meet some of the kids, go to community gatherings and meet the parents. You will be pleasantly surprised. Many, possibly most, espouse the best of traditional American conservative values: hard work, a focus on education, thrift, industry and a strong interest in engaging with the larger American community.

Kim Gould

Seattle”

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Couldn’t agree with your more, Kim! Not only is this the experience I have had with the overwhelming number of migrants coming before me over 13 years at the Arlington Immigration Court, but it also matches the “real life” experience our church has had through association with wonderful groups like “Casa Chirilagua” and the “Kids Club” in our Alexandria, Virginia community.

Moreover, there is no such thing as “other people’s babies.” We are morally responsible for the well-being of all children in America, regardless of status. Being fortunate enough to live in the United States is a great privilege and fortune that those of us who were born U.S. citizens received through absolutely no personal merit of our own. Interestingly, only foreign-born naturalized citizens had to go through a merit-based process to achieve U.S. citizenship. With great privilege, comes great responsibility.

PWS

04-05-17

FEEL GOOD STORY OF THE DAY: ICE Gives U.S. Army Vet’s Wife Extension!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-wonderful-day-a-veterans-undocumented-wife-wont-be-deported-by-ice/2017/04/04/9562c3f6-18ba-11e7-bcc2-7d1a0973e7b2_story.html?utm_term=.3b06c1625904&wpisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

Theresa Vargas reports in the Washington Post:

“BALTIMORE — For months, Veronica Castro had dreaded Tuesday, when she was scheduled to check in with immigration officials.

The undocumented immigrant didn’t know whether she would be detained and deported to Mexico or allowed to return home with her husband, a disabled veteran, and their four children, all U.S. citizens who live in Lothian, Md.

On Tuesday, as she and her husband stood in a crowded office in the George H. Fallon Federal Building here, their fears were allayed in less than 30 minutes.

Immigration officials gave Castro another year before she would have to check in again.

“I’m happy,” she said in Spanish, smiling.
“It’s raining, but it’s a wonderful day,” said her husband, Ricardo Pineda, who served in the Army for six years and reached the rank of sergeant. “We get another year, one more year to be together, and hopefully more.”

Three clergy members had accompanied the family into the immigration office, a tiny room with 11 chairs and a flier on the wall that warned of an MS-13 member wanted for murder in Honduras. As they stood in the elevator heading down, a stranger noticed them and asked if there were religious services in the building.

“God is everywhere,” Pineda told him.

Outside, a crowd had gathered to show the family support. Among them was a pastor who had traveled from Chicago and local immigration rights activists who had formed groups only after President Trump’s inauguration. They held signs to let the family know they weren’t alone. “We love you,” read one. “Safety for all,” read others.

Those in the crowd had prayed together and listened as Castro told them her family’s story. The 38-year-old told them about her husband’s medical needs. Pineda, 47, received a medical discharge from the Army and takes medication for diabetes, depression and pain in a hand he injured during combat training. She told them about her four children, two of whom have disabilities. The couple’s 14-year-old son has cerebral palsy and their 17-year-old was left with brain damage after heart surgery as a toddler. His mother helps him bathe, get dressed and walk to and from the bus each day.”

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Kudos to everyone involved here. To Sgt. Pineda and Ms. Castro for having the courage to do the right thing by reporting in accordance with the law and for trusting in “the system.”

To the ICE officials in Baltimore who took the time to understand the facts and had the courage to exercise discretion and do the right thing by allowing Ms. Castro to stay. ICE is taking lots of grief from lots of folks these days (including me), and it’s a good reminder that the overwhelming majority of ICE Officers, including most that I have known over the years, are conscientious professionals doing a very hard job and who, when allowed to do so, often use their discretion to to save individuals that the “law has forgotten.”

And, of course, we shouldn’t forget the couple’s lawyer and the many friends and community supporters who stood with them during this difficult time.

Finally, we only learn about these incidents, both good and bad, from fine reporters like Theresa Vargas who take the time to cover the “human side” of the immigration drama from all angles.

PWS

03-04-17

The Asylum Seeker Assistance Project (“ASAP”) — A Wonderful New DC Area Community Service Organization Making America Really Great! — Special Public Event On Saturday, April 29 — Register Here!

The Asylum Seeker Assistance Project

We thank Judge Paul W. Schmidt for giving us the opportunity to share with you an exciting new project that will provide critically important support to asylum seekers as they pursue their claims for protection in our backlogged immigration court system. We also want to invite those of you who may be local to the DC metro area to join us as we celebrate our first class of 12 asylum seekers completing our job-readiness program. But, first, a bit about the Asylum Seeker Assistance Project (ASAP) and what we do!

Founded in 2016, ASAP is the first and only community-based nonprofit providing comprehensive services to support the estimated 50,000 individuals pursing asylee status in the D.C. Metro region. Our mission is to provide services that support the safety, stability, and economic security of asylum seekers and their families.

Grounded in a strengths-based approach, ASAP combines direct client services with advocacy initiatives to develop programming that promotes community belonging and engagement. By providing access to information, services, and support, ASAP seeks to empower asylum seekers to rebuild their lives in the U.S. and to ensure that we, as a community, take full advantage of their presence and potential.

OUR PROGRAMS

Employment: ASAP’s employment program combines individualized career planning, 30-hours of job readiness training, and job placement services to address common employment barriers encountered by asylum seekers. Our goal is to equip asylum seekers with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to secure and retain safe, legal, and purposeful employment.

Community: ASAP’s community program facilitates opportunities for asylum seekers to connect with each other, ASAP volunteers, and the larger community. We also maintain a list of asylees willing and able to provide support and guidance to newly arrived asylum seekers.

Legal: ASAP offers asylum law trainings, legal information sessions, and “Know Your Rights” workshops on demand to clients, attorneys, law students, and community partners. ASAP can also provide targeted referrals to pro bono and low bono immigration legal service providers.

Outreach: ASAP conducts educational awareness events co-facilitated by asylum seekers and asylees. We have given talks and presentations to audiences ranging from elementary school-aged children to adults. By engaging audiences of all ages, we work to plant the seeds of social change.

(Coming 2018) Social Services: ASAP works with clients to create a comprehensive assessment of their life in the U.S. in order to identify client needs, recognize strengths, and prioritize goals. ASAP works with a coalition of community partners to provide information, resources, and referrals to ensure client safety and stability.

Come and Learn More About Us in Person and Celebrate Asylum Seekers!

Please join us in Bethesda, MD, on Saturday, April 29th from 3-6pm to learn more about the Asylum Seeker Assistance Project (ASAP) as we celebrate our launch with the first class of ASAP clients. This is a family-friendly event with planned activity stations (including face-painting, arts and crafts, henna art, and fishing for ducks!) to entertain the little ones. Food, drinks, and lots of good company will be provided.

Please purchase tickets and sign up for the event here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/together-we-rise-a-family-friendly-celebration-tickets-32993122317

How can I contact the organizer with any questions?

We can be reached at asylumprojectdc@gmail.com, or you can engage with board member Lindsay M. Harris, Assistant Professor of Law at UDC Law teaching in the Immigration and Human Rights clinic at Lindsay.harris@udc.edu.

How can I learn more about ASAP?

Visit our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/asylumprojectdc/

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Thanks to my good friend Professor Lindsay Harris of UDC Law for providing this information. Please note the event on April 29, 2017 is open to all! Please come out to learn, meet, and support this worthy group in its important work!

PWS

04/04/17

LA TIMES CONFRONTS TRUMP IN FOUR PART EDITORIAL SERIES — Here Are Parts 1 & 2 — 1) “Our Dishonest President;” 2) “Why Trump Lies”

“Our Dishonest President”

“These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.

What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.

Although his policies are, for the most part, variations on classic Republican positions (many of which would have been undertaken by a President Ted Cruz or a President Marco Rubio), they become far more dangerous in the hands of this imprudent and erratic man. Many Republicans, for instance, support tighter border security and a tougher response to illegal immigration, but Trump’s cockamamie border wall, his impracticable campaign promise to deport all 11 million people living in the country illegally and his blithe disregard for the effect of such proposals on the U.S. relationship with Mexico turn a very bad policy into an appalling one.

. . . .

On Inauguration Day, we wrote on this page that it was not yet time to declare a state of “wholesale panic” or to call for blanket “non-cooperation” with the Trump administration. Despite plenty of dispiriting signals, that is still our view. The role of the rational opposition is to stand up for the rule of law, the electoral process, the peaceful transfer of power and the role of institutions; we should not underestimate the resiliency of a system in which laws are greater than individuals and voters are as powerful as presidents. This nation survived Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It survived slavery. It survived devastating wars. Most likely, it will survive again.

But if it is to do so, those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard. Protesters must raise their banners. Voters must turn out for elections. Members of Congress — including and especially Republicans — must find the political courage to stand up to Trump. Courts must safeguard the Constitution. State legislators must pass laws to protect their citizens and their policies from federal meddling. All of us who are in the business of holding leaders accountable must redouble our efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.

The United States is not a perfect country, and it has a great distance to go before it fully achieves its goals of liberty and equality. But preserving what works and defending the rules and values on which democracy depends are a shared responsibility. Everybody has a role to play in this drama.

This is the first in a series.”

Read the entire editorial here:

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-our-dishonest-president/

“Why Trump Lies”

“Donald Trump did not invent the lie and is not even its master. Lies have oozed out of the White House for more than two centuries and out of politicians’ mouths — out of all people’s mouths — likely as long as there has been human speech.

But amid all those lies, told to ourselves and to one another in order to amass power, woo lovers, hurt enemies and shield ourselves against the often glaring discomfort of reality, humanity has always had an abiding respect for truth.

In the United States, born and periodically reborn out of the repeated recognition and rejection of the age-old lie that some people are meant to take dominion over others, truth is as vital a part of the civic, social and intellectual culture as justice and liberty. Our civilization is premised on the conviction that such a thing as truth exists, that it is knowable, that it is verifiable, that it exists independently of authority or popularity and that at some point — and preferably sooner rather than later — it will prevail.

Even American leaders who lie generally know the difference between their statements and the truth. Richard Nixon said “I am not a crook” but by that point must have seen that he was. Bill Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” but knew that he did.
The insult that Donald Trump brings to the equation is an apparent disregard for fact so profound as to suggest that he may not see much practical distinction between lies, if he believes they serve him, and the truth.

His approach succeeds because of his preternaturally deft grasp of his audience. Though he is neither terribly articulate nor a seasoned politician, he has a remarkable instinct for discerning which conspiracy theories in which quasi-news source, or which of his own inner musings, will turn into ratings gold. He targets the darkness, anger and insecurity that hide in each of us and harnesses them for his own purposes. If one of his lies doesn’t work — well, then he lies about that.

If we harbor latent racism or if we fear terror attacks by Muslim extremists, then he elevates a rumor into a public debate: Was Barack Obama born in Kenya, and is he therefore not really president?
If his own ego is threatened — if broadcast footage and photos show a smaller-sized crowd at his inauguration than he wanted — then he targets the news media, falsely charging outlets with disseminating “fake news” and insisting, against all evidence, that he has proved his case (“We caught them in a beauty,” he said).

If his attempt to limit the number of Muslim visitors to the U.S. degenerates into an absolute fiasco and a display of his administration’s incompetence, then he falsely asserts that terrorist attacks are underreported. (One case in point offered by the White House was the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, which in fact received intensive worldwide news coverage. The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the subject).

If he detects that his audience may be wearying of his act, or if he worries about a probe into Russian meddling into the election that put him in office, he tweets in the middle of the night the astonishingly absurd claim that President Obama tapped his phones. And when evidence fails to support him he dispatches his aides to explain that by “phone tapping” he obviously didn’t mean phone tapping. Instead of backing down when confronted with reality, he insists that his rebutted assertions will be vindicated as true at some point in the future.

Trump’s easy embrace of untruth can sometimes be entertaining, in the vein of a Moammar Kadafi speech to the United Nations or the self-serving blathering of a 6-year-old.

. . . .

Our civilization is defined in part by the disciplines — science, law, journalism — that have developed systematic methods to arrive at the truth. Citizenship brings with it the obligation to engage in a similar process. Good citizens test assumptions, question leaders, argue details, research claims.

Investigate. Read. Write. Listen. Speak. Think. Be wary of those who disparage the investigators, the readers, the writers, the listeners, the speakers and the thinkers. Be suspicious of those who confuse reality with reality TV, and those who repeat falsehoods while insisting, against all evidence, that they are true. To defend freedom, demand fact.

This is the second in a series.”

Read the complete editorial here:

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-why-trump-lies/

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Stay tuned for parts 3 & 4 in this LA Times editorial series.

PWS

04-03-17

WashPost EDUCATION: Alexandria, VA School PTA Helps Families Deal With ICE Fears — Alexandrians Stand With Their Immigrant Community Neighbors!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/know-your-rights-clinic-in-school-cafeteria-aims-to-allay-immigrant-fears/2017/03/29/fe8af9cc-0fe9-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.a5bbff25be59

Moriah Balingit reports:

“In a school cafeteria adorned with whimsical children’s artwork, the men and women hunched over thick packets of paper one recent night, fiddling with pen caps and rubbing their foreheads as they confronted a challenge: preparing for what happens if immigration agents show up at the door.

Some at this clinic in Northern Virginia were undocumented, and others had relatives in that situation. Some had legal status but were not permanent residents, and they wondered what shifts in federal immigration policy would mean for them and their relatives.

Juan Torres, a carpenter from Honduras and father of four, has temporary protected status, but he has family members who are undocumented.

“Of course, I was very worried, because the majority of my family doesn’t have documents, and at any moment they could be arrested or detained,” Torres said.

He was one of about two dozen people who came to William Ramsay Elementary School in Alexandria to learn about their rights while President Trump moves to tighten immigration enforcement and speed up deportations.

Recent arrests in Alexandria and elsewhere have heightened stress. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “sensitive location” policy restricts enforcement actions at schools and churches. But agents last month arrested homeless men who had just left a church warming shelter in nearby Fairfax County and a father in Los Angeles who had just dropped his daughter off at school.

With anxiety rising in immigrant communities, educators and parents are taking steps to allay fears. The PTA at Ramsay Elementary sponsored the March 22 clinic, supplying pizza and providing volunteers to care for children of those who came to hear from immigration lawyers and other experts.

About a quarter of Alexandria’s residents in 2010 were foreign-born, census data shows. Hundreds of unaccompanied minors, many of whom fled violence in Central America, have entered the United States in recent years without parents and landed in the city’s schools. Students in Alexandria hail from more than 130 countries. Hallways at Ramsay Elementary display dozens of flags to show international spirit.”

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Try as they might, The Trump Administration is not going to be able to dislodge migrants from communities throughout the US. They will, however, succeed in generating massive resistance to their unrealistic, unneeded, and xenophobic policies. Sooner or later, either Congress must pass needed reforms giving some status and protection to migrants, or the resistance will eventually tie the already dysfunctional system into knots.

PWS

04-03-17

HISTORY: Matthew Yglesias In VOX Shows How Immigration Made America Great, Right From Our Beginning — It Wasn’t Always About Generosity To Others; It Was Mostly About What Made Us More Successful & Prosperous!

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/3/14624918/the-case-for-immigration

“George Washington set in motion a strategy so radical that it made this country the wealthiest and strongest on Earth — it made America great.

Immigration.

He embraced a vision for an open America that could almost be read today as a form of deep idealism or altruism. “America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions,” he told newly arrived Irishmen in 1783. He assured them they’d be “welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”

But Washington’s vision wasn’t primarily about charity or helping others. It was about building the kind of country that he wanted the United States to become. Greatness would require great people. America would need more than it had.

The contemporary debate around immigration is often framed around an axis of selfishness versus generosity, with Donald Trump talking about the need to put “America first” while opponents tell heartbreaking stories of deportations and communities torn apart. A debate about how to enforce the existing law tends to supersede discussion of what the law ought to say.

All of this misses the core point. Immigration to the United States has not, historically, been an act of kindness toward strangers. It’s been a strategy for national growth and national greatness.

. . . .

Last but by no means least, while it’s certainly true that Americans care about the average well-being of American citizens, we also care about something else — greatness, for lack of a better word.

In per capita income terms, the United States has, by most measures, been overtaken by Switzerland. The Netherlands is relatively close behind, and when you consider inequality and quality of public services, the typical Dutch person may well enjoy a higher standard of living than the typical American. This kind of thing matters. But at the same time, there is a reason that when Americans feel anxiety about national decline, they tend to think of China and not Switzerland. The Netherlands is a great place to live, but it hasn’t been a great nation since the early 17th century.

Aggregates matter, in other words.

If Americans had listened to the counsel of the Know-Nothing movement in the 1850s and drastically curtailed immigration from outside of Protestant Europe, it would probably still be a rich country today. But it would be a very different kind of rich country from the one we know — one with fewer, smaller cities mainly focused on exporting agricultural goods and other natural resources to the wider world. A place more like Canada or a supersize version of New Zealand, rather than an industrial and technological powerhouse that intervened decisively in two world wars and anchored a coalition of liberal states to defeat communism.

Going forward, demographers forecast that immigration — both the people it provides directly and the children that immigrants bear and raise — is the only reason America’s working-age population isn’t declining. This is doubly true when you consider that immigrants’ work in the household and child care sectors likely serves to increase native-born Americans’ childbearing as well.
A declining working-age population, seen already in Japan and some southern European countries, poses some serious challenges to a national economy. It tends to push interest rates down to an incredibly low level, making it difficult for central banks to respond to a recession. It also makes it more difficult to sustain public sector retirement programs and elder care more generally.

There are some offsetting upsides (less strain on transportation infrastructure, for example), and, like anything else, the problems are solvable. Fundamentally, however, an America that is shrinking is a country that is going to be a lesser force in the world than an America that is growing. It’s true, of course, that an America that continues to be open to immigrants will be a progressively less white and less Christian country over time. That’s a threatening prospect to many white Christian Americans, who implicitly identify the country in ethnic and sectarian terms. But America’s formal self-definition has never been in those terms.

And for those who believe in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the value of America’s ideals, accepting a future of decline and retreat in the name of ethnic purity should be unacceptable. That the more homogeneous America will be not just smaller and weaker but also poorer on a per capita basis only underscores what folly it would be to embrace the narrow vision. That hundreds of millions of people around the world would like to move to our shores — and that America has a long tradition of assimilating foreigners and a political mythos and civil culture that is conducive to doing so — is an enormous source of national strength.

It’s time we started to see it that way.”

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

I had these same feelings about many of the “happy cases” that came through my courtroom in Arlington over the years. I was constantly impressed with the courage, dedication, determination, and under-appreciated skills of the folks who came before me. And, I felt inspired and optimistic that they had chosen, notwithstanding hardship and obstacles, to join our national community and help make America even greater. Building America, one case at a time.

PWS

04//03/17

SLATE: Into The Void — Appalled Attorney Dan Canon Says Immigration Detention Diminishes, Dehumanizes All Of Us!

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2017/04/ice_detainees_enter_an_unbelievably_cruel_system_designed_to_make_them_disappear.html

“A couple of weeks ago, for the first time ever, I represented an undocumented worker in deportation proceedings. Or rather, I tried to. My attempts to navigate this system were not what I would call successful. Part of this may be due to the fact that, though I have been a practicing attorney for 10 years, this was my first go at immigration law. But another part of it—most of it, I’d venture—is due to the fact that the U.S. immigration system is designed to be opaque, confusing, and inequitable.

Under most circumstances, I would not wade into this kind of thing at all. I’m primarily a civil rights lawyer, and immigration is a highly specialized area of law with a unique set of risks awaiting unwary practitioners. I would not, for example, take someone’s bankruptcy case or file adoption papers. I would refer those to lawyers with experience in those areas. But the crisis of unrepresented detainees is too big and too pressing to leave to the few organizations and individual practitioners with expertise in immigration law. One recent study found that only about 14 percent of detainees have representation. That’s out of nearly 300,000 cases in the immigration courts every year.*

If I killed someone on the street in broad daylight, I‘d be entitled to an attorney. But those summoned before the immigration courts, including infants who have been brought here by their parents, have no right to counsel. They can hire immigration lawyers, but only if they can pay for them. Most of them can’t, and volunteer lawyers are scarce. So children, parents, and grandparents are locked up for months, sometimes years, waiting for a day in court. When they show up in front of a judge, they do so alone and terrified. Those who don’t speak English are provided an interpreter who tells them what’s being said, but no one is there to tell them what’s really happening.

Undocumented people who live here in Louisville and southern Indiana are driven 90 minutes to the jail in Boone County, Kentucky. There, they are placed in the general population with locals who have actually been accused of crimes. That’s where my client, who was assigned to me by an overburdened immigration firm, was taken after he was scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the parking lot of his apartment building.

Entering the United States, even without proper documentation, is not a criminal offense. The only “crime” my client committed is trying to get his family away from the drug cartels that overtook his Central American village. Unlike many who come here fleeing crippling poverty, he and his family were getting along fairly well in their home country. A little success, it turns out, can make you a target for violent extortionists. His wife, who fled the exact same situation in the exact same place, was apparently catalogued as an asylum-seeker, but her husband was not.

The Kentucky facility doesn’t allow a phone call, even for an attorney, without an appointment. Requests to call your client must be made by fax. Sometimes the jail will call you to say your 2 p.m. time slot has been changed to 6 p.m., and sometimes you won’t get any notification at all. The visitation restrictions for families are no more accommodating. Visitation amounts to 45 minutes a week, tops. If my client’s wife, daughter, or grandkids want to visit him, they have to drive 90 minutes and hope for the best.

. . . .

What happened to my client and his family wasn’t anomalous. It wasn’t even unusual. It happens all over the country, every single day. Part of what makes our immigration system so reprehensible is that it’s so easy to ignore. Most of us don’t ever have to deal with it in any meaningful way or even think about it. But stop and consider that this practice of moving detainees from place to place randomly, with no notice given to their families or their attorneys, is indescribably cruel. Stop and consider that locking up human beings in jail for months to coerce them into submission is maddeningly unjust. And then consider the possibility that the whole system is not just dysfunctional, but utterly diabolical.

Further consider that the practice of breaking up families and making people disappear into black holes is the result of a set of loosely defined policy goals that are in no way based on reality. There’s no real evidence to support the notion that undocumented immigrants are any more dangerous than anyone else, or that they “steal” jobs from Americans, or that they do anything but contribute to the economy overall. There is no policy reason for inflicting this misery on people. It’s just cruel.

Lest anyone think this is just more liberal railing against the Trump administration, this system pre-dates the orange guy. The Obama administration sucked more than three million people into the lungs of this administrative monster and spit them out all over the world. Having seen up close what this system does to families, it’s hard to forgive that, especially when you consider that American trade policies contributed to the collapse of Latin America. But hell, we’re all complicit in this. We let it happen every day.

I’m going to suggest something I have never suggested to any working person: If you are part of this machine—if you are a guard, an agent, a janitor, or anything in between—quit. Walk off your job. Right now. You’ve got bills to pay? A family to support? I get it. So do the people who come here looking for a better existence. The system you are contributing to is preposterously evil. It separates mothers from their children. It kills innocent people. It exists only to make easy punching bags out of those damned by their circumstances, some of whom have already lived through unspeakable horrors.

For everyone else: If you’ve never thought about your tacit support for this system, start thinking about it. Start resisting it. Start demanding its abolition. A Kafkaesque bureaucracy needs participants, both willing and unwilling. We have the power to dismantle it.”

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

As noted in Canon’s article, immigration detention originated long before the Trump Administration. The Obama Administration certainly wasn’t afraid to use detention as an attempted deterrent to asylum seekers. Additionally, the Obama administration essentially argued for “eternal detention” pending final determinations in Removal Proceedings in a case that is currently pending decision before the Supremes. Jennings v. Rodriguez, see previous blog here: http://wp.me/p8eeJm-kp. The often prolonged detention of women and children asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle by the Obama Administration will go down as one of the darker chapters in American human rights history.

Unfortunately, however, we haven’t hit bottom yet. The Trump Administration’s plans for enhanced immigration enforcement will certainly involve even more widespread use of immigration detention as a tool of deterrence, coercion, and denial of due process, with all of the additional human abuses that is likely to engender.

One qualification/explanation of Canon’s statement that: “Entering the United States, even without proper documentation, is not a criminal offense.” In fact, it usually is. Under 8 U.S.C. 1325, “improper entry by an alien” is a misdemeanor, although often not prosecuted. A second conviction is a felony.

An individual without documentation who appears at a U.S. port of entry ands applies for asylum would not be committing a criminal offense. But, according to a number of recent media accounts, such individuals currently are being sent back to Mexico and told to await “an appointment.”

Additionally, the Trump Administration has indicated that it would like to develop a process to return non-Mexican asylum seekers to Mexico while they are awaiting hearings in U.S. Immigration Court. So far, the Mexican government has indicated that it would not agree to such a program.

PWS

04/03/17

ALERT: Weekly Summary of Trump Administration’s Attack On Human Rights, Civil Rights, Due Process, & America — Blocking Public Monitoring Of Immigration Detention High On List!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/03/31/trump-watch-volume-6-more-immigration-crackdowns-sessions-defends-cops-in-st-louis-and-jared-kushner-renaissance-man/?utm_term=.0fc52897ff4c

Radley Balko reports in an op-ed in the Washington Post:

“Here’s the latest from the Trump administration on civil liberties and criminal justice:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to be attempting to end public monitoring of immigration detention centers.
In the battle for control of President Trump’s drug policy, it’s shaping up to be good cop New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (treatment) against bad cop Attorney General Jeff Sessions (enforcement).
When he isn’t brokering Middle East peace, ending opioid addiction and streamlining the federal bureaucracy, Jared Kushner will apparently be handling criminal justice reform.
Democrats in some states are pushing back against Trump’s immigration crackdown by trying to prevent local law enforcement from sharing immigration information with federal officials.
More “bad hombres” — a single dad brought here at age 8 who has raised his daughter by himself for the last 14 years has just been deported over a 17-year-old marijuana possession charge.
Jeff Sessions gave a speech in St. Louis Friday. He said Ferguson has become the “emblem of the tense relationship between law enforcement and the communities we serve.” He also said that cops are “unfairly maligned,” and blamed “viral videos.” He made no mention of the area’s aggressive fines and predatory municipal courts that are such a huge part of the problem.
Other recent ICE and immigration actions: Five Massachusetts immigrants, at least three of whom were there for green card interviews, were arrested when they showed up for appointments at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office this week. In Portland, Ore., three ‘dreamers’ have been arrested. In Chicago, ICE agents broke into a home and shot someone who may have been the father of the man they were looking for. And in Indiana, a Trump voter feels betrayed after her husband is taken into custody and scheduled for deportation.
The Trump administration boycotted the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights conference earlier this month. It’s the first time in at least 20 years that the U.S. government not shown up to the event.
Finally, the man Trump just appointed assistant secretary for health technology at the Department of Health and Human Services has some interesting opinions. Among them, “Not all Goths are drug addicts, but a high percentage experiment with all types of drugs, including hallucinogens,” and “when kids cross the line into pot use, they are crossing the line, figuratively and literally, toward a life of illegal drug use and probable addiction.” He also thinks women who view pornography at a young age may suffer from “a phobia to male genitalia,” and thinks there’s a strong links between drug addicts and people who get tattoos.
Trump again floats the idea of changing libel laws, this time so that truth is no longer a defense in lawsuits against public figures. But he also doesn’t appear to understand how libel laws actually work.”

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

Go to the original article at the above link to get links to more in depth reporting on each of these reported incidents.

Trying to block monitoring of immigration detention centers is a particularly nice touch. Given some of the grim reports about conditions, particularly in much-criticized privately-run detention centers which appear to be near and dear to Sessions, I can see why DHS and DOJ don’t want anyone to know what’s really going on. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the Trump Administration the entire immigration detention system will be under some sort of court-appointed monitor.

Sadly, some more folks are probably going to have to die in immigration detention before we get to that point.

PWS

04-02-17

AG Sessions Rejuvenates Institutional Hearing Program (“IHP”) For Criminal Removals!

Attorney General Sessions Announces Expansion and Modernization of Program to Deport Criminal Aliens

A USDOJ Press Release states:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions today announced the expansion and modernization of the Department’s Institutional Hearing Program (IHP).

The IHP identifies removable criminal aliens who are inmates in federal correctional facilities, provides in-person and video teleconference (VTC) immigration removal proceedings, and removes the alien upon completion of sentence, rather than releasing the alien to an ICE detention facility or into the community for adjudication of status. Bringing an Immigration Judge to the inmate for a determination of removability, rather than vice versa, saves time and resources and speeds hearings.

The program is coordinated by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“We owe it to the American people to ensure that illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes and are serving time in our federal prisons are expeditiously removed from our country as the law requires,” said Attorney General Sessions. “This expansion and modernization of the Institutional Hearing Program gives us the tools to continue making Americans safe again in their communities.”

The expansion and modernization of the IHP program will occur in the following three ways:

1. ICE, BOP, and EOIR will expand the number of active facilities with the program to a total of 14 BOP and 6 BOP contract facilities;

2. EOIR and BOP will increase each facility’s VTC capabilities and update existing infrastructure to aid in the ability to conduct removal proceedings; and

3. EOIR and ICE will finalize a new and uniform intake policy. EOIR and ICE expect to have reached agreement on this new intake process by April 6, 2017.

These improvements will speed the process of deporting incarcerated criminal aliens and will reduce costs to taxpayers.”

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

The IHP has been around for many years. However, recently it has not been a point of emphasis for the DHS.

Restoring emphasis and expanding the program makes sense. It deals with serious criminals, while they are serving time in Federal or state penitentiaries, and therefore does not raise some of the sensitive community enforcement and local police cooperation issues tripped by the Administration’s expanded criminal priorities.

A few points of concern:

1) It’s usually very difficult to get attorneys to represent individuals in the IHP;

2) The VTC (“televideo”) equipment upon which the IHP depends for conducting hearings has in the past sometimes been less than reliable;

3) The “new” priorities on the U.S. Immigration Court are starting to pile up; to “prioritize IHP cases other cases in the Immigration Court’s 540,000 backlog will have to be put aside;

4) In the past, there have been some irrationalities in IHP scheduling; too often cases of individuals whose “earliest release date” is literally decades from now are treated as “priorities” for no good reason, forcing more viable cases further back in the queue.

Given the Administration’s priority on criminal removals, this looks like a smart move. However, the proof will be in the execution, which, based on my experience, takes an exceptionally high degree of coordination and cooperation among different entities.

PWS

03/31/17

Turning Back The Hands Of Time — Sessions Seeks To Restore AG’s Lead Role In Immigration Enforcement!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/seeking-central-role-on-immigration-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-plots-border-visit-to-arizona/2017/03/30/34fc8596-1550-11e7-833c-503e1f6394c9_story.html

David Nakamura and Matt Zapotosky report in the Washington Post:

“The Justice Department is seeking to play a more muscular role in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, a move that is alarming immigrant rights advocates who fear Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s hard-line ideology could give Justice too much clout in determining policy.

To highlight the department’s expanding role, Sessions is considering making his first trip to the southern border in mid-April to Nogales, Ariz., a busy border crossing region that features a major patrol station and already has miles of fencing and walls designed to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico. Aides emphasized that his itinerary is still being developed and the stop in Nogales — which would come as Sessions travels to a conference of state police officials from around the country 200 miles away in Litchfield Park — is still tentative.

If he follows through, the border visit would come at a time when President Trump is asking Congress for billions of dollars to begin construction on a longer and larger wall between the United States and Mexico, a central campaign promise.

In recent weeks, Sessions has taken steps to increase his department’s focus on immigration.

. . . .

But legal experts said Sessions could significantly restructure the Justice Department by ramping up the number of immigration judges sent to the border to speed up hearings and by pursuing more criminal prosecutions against immigrants in the United States beyond those associated with drug cartels and human smugglers that past administrations have focused on.

The Sessions Justice Department also could move to strip some protections from undocumented immigrants, such as how much time they have to find a lawyer; more robustly defend DHS enforcement policies that are challenged in court; and use the Office of the Special Counsel to aggressively prevent employers from discriminating against American workers by hiring undocumented workers, said Leon Fresco, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration.

“I think they will be incredibly active,” said Fresco, who helped draft the 2013 immigration bill while serving as an aide to Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). The only thing that could slow Sessions, he added, was “finding enough individuals with expertise and the willingness to speed these issues along.”

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

Prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), the Attorney General had responsibility for nearly all aspects of domestic immigration enforcement and adjudication. Most of those functions were reassigned to the DHS, leaving the AG responsible primarily for the Immigration Courts (through the Executive Office for Immigration Review – “EOIR”) and for conducting immigration litigation in the Article III Federal Courts (through the Office of Immigration Litigation — “OIL”).

Apparently, Attorney General Sessions finds these legal roles too “passive” for his enforcement-oriented outlook. Sensing a vacuum because of his closeness to the President and DHS Secretary Kelly’s relative inexperience in immigration issues, Sessions now seeks to make, rather than just defend or adjudicate, immigration policy.

What does this say about the chances that Sessions will promote a fair and impartial administrative hearing system through the U.S. Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals over which he exercises ultimate control.

PWS

03/31/17

LA TIMES: Sessions, Kelly Push Back At CAL Chief Justice — Say Problem Is State Sanctuary Policies, Not Feds — “Speak To California Governor Jerry Brown”

http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-trump-administration-fires-back-at-1490973610-htmlstory.html

Del Quentin Wilber and Maura Dolan report:

“The Trump administration on Friday fired back at California’s top judge, disputing her characterization this month that federal immigration agents were “stalking” courthouses to make arrests.

In a letter to Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, leaders of Trump’s Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security called her description of federal agents’ conduct “troubling.”

They said agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were using courthouses to arrest immigrants in the U.S. illegally, in part, because California and some of its local jurisdictions prohibit their officials from cooperating with federal agencies in detaining such immigrants under most conditions.

Even for individuals already in local police custody, such policies may make it necessary for agents to make arrests in public places, rather than in jails, they said. By apprehending suspects after they have passed through security screening at courthouses, federal agents are less likely to encounter anyone who is armed, they added.

“The arrest of individuals by ICE officers and agents is predicated on investigation and targeting of specific persons who have been identified by ICE and other law enforcement agencies as subject to arrest,” wrote Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.”

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

Looks like some states and the Feds are on a collision course. The “battle of letters” will likely soon morph into a “battle in Federal Court.”

PWS

03-31-17

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