🇺🇸JULY 4 SPECIAL🗽: CRISTIAN FARIAS @ KNIGHT INSTITUTE WITH LOADS OF “PAYWALL-FREE” ONLINE RESOURCES HIGHLIGHTING REGIME’S ABUSE OF IJ’S 1ST AMENDMENTS RIGHTS AS WELL AS PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE FRAUD, WASTE & GROSS ABUSES UNFOLDING DAILY IN AMERICA’S MOST OUTRAGEOUSLY UNFAIR AND MISMANAGED “COURT” SYSTEM! — Our Taxpayer Funds Are Being Flushed Down The Toilet 🚽 By “Billy The Bigot” & His “Maliciously Incompetent” Gang Of White Nationalist Enablers & Promoters @ EOIR!

 

Cristian Farias
Cristian Farias
Writer in Residence
Knight First Amendment Institute

Cristian writes:

Hi, Paul:

Lots of other, nonpaywalled coverage of this new case:

Link to complaint:

https://knightcolumbia.org/cases/naij-v-mchenry

https://www.inquirer.com/news/immigration-judges-trump-lawsuit-free-speech-eoir-columbia-knight-center-20200701.html

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/immigration-judges-challenge-doj-limits-public-speaking/story?id=71552573

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/505388-immigration-judges-union-sues-justice-dept-over-policy-restricting?rnd=1593610305

https://in.reuters.com/article/usa-court-immigration-judges/immigration-judges-challenge-justice-dept-over-policy-gagging-them-from-public-speech-idINKBN24263H?il=0

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/politics/immigration-judges-lawsuit/index.html

Thank you for all you do,

Cf.

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

As many of you know, Cristian is a contributor to Courtside and a tireless advocate for free speech and Constitutional rights for everyone in America.

Thanks, Cristian, for all you do for America!

🇺🇸Celebrate America’s birthday by standing up for our Constitution and human dignity against the racism, ignorance, hate, & tyranny of the Trump regime!🗽

👍🏼Due Process Forever!⚖️

Here’s my previous reporting on this:

🤡CLOWN COURT REPORT: Dysfunctional “Court” System Notorious ☠️ For Denying Migrants’ Rights Forces Own Judges To Sue In Federal Court To Protect Their Individual Constitutional Rights!  — No Wonder The Mis-Management-Induced Backlogs Are Endless & Growing!

PWS

07-04-20

🤡CLOWN COURT REPORT: Dysfunctional “Court” System Notorious ☠️ For Denying Migrants’ Rights Forces Own Judges To Sue In Federal Court To Protect Their Individual Constitutional Rights!  — No Wonder The Mis-Management-Induced Backlogs Are Endless & Growing!

Hon. A. Ashlley Tabaddor
Hon. A. Ashley Tabaddor
President, National
Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)

https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2020/07/01/immigration-judges-to-sue-doj-alleging-unconstitutional-gag-on-speech/

Immigration Judges Sue DOJ, Alleging Unconstitutional Gag on Speech

It’s the latest clash between the immigration judges’ union and the Justice Department, after DOJ officials pushed to decertify the union.

By Jacqueline Thomsen | July 01, 2020 at 09:47 AM

A union of immigration judges is suing the Department of Justice over a policy allegedly restricting them from speaking publicly about immigration and other issues in violation of their constitutional rights, the latest escalation of tensions between the union and the federal department where they work.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday on behalf of the National Association of Immigration Judges by attorneys with the Knight First Amendment Institute and Virginia attorney Victor Glasberg, says DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review in 2017 began requiring the judges to seek preapproval to speak in their own capacity, and not on behalf of the office.

That was replaced earlier this year with a “more restrictive policy,” which mandates the judges cannot speak publicly about immigration or DOJ policies, and must obtain approval to speak, write or talk with members of the media about any other topic.

The lawsuit notes the policy was implemented during a series of changes in the immigration system and that the immigration judges are “uniquely positioned to inform the public on these issues, but the 2020 policy prevents them from doing so.”

. . .

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

Those with NLJ access (or who haven’t exhausted their three free articles for the month) can read the rest of  Jacqueline’s article at the link.

The “DOJ/EOIR Clown Show” 🤡  rolls, on leaving the public interest in the dust and the road littered with the broken bodies and crushed souls of bona fide asylum seekers and other mistreated migrants.

Really, isn’t this continuing circus and parody of justice supposed to be under “adult supervision?” Obviously, both Congress and the Article III Courts have taken a pass on the role. So, what, in fact, are they good for?

I do understand why those responsible for this mess don’t want to be publicly “outed” for the fraud, waste, and abuse that they have created. The desire to escape accountability runs deep in bureaucracies, particularly in an Administration that lies about almost everything and consistently refuses to take responsibility for its own innumerable screw-ups. Dishonesty and lack of accountability starts at the top of this rubbish heap. 

Due Process Forever! Clown Courts 🤡 Never!

PWS

07-01-20

🤡🤡CLOWN COURT REPORT: As Due Process Goes Into “Death Spiral,” Regime Muzzles Immigration Judges!

Cristian Farias
Cristian Farias
Writer in Residence
Knight First Amendment Institute

Cristian Farias reports in The Atlantic:

For more than two years, immigration judges have been subject to a policy that more or less prevents them from performing an essential part of their civic duties: speaking publicly about their work.

Since September 2017, immigration judges and all other employees at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review have been required to adhere to an onerous pre-approval process whenever they desire or are invited to speak publicly on any issue, immigration-related or not. I learned of the policy through a Freedom of Information Act request my colleagues made to the department, as part of an investigation I’ve been conducting on the intersection of free speech and U.S. border enforcement.

Read: The thousands of children who go to immigration court alone

It is not uncommon for government agencies to set rules on employee conduct and outside activities. But the perspective of immigration judges is particularly valuable to the public, especially one grappling with complicated questions about America’s immigration laws. In his 2019 year-end report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts commended American judges who, “without fanfare or acclaim,” take time to reach out to their communities in all sorts of public-education initiatives. As Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told Congress in 2018, immigration judges “help the community better understand our immigration courts and their function in the community, helping to demystify the system and bring transparency about our operations to the public.”

Although immigration judges are employees of the executive branch, they’re judges in the truest sense of the term, presiding over cases that have enormous consequences for asylum seekers or people facing removal from the U.S. The Trump administration appears determined to remove from the public’s view the very people the chief justice  and Tabaddor believe play an essential role in promoting public confidence in the administration of justice. The Justice Department should heed their call—rescind its misguided policy and let judges speak.

In the 2017 memo, the official overseeing the work of immigration judges, James McHenry III, did acknowledge that “the public has become increasingly interested in hearing about, and understanding, what the agency does and specifically how Immigration Courts operate.” But the policy went on to severely restrict judges’ freedom to speak even in a personal capacity about these matters, requiring them to seek permission through the chain of command. “Supervisors will determine the capacity in which an employee is speaking,” McHenry’s memo stated, thus effectively eliminating a judge’s discretion to speak about immigration in public settings, even with a disclaimer that he or she was doing so in a personal capacity. Supervising judges and other senior employees have it even worse—they are simply forbidden from speaking at public events in a personal capacity at all.

Lawyers at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, where I’ve been conducting my investigation, believe that the policy violates the First Amendment, and in early January issued a letter asking the Justice Department to suspend it. Their reasoning was grounded in well-settled Supreme Court precedent. In the 1968 case Pickering v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court recognized that public employees’ “right to speak on issues of public importance” doesn’t vanish the moment they take a government job. For the government to restrain public employees’ ability to speak, the Supreme Court has said, the Constitution requires officials to show that their interest in restraining speech outweighs employees’ interest in speaking and the public’s interest in hearing what they have to say. “The Government must show,” Justice John Paul Stevens explained in a 1995 case, “that the interests of both potential audiences and a vast group of present and future employees in a broad range of present and future expression are outweighed by that expression’s ‘necessary impact on the actual operation’ of the Government.” That’s a heavy lift.

The Justice Department hasn’t officially responded to the lawyers’ letter. But in mid-January, McHenry’s office did reply in a way: It purported to reissue the 2017 memorandum, calling it “established policy,” and unveiled an online portal through which immigration judges may submit their speaking-engagement requests for approval. According to the department, the new portal was necessary “to provide for more certainty and clarity” for judges, an implicit acknowledgment that the earlier guidance was causing confusion among immigration judges. (The reissued policy hasn’t been made public, but a person familiar with it showed it to me.)

. . . .

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

Read Cristian’s complete article at the above link.

”The truth will set you free.” But, at EOIR, the truth will get you fired!

Given the due process and management disasters going on at EOIR, it’s not surprising that they want to silence the witnesses. What is surprising is that they have been getting away with it so far.

Bailey’s Crossroads Pin
Bailey’s Crossroads Pin

NOTE: Even prior to becoming the home of EOIR Headquarters, Bailey’s Crossroads had long reputation of being associated with the circus. However, more recent scholarship has cast doubt on those claims. According to this Washington Post article, Bailey’s Crossroads’ claimed association with the Ringling Bro’s Barnum & Bailey Circus might be as attenuated as EOIR’s claimed association with due process and fundamental fairness! https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/05/19/history-at-the-crossroads/5da541c9-5aa4-49cc-83f9-7ecb49a1b12b/

However, what the article does correctly point out, and EOIR under the influence of the White Nationalist regime appears to have forgotten, is that Bailey’s Crossroads has a long history of being a vibrant community of industrious immigrants who made Northern Virginia into what it is today!

Due Process Forever; Clown Courts Never!

 

PWS

03-03-20

KNIGHT INSTITUTE CHALLENGES EOIR’S MUZZLING OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES ON 1ST AMENDMENT GROUNDS – See The Letter Here!

 

https://knightcolumbia.org/content/knight-institute-calls-on-dojs-executive-office-for-immigration-review-to-suspend-policy-silencing-immigration-judges

 

PRESS STATEMENT

Knight Institute Calls on DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review to Suspend Policy Silencing Immigration Judges

In a letter, the Institute argues that the agency’s policy, which it recently obtained through a FOIA request, violates the First Amendment

JANUARY 06, 2020

WASHINGTON — In a letter sent today to the acting director of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University demanded that the agency suspend its policy restricting the ability of EOIR employees to speak at public events. That policy, Institute lawyers argued, violates the First Amendment by unduly abridging the right of immigration judges and other EOIR employees to speak in their personal capacities about matters of significant public interest.

The Knight Institute recently obtained a copy of the EOIR’s policy through a Freedom of Information Act request. That FOIA request was submitted as part of a major investigation the Institute’s writer-in-residence Cristian Farias is leading on free speech restrictions at the U.S. border.

The policy categorically prohibits certain senior EOIR employees from speaking at public events in their personal capacities, and it requires all other EOIR employees to obtain supervisory approval before doing so.

“There is immense public interest in recent changes to immigration policy, and the effects those changes are having on migrant communities,” said Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at the Knight Institute. “EOIR’s policy deprives the public of a crucial voice in that debate, by silencing those charged with operating the nation’s immigration courts.”

The Knight Institute’s constitutional objections to the EOIR policy come in the midst of an ongoing conflict between U.S. immigration judges—who are EOIR employees—and the U.S. government. Some immigration judges have been critical of Trump administration policies that they say interfere with their independence, such as case-completion quotas, and the administration is now attempting to decertify the union that represents the judges. A hearing in that decertification proceeding is scheduled to begin tomorrow.

“Federal employees don’t relinquish their First Amendment rights when they begin working for the government,” said Stephanie Krent, a legal fellow at the Knight Institute. “Limits on federal-employee speech must be tailored to speech that would be genuinely disruptive, but this policy is anything but. It sweepingly suppresses protected speech without any apparent justification.”

Read the Knight Institute’s letter and the EOIR policy here.

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, Knight First Amendment Institute, lorraine.kenny@knightcolumbia.org, (646) 745-8510.

 

 

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

Click the above link in the press release to see the letter to EOIR Director McHenry.

 

Given the absolute Due Process disaster in Immigration Court and the total dysfunctional mess that the “malicious incompetents” at DOJ and EOIR so-called “management” have made out of an already troubled system, it’s perfectly understandable why EOIR doesn’t want any public scrutiny or the truth to come out.

 

However, given the regime’s complete disregard of the Constitution, the rule of law, and sound public policy in areas from immigration to the environment to voting rights, etc., I wouldn’t hold my breath for EOIR to change their unconstitutional and “just plain dumb” policies. Hopefully, the Knight Institute has the resources to take this to the “real” courts and, perhaps, even to Congress in better times.

 

But, to date, a divided Congress with “Moscow Mitch” in the driver’s seat and the higher-level Article IIIs have shown little interest in applying the Constitution or insisting on compliance with laws when it’s only the rights and lives of immigrants, particularly brown skinned ones from south of our border, involved. That’s particularly interesting, and not just a little discouraging, because very few members of the Article III Judiciary are Native Americans; almost all descend from immigrants and many of their ancestors would not have been allowed to come here or would not have survived under the types of stereotyping and invidious, unconstitutional discrimination unleashed by Trump and his minions. The ability to see yourself in the situation of other humans should be a requirement for any Article III judge! Obviously, it hasn’t been, or at least not to a sufficient extent, in the past.

 

So far, the Article IIIs Appellate Courts have bent over backwards to demonstrate just how aggressively out of touch they are with humanity and the everyday individual rights of Americans, whether citizens or non-citizens, entitled to protection under our laws.

 

Unfortunately, the “failure of courage and dereliction of Constitutional responsibility” among the Article III Appellate Judiciary is a problem that will continue to plague whatever is left of America and our institutions even after Trump and his kakistocracy are gone from the scene.

 

At some point, maybe legal education in American has to focus on a larger problem: educating a future judiciary with an overriding commitment to ethics, courage to stand up for individual rights, and the integrity to “just say no” to tyranny, inhumanity, wanton cruelty, and constant Executive overreach!

 

We can’t change what has happened, but we can learn from our failures.

 

Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

 

01-10-19