Thanks to Judge Jeffrey Chase, leader of our Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges for sending this to me.
Also, I join Judge Chase in congratulating Gerald D. Wall and the Greater Boston Legal Services (a clinical program of Harvard Law School) for providing pro bono representation in this case.
Note how succinct, straightforward, logical, and well-supported by authority Judge Gagnon’s decision is. Compare that with the nearly incomprehensible 30+ page anti-asylum, lie-filled, intellectually dishonest, and legally incorrect screed written by Sessions in support of his cowardly extralegal attack on some of the most vulnerable and deserving of protection among us in his Matter of A-B- atrocity.
Now think of how the system could work if Judge Gagnon’s correct decision were the precedent and all asylum applicants had access to qualified pro bono counsel.
Many cases could be promptly granted by an honest USCIS Asylum Office committed to properly applying protection law. They would not even have to reach the backlogged Immigration Courts or be subjected to toxic, counterproductive “gimmicks” like “Let ‘Em Die in Mexico” or absurdities like claiming that everyone should apply in Guatemala, from which this respondent was fleeing for her life and which has neither a functional government nor a credible asylum system.
That, plus perhaps using retired judges from all types of courts and bringing back retired Asylum Officers and adjudicators trained to recognize and quickly grant “slam dunk” asylum cases like this would be the key to establishing a credible, independent, Immigration Court and a reestablishing a functioning asylum system of which we all could be proud.
Instead, our current maliciously incompetent White Nationalist regime continues to ignore our laws, our Constitution, and our international obligations in leading a cowardly and disreputable “race to the bottom” in which the richest and most powerful country in the world conducts itself as a “Banana Republic” led by a tinhorn dictator.
PWS
08-08-19