"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
In a stunning blow to Republican leaders, the House rejected an effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday after a number of Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.
The final vote was 214 to 216.
The vote was incredibly dramatic. It was tied 215 to 215 for several minutes, with every Democrat voting no along with three Republicans: Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Tom McClintock (Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (Wis.). A tied vote meant the effort would fail, so Democrats began shouting “Order!” at Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to drop the gavel and end it.
Republicans were furiously prodding Gallagher to change his vote, but he wouldn’t. At the last minute, Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) voted no, not because he opposed the measure but because it would allow the House to bring it back up again another day. That bumped the final tally to 214-216.
Republicans appeared to be counting on one Democrat to be absent in order to squeak through the vote: Rep. Al Green of Texas. He had been out following surgery. But he showed up for Tuesday’s vote.
“I always intended to be here,” Green told reporters after the vote. “I had surgery. I’m recovering, but this was important.”
The whole effort was a political stunt, with one goal: helping Donald Trump look tough on border issues ahead of November’s presidential election. The GOP’s two articles of impeachment accused Mayorkas of “willful” refusal to comply with immigration laws, and of breaching public trust.
But they never produced any evidence that Mayorkas had committed crimes ― let alone crimes that meet the threshold for impeachable offenses. The Constitution spells out that impeachment is reserved for rare instances of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” like bribery or treason.
In the case of Mayorkas, a Cabinet secretary charged with carrying out immigration laws, the GOP was essentially attacking him for policies it doesn’t like.
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Read the full article at the link.
Thanks to GOP Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Tom McClintock (Calif.), and Mike Gallagher (Wis.) for standing up for common sense and the Constitution.
The determination of MAGAMike and his crew NOT to solve problems and instead to create unnecessary chaos, while wasting time and resources, is stunning, but perhaps not surprising!
President Joe Biden announced another historic slate of judicial nominees on Wednesday who would bring badly needed diversity to the nation’s federal courts.
His picks also begin to address a major vacancy problem on California’s courts.
Biden announced a total of eight new judicial nominees; three would fill seats on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and five would fill seats on U.S. district courts. All are up for lifetime appointments.
With Wednesday’s nominees, Biden has now nominated a total of 43 people to federal judgeships. Thanks in part to the Democrat-led Senate, he has been confirming judges faster than any president in more than 50 years by this point in their terms.
His latest nominees also reflect his push to bring more diversity to the federal bench, both professionally and demographically. The courts have long been represented by white, male judges with backgrounds as corporate attorneys or prosecutors. President Barack Obama helped to diversify the courts, adding historic numbers of women and LGBTQ judges, for example. But former President Donald Trump reversed that trend by overwhelmingly nominating straight, white, male, right-wing ideologues.
As a candidate, Biden vowed to bring a diversity of perspectives onto the courts, even promising to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court if and when a seat opens up there. He’s kept his word; so far, his court picks have been public defenders, civil rights lawyers, voting rights lawyers and historic firsts with Native American and Muslim American picks.
Wednesday’s nominees include people with backgrounds at legal civil rights organizations, too. Thomas worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Urias and Vera both worked for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
California’s senators praised Biden for his six picks for courts located in their state.
“If confirmed, this slate of nominees will bring historic personal and professional diversity to California’s federal bench,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). “Our justice system needs the experience and unique perspectives these public servants bring.”
But California needs far more nominees than Biden put forward Wednesday. The state still has a whopping 15 vacancies on its federal courts, in part because the state’s two U.S. senators aren’t moving quickly enough to recommend people to the White House to fill those seats.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) acknowledged there is more work to be done here.
“There are 15 additional vacancies on California’s district courts that need to be filled immediately and more expected next year,” Feinstein said. “I look forward to continuing to work with President Biden and Senator Padilla to ensure that the remaining vacancies on the federal courts in California are filled with well-qualified judicial candidates who reflect the makeup of the state.”
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Read the complete story at the link.
It’s an important step — but only a first step in the process of creating a diverse progressive Federal Judiciary, from top to bottom!
Meanwhile, a house built on a bad foundation is in trouble! In this case, that crumbling foundation is the nearly 600-judge U.S. Immigration Court at both the trial and appellate levels.
This “court” system, with nationwide jurisdiction and life or death authority over millions of lives and American families, is regressive, dysfunctional, and non-diverse, particularly when taking into account the composition of the American communities most directly affected by it’s too often defective, unprofessional, and biased decision making. That’s hardly surprising, because it was largely expanded, packed, weaponized, staffed, and directed in the “image” of Jeff Sessions, Billy Barr, and Gauleiter Stephen Miller!
Unlike Article III Judges, Immigration Judges currently are considered “DOJ Attorneys” who are selected outside the competitive Civil Service, have no “tenure” in their quasi-judicial positions, are subject to the control of the Attorney General, and can be reassigned, or in some cases terminated, at the will of the Attorney General. In simple terms, Garland could fix this badly broken system, but hasn’t done so.
The sorry condition of today’s Immigration Courts (“EOIR”) is particularly disgraceful when one considers the wide, diverse, progressive pool of potential judicial talent available in the private/NGO/sector who were either discouraged from applying under Trump or passed over in favor of lesser-qualified candidates perceived (whether accurately or not) to be more receptive and obedient to the overtly White Nationalist, xenophobic stance promoted by Trump’s DOJ.
To date, Garland has replaced zero (0) of the Trump judicial appointees. He has hired no notable progressive judges as inspirational leaders. He “promoted” one notable progressive to be among the several dozen “Assistant Chief Immigration Judges.” He outrageously appointed his first 27 Immigration Judges from among those “preselected” by Barr under defective procedures that have been universally condemned by progressive experts!
For the most part, without any progressive judicial leadership, precedents, or procedures, EOIR rambles on producing the same sloppy, haste-makes-waste, anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, racially and misogynistically tinged decisions that were the “hallmark” of the Trump-era EOIR.
If things don’t change quickly, I guarantee that American progressives will come to rue the squandered opportunity to radically reform EOIR and convert it into a model progressive judiciary that will showcase due-process-focused judging, innovation, and best judicial practices while saving lives and promoting racial justice, gender rights, and equal justice for all at the critical “retail level” of our justice system!
The Democratic senator has spent years calling for more public defenders and fewer corporate attorneys getting federal judgeships. Now Joe Biden agrees.
For years, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been a lonely voice in the Senate on the need to put people with all kinds of different legal backgrounds into lifetime federal judgeships.
“We face a federal bench that has a striking lack of diversity,” she said at a 2014 event on this topic, hosted by Alliance for Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy group. “President Obama has supported some notable exceptions but … the president’s nominees have thus far been largely in line with the prior statistics.”
Warren wasn’t talking about diversity in terms of demographics like race or gender; Obama made history on those fronts with his judicial nominees. She was talking about the problem with presidents and senators ― in both parties ― routinely picking corporate attorneys and prosecutors who went to Ivy League schools to be federal judges.
If you want the nation’s courts to reflect the people they serve, Warren has argued, we need judges who have been public defenders and civil rights attorneys, people familiar with the legal needs of everyday Americans who may be living on low incomes or otherwise marginalized. A diversity of legal professionals on the federal bench means more informed decisions on issues related to economic justice and civil rights.
At last, the times are catching up with Warren.
President Joe Biden is signaling he’s ready to make professional diversity central to his judicial selection process. He hasn’t nominated anyone yet, but White House counsel Dana Remus wrote to Democratic senators in December urging them to recommend court picks to the White House as soon as possible, and said that Biden is “particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life.”
Top Democrats in the House are putting a spotlight on the issue too, even though they don’t have a say in confirming federal judges.
“Unfortunately, we have a lot of work to do when it comes to judicial diversity,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a Thursday subcommittee hearing on this subject. “There are ways in which the federal judiciary of 2021 looks uncomfortably similar to the federal judiciary of 1921 … Somehow, despite all our progress, today’s federal judges remain, for instance, overwhelmingly male, white, former prosecutors or corporate lawyers who went to a handful of law schools.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
Biden is “particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life.”
That’s basically a description of scores of immigration/human rights experts out here in the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”). Yes, they should be a primary source of appointees to the Article III Judiciary! Absolutely! But, they should also be appointed to the BIA and the Immigration Courts — now!
At present, the Immigration Courts are “administrative courts,” not part of the Article III Judiciary; therefore, Senate confirmation isn’t necessary. They are “administered” by a now “evil-clown-like” 🤡🦹🏿♂️ DOJ bureaucracy called “EOIR.” We need to get the right progressive scholars and “disciples of due process” on the Immigration Bench — immediately, without further delay!
“Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
Immigration Courts are one of most powerful tools in American law. Also, Constitution be damned, until we get a long overdue Article I independent Immigration Court, they are completely controlled by the AG — Judge Merrick B. Garland. This is a big, big deal — nearly 600 judgeships, almost the size of the entire U.S. District Court system, are at stake!
Sessions and Barr quickly figured: Why not aggressively weaponize EOIR to undermine American democracy, institutionalize racism and misogyny, and promote White Nationalist authoritarianism? And, that’s exactly what they did — to the max. Using EOIR judgeships to reward some of their unqualified, white, nativist buddies in the process was an “added bennie.”
G. Reaper Approaches ICE Gulag With “Imbedded Captive Star Chamber” Run By EOIR, For Their “Partner” Reaper Image: Hernan Fednan, Creative Commons License
Even the totally incomprehensible incompetence with which they administered EOIR fulfilled their “negative dream.” Dysfunctional Immigration Courts became an important tool for debilitating the entire U.S. justice system and “Dred Scottifying” (dehumanizing) persons of color before the law.
Those with compelling cases for relief, many pending for years, were shuffled off to the end of the docket. Or, if they did get a hearing, incompetent or compromised “judges” at the trial and appellate levels often arbitrarily denied their claims for bogus reasons. This disgraceful mess of a “court” actually penalized those with strong cases for relief — many who should have been done and joined our society years ago instead linger in the largely self-created EOIR “backlog” of 1.3 million cases. Or, theyare condemned to endless litigation to vindicate their rights in a system intentionally rigged against them.
“Justice” Star Chamber Style
Looking for the underpinning for the idea that people of color have reduced rights to vote, political participation, and that their lives don’t really matter? Look no further than the ongoing “Dred Scottification” of asylum applicants and other people of color in Immigration Court, now enshrined in a number of bogus “precedents” issued by White Nationalist AGs and their wholly-owned BIA!
BIA Asylum Panel In Action Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
And, their job was “easy as pie” following the indolent stewardship of their Dem predecessors. When the latter finally got around to filling judicial vacancies at EOIR, every couple of years, they handed them out almost exclusively to government “insiders” — like they were “length of service” pins! Better-qualified progressive, due-process-oriented, experts, scholars, advocates, and others in the private/NGO/academic sector — folks who actually could have brought badly needed professionalism, excellence, and order to a system careening out of control — were basically “shut out” by the Dems. Interesting way to reward your potential allies!
The Dems’ “diverse recruiting program” for the Immigration Judiciary was to advertise the positions for about 10 minutes on the “insider online bulletin board” known as “USA Jobs.” Then, after an average two-year long, excruciatingly wasteful and mindless “Rube Goldberg-designed evaluation” by layer after layer of bureaucrats — few, if any of them actual sitting Immigration Judges — participating, in most cases they basically just selected “the next ICE prosecutor, EOIR staffer, or OIL litigator up.” But, the “beauty” of this system is that with so many layers of bureaucracy involved, nobody could be held accountable for the actual selections! Talk about a “finger-pointers’ dream.”
Oh yeah, and of course there was no room for public input and/or participation in this process. Some of the newly anointed judges actually had rather less-than-stellar reputations in the immigration community at large. Many would have drawn blank stares if mentioned to a panel of acknowledged immigration and human rights experts. Few were “household names,” except perhaps in a negative sense. No matter to the Obama folks!
During the Obama Administration, I attended a so-called “training-session” at an Immigration Judge Conference — this was “in person,” although for a number of years we got “home-video grade” training CDs. There, curiously, one of these “newbies” was selected to “educate” a group of us, many of us with decades of experience in the field and some with actual teaching credentials under their belts. Our “instructor” referred to the Government as “us,” to the respondent and counsel as “them,” and bragged that “our big wins from OIL” would make it easier to deny asylum.
Other “instructors” parroted cringingly mind boggling mis-statements of asylum law — apparently designed to fit into OIL’s preferred litigation positions. And, incredibly, this was with the “founding mother” of U.S. Asylum Law, Judge Dana Leigh Marks, who had argued and won the landmark “well-founded-fear” case INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca before the Supremes, effectively muzzled and holding her head in the audience.
In 21 years on the bench, during “EOIR training,” I was lectured to by a variety of BIA Attorney Advisors, OIL Attorneys, politicos, DHS Officials, State Department Officials, Ethics Officers, stress managers, and an occasional NGO advocate. Never, did I get to hear my colleague Judge Marks’s views on the development of asylum law since Cardoza. Sure, that didn’t stop us from carrying on a dialogue elsewhere, as we did. But, we were pretty much “on the same page.” The folks who needed to hear what Judge Marks had to say didn’t.
Hon. Dana Leigh Marks U.S. Immigration Judge San Francisco Immigration Court Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges
And, we wonder why Dems inevitably screw up immigration law, and end up defending highly regressive actions and “designed to fail” policies — try “baby jails,” indefinite detention, and non-English-speaking toddlers “representing themselves” in Immigration Court. I kid you not! Each of the foregoing were things that the Obama DOJ vigorously advanced and defended before Federal Courts!🤮
Will Judge Garland figure it out before it’s too late? Or, as his Obama predecessors did, will he fritter away his time with “more sexy,” but actually far less important initiatives and lofty ideals that will be effectively undermined by failing to create a progressive, expert, well functioning, professional Immigration Judiciary.
Judge Merrick B. Garland, U.S. Attorney General Official White House Photo Public Realm
Racial justice, equal justice, and due process for all persons in America start in the Immigration Court. And, right now they are dying there! If Judge Garland doesn’t pay attention, grasp the moment, aggressively clean house, and take the long overdue, radical, courageous actions to build a better Immigration Judiciary, the whole U.S. justice system might well come crashing down upon him! And, he will have only himself to blame!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽🧑🏽⚖️Due Process Forever! A Better EOIR for A Better Federal Judiciary! A Better Federal Judiciary For A Better America! Not rocket science! But, it does require vision, recognition of the problem, and the courage to solve it!
Hundreds of Americans are dying every day from COVID-19. Unemployment is at 8.4%. Everything is fine.
By Jennifer Bendery
WASHINGTON ― The Senate is back in session after a month of recess and Republicans’ first order of business isn’t a comprehensive coronavirus relief bill. Or emergency stimulus in response to high unemployment. Or legislation addressing nationwide unrest over police violence targeting Black Americans.
It’s confirming more judges.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has long said his top priority is getting President Donald Trump’s nominees settled into lifetime federal court seats, didn’t disappoint on Wednesday. At a time when nearly 190,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and unemployment is at 8.4%, the Senate kicked off its first full day of business with a vote to confirm a district court judge, procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees, another vote to confirm one of those nominees, and two more procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees.
Democrats and Republicans are in a standoff over coronavirus relief legislation. The House passed a sweeping $3 trillion package in May that has gone nowhere in the Senate, where Democrats are ready to pass the House bill but Republicans don’t even agree with each other on what to do. Some prefer no action at all on another coronavirus package because it would add to the growing federal deficit.
McConnell will try to pass a narrowly focused COVID-19 relief bill this week, but it’s purely a political exercise ― an effort to give vulnerable Republicans something to run on ahead of the November elections. It includes funding for small businesses and schools and enhanced $300-a-week unemployment benefits. It leaves out another round of stimulus checks, which Republicans previously supported, and does not include rental assistance or aid to cities and states, which Democrats have insisted on. And it’s not even clear if a majority of Republicans will support the bill.
The Senate Judiciary Committee also met Wednesday for the first time in more than a month. The panel, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has jurisdiction over a number of issues related to the health and economic fallout from COVID-19. Graham could, for example, hold hearings that looked at the needs of state and local law enforcement on the front lines of the pandemic. He could hold hearings on the health and safety of corrections staff and incarcerated people. He could hold hearings on changes in immigration policy tied to the pandemic.
Instead, the committee held a hearing to advance five more of Trump’s judicial nominees.
One of those nominees isn’t even qualified to be a federal judge, according to the American Bar Association. Just as the hearing got underway, the ABA released an embarrassing “not qualified” rating for Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Trump’s nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
“The nominee presently does not meet the requisite minimum standard of experience necessary to perform the responsibilities required by the high office of a federal trial judge,” reads the ABA’s review of Mizelle’s nomination.
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Mizelle, 33, is eight years out of law school and has practiced law for four years. She has participated in a total of two trials (as a law student) and has not tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel.
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“This nominee has been put forward not only because she is an ultraconservative ideologue, but also because she is a Trump loyalist, having worked in the Trump Justice Department to dismantle many critical civil rights protections,” reads a Tuesday letter to senators from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 220 national civil rights groups. “The Senate must reject her nomination.”
Trump’s most lasting legacy will arguably be his judges, who will sit on the nation’s courts for decades after he’s left the White House. He has had confirmed a total of 204 Article III judges, including two Supreme Court justices, 53 appeals court judges and 147 district court judges. A common thread among his court picks is that many are young, white, male and hold extreme ideological views on abortion, LGBTQ rights and other civil rights.
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Read the complete article at the link.
Why The Private Sector Immigration Bar Holds The Key To A Better Article III Judiciary For America
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
Sept. 10, 2020
Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, the Trump regime🏴☠️ has got to go!
And that includes Moscow Mitch and every GOP Senator on the ballot this Fall. The serious long-term damage they have inflicted on our nation is already catastrophic! Let’s not let it become fatal!
Our sinking “Ship of State,” including the failing Federal Judiciary that is largely unrepresentative of our diverse nation, too often lacks engagement with the “human face” of our justice system, and sometimes demeans our best humane national values, can still be saved and put the on the correct course.
It won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight, particularly with the life-tenured judiciary. But, it must start in November. Remember, the law is about humanity, fairness, and equatable human relations, as embodied in the due process and equal protection clauses of our Constitution.
It’s not the dusty, musty, wooden, racially tone deaf, sometimes intentionally unfair, anti-civil-rights, anti-human rights, and often contrived “anti-social ideologies of the right” that blind a disproportionate number of Trump-Mitch appointees and enable lawless, fundamentally anti-American tyrants like Trump and his cult of sycophants to run roughshod over our country, our national values, and human decency.
Yesterday, Courtside highlighted the monumental achievements of a real American legal heroine and superstar, Attorney Sarah Owings of Atlanta, Georgia. She could have done other things with her skills and her career. Instead, she devoted herself to “working in the trenches of the law,” laboriously making an intentionally unfair and dysfunctional system fairer, and preserving the rights and saving the lives of some of the most vulnerable among us.
That’s what a real lawyer does. Disgracefully, these are the folks now largely missing from our elitist, out of touch with humanity Federal Bench.
Compare her “real life” qualifications, contributions, and courage with those of a strikingly unqualified, lightweight right wing dilettante like Mizelle. That’s one reason why our nation and our judiciary are in failure right now. Lack of leadership and lack of moral courage and human values. It’s literally killing individuals across our nation, a disproportionate number of them people of color. It must stop. Social justice can no longer be demeaned and demolished by those in charge!
It’s past time to stop “undervaluing and ignoring” the outstanding ”practical scholarship” (see, “Law You Can Use”), great courage to speak truth to power, energy, dedication, “retail level litigation skills,” and creative problem solving abilities of the private sector immigration bar, many serving in pro bono, low bono, clinical, or NGO capacities, in Federal Judicial Selection.
As tell law students, “if you can win an asylum case in today’s conditions, everything else you do in law will be a piece of cake.” There are good reasons why some of the largest law firms in America have found pro bono Immigration Court work to be some of the greatest “real life legal training” out there! Also, good reasons why some of the best legal minds and legal strategists in America are working pro bono on amicus briefs for our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges!
A new, independent, Article I Immigration Court with a “merit-based” judicial selection system should be the ideal training ground and future selection pool for a better, fairer, more efficient, more diverse, more representative, and more effective Article III Judiciary. One that would have an unswerving commitment to Constitutionally required “equal justice under law.” A judiciary that would fairly and efficiently solve problems rather than avoiding and often aggravating them! An Article III Judiciary that would actually understand and appreciate immigration and human rights laws and their fundamental connection to the goal of equal justice for all!
The talent necessary to stop the bleeding and vastly improve the American justice system is out there. What’s lacking right now is the leadership and political power to make a better future a reality, for all Americans.
We must take back our nation, before it’s too late for humanity!
