“Malicious Incompetence” – Page 3 – immigrationcourtside.com

BIGOTED BULLY BILLY BARR BRUTALLY BATTERS U.S. JUSTICE SYSYEM: B/T/W He Also Runs America’s Most Screwed Up, & Most Clearly Unconstitutional “Court” System Right Under The Noses of Feckless Article III Judges! — It’s Not “Justice” — Just The Open Fraud That Passes For Justice When Democratic Institutions & Moral Leadership Fails — Barr’s DOJ is a “Thugocracy,” Says Post’s Dana Milbank!

Bigoted Bully Billy Barr Brutalizes Justice as Federal Courts Fail

Dana Milbank
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/09/so-this-is-why-bill-barr-is-such-bully/

Milbank writes in WashPost:

Police in Buffalo shove a 75-year-old man to the ground and blood pours from his ear. Police in Brooklyn knock down a young woman and call her a “bitch” because she asked why she had to leave the street. Federal authorities in Washington fire tear gas at peaceful demonstrators, then lie about it.

Get the feeling law enforcement in this country is being run by a middle-school bully?

If so, you are not wrong.

Childhood bullies have a predisposition to become adult bullies, research shows, and, sure enough, it seems Attorney General William Barr was a teenage bully more than 50 years ago.

Back in 1991, during Barr’s confirmation to be George H.W. Bush’s attorney general, lawyer Jimmy Lohman, who overlapped with Barr at New York’s Horace Mann School and later Columbia University, wrote a piece for the little-known Florida Flambeau newspaper about Barr being “my very own high-school tormentor” — a “classic bully” and “power abuser” in the 1960s who “put the crunch on me every chance [he] got.”

Nobody noticed the Flambeau piece at the time, but Lohman posted it on Facebook when President Trump nominated Barr in 2018, and it took on “a life of its own,” Lohman told me Tuesday from Austin, where Post researcher Alice Crites tracked him down. The article resurfaces in social media each time Barr does something unconscionable — which is often.

The 1991 description of 1963 Barr’s harassment sounds eerily like the 2020 Barr. He “lived to make me miserable,” with a “vicious fixation on my little Jewish ‘commie’ ass,” Lohman alleged, because he wore peace and racial-equality pins. He said the four Barr brothers picketed the school’s “Junior Carnival” because proceeds went to the NAACP, and he alleged that Billy Barr, the “most fanatic rightist” of the four, later “teamed with the New York City riot police to attack anti-war protesters and ‘long hairs.’ ”

The 1991 article says Barr, a “sadistic kid,” has “come a long way from terrorizing seventh graders just because they wore racial equality buttons.” The Justice Department didn’t respond to my request for comment.

Lohman’s account is consistent with Marie Brenner’s reporting for Vanity Fair: “A few who knew the Barr boys came to call them ‘the bully Barrs’; the siblings, these former classmates claimed, could be intimidating.” A petition from Horace Mann alumni asks the school to “rethink” an award for Barr, who “violated our school’s Core Values of Mutual Respect and Mature Behavior.”

Historian Paul Cronin, in Politico this week, says Barr was part of the “Majority Coalition” at Columbia that fought antiwar demonstrators. Barr had told the New York Times Magazine he was part of a “fistfight” in which “over a dozen people went to the hospital.” Cronin noted: “There appears to be no record of any trip to the hospital.”

Now Barr exaggerates violence on a grand scale. After he directed the forceful eviction of peaceful demonstrators from Lafayette Square, he claimed to Fox News on Monday that the image of peaceful demonstrators was “miscreated” to ignore “all the violence that was happening preceding that.” He alleged that there were two “bottles thrown at me” when he surveyed the scene; footage showed him at a safe distance. He charged that previously “things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended that the president go down to the bunker”; Trump claimed it was merely a bunker “inspection.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Dana’s article at the link.

Sadistic kid grows up to be racist bully, becomes Attorney General, institutes thugocracy, perverts justice, enabled by courts who look the other way. Wow! What a “great American success story.”

What’s the purpose of an independent life-tenured judiciary that lacks the courage, integrity, and commitment to our Constitution to hold Barr accountable for his attacks on truth, the rule of law, and human decency?

The road from Buffalo, Minneapolis, and Lafayette Park leads directly to the Supremes’ failure of legal and moral leadership. “Equal justice for all” will never become a reality until we get a Supremes’ majority that actually believes in it and has the guts to make it happen! When judges will neither admit nor engage the problem, they are the problem!

Better judges for a better, fairer, more equal America!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-10-20

☠️🤡🥵KAKISTOCRACY KORNER W/ EYORE: Tal Kopan @ SF Chron & Tanvi Misra @ Roll Call Report on Our (Anti) Hero’s Latest Adventures in Fraud, Waste & Abuse @ America’s Most Dysfunctional (Non) Courts! Can Eyore Trample Due Process, Squander Money, & Escape Accountability Forever? — What Happened to Congress & The Article IIIs? — Yeah, Eyore is Justifiably Sad, But Not Very “Lovable” Any More! — Tune In Next Week To See More of Your Taxpayer Money Poured Down the Drain by “Malicious Incompetents” Scheming to Inflict Injustice on The Most Vulnerable Humans!

Tal Kopan reports for the SF Chron:

Trump officials cut immigration court interpreters after miscalculating costs, report finds

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration grossly miscalculated budget projections before it cited funding problems to replace many immigration court interpreters in San Francisco and elsewhere with recorded videos, according to a new watchdog report.

The Justice Department began requiring immigration judges to use videos last year to explain the court system at immigrants’ initial appearances instead of in-person interpreters, a move first reported by The Chronicle. The department said the move was necessary to save money.

But an analysis by the department’s inspector general released Tuesday found that Justice Department officials were working off faulty numbers, part of an inaccurate portrayal of the agency’s larger budget situation.

The department “erroneously estimated its yearly interpreter costs by extrapolating a single, unusually high monthly interpreter expense, which was not supported by invoices or other contemporaneous evidence,” the watchdog wrote. “This erroneous estimate adversely affected (the agency’s) leadership’s communication of accurate budget needs to department and congressional decision makers.”

Full story: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Trump-officials-cut-immigration-court-15327674.php

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

Meanwhile, over at Roll Call, Tanvi Misra reports:

DOJ ‘reassigned’ career members of Board of Immigration Appeals

The nine BIA members, all appointed before Trump took office, had recently rejected buyout offers from DOJ

By Tanvi Misra

Posted June 9, 2020 at 4:55pm

Career members at the Board of Immigration Appeals appointed prior to the Trump administration have been “reassigned” to new roles after they rejected recent buyout offers by the Justice Department.

The step appears to be the latest administrative move that critics say dilutes the independence of an important appeals body by filling it with new hires more willing to carry out the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies.

The change was announced in an internal email viewed by CQ Roll Call.

“This is to inform you that effective June 8, 2020, you will be reassigned from your current position as Board Member (Senior Level) to the Appellate Immigration Judge position,” said an email that went out last week to nine career members.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, is a 23-member body under the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency overseeing the immigration court system. Three-member BIA panels review immigration court decisions and issue precedent-setting rulings that shape national immigration law.

Volume 0%

[DOJ memo offered to buy out immigration board members]

The difference between “board member” and “appellate immigration judge” roles goes beyond title, extending to pay ranges and leave policy. Appellate immigration judges also hear cases at both the trial and appellate levels, creating potential conflicts of interests, critics say. Sources familiar with the agency’s personnel matters, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, confirmed that all nine career members selected prior to the Trump administration received the email.

CQ Roll Call first reached out to EOIR for confirmation of the reassignments. Agency spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said via email that “board member roles and responsibilities are established by regulation and have not changed.”

Asked for additional comment this week once CQ Roll Call viewed the email, Mattingly said: “Adjudicator authorities are established by law and have not changed.”

The reassignment comes after DOJ offered, in an April 17 memo, “voluntary separation incentive payments” to the nine career board members, “individuals whose positions will help us strategically restructure EOIR in order to accommodate skills, technology, and labor markets.”

That memo, authored by EOIR Director James McHenry, noted the window for requesting these incentives closed on May 15. None of the nine career members accepted the offer, according to the sources at EOIR.

Under the Trump administration, the BIA has expanded from 17 members to 23. In addition, a flurry of career members have departed the agency, prompting EOIR to launch successive hiring sprees to fill new openings and vacant positions.

The nine most recent hires to the board include several immigration judges who denied over 90 percent of the asylum requests before them. Some also have a history of formal complaints of bias. The new hires have come on not as “board members” but as “appellate immigration judges.”

Ashley Tabaddor, who heads the immigration judges’ union, the National Association of Immigration Judges, said the “appellate immigration judge position” appeared to be a conflation of the BIA and the immigration judge roles. Adding more appellate immigration judges — who might review trial- and appellate-level cases at the same time — dilutes labor protections and undermines the independence of the immigration court system as a whole, she said.

“Over and over again, they’re just trying to conflate everything into one: ‘They’re all the same and no one should get protection from the union,'” Tabaddor said in an interview. “It’s so transparent that everything that they’re doing is to dismantle any semblance of a traditional court model.”

EOIR has repeatedly denied that accusation.

“Many board members have viewed themselves as appellate immigration judges for years, and EOIR first proposed such a designation in 2000,” the Justice Department said in a May 27 statement. “Elevating trial-level judges to appellate-level courts is common in every judicial system in the United States.”

Government officials also have said the agency has been trying to streamline a lengthy, inefficient hiring process. Recent changes to EOIR hiring procedures “have made the selection process of board members more formalized and neutral,” the department said in its May statement.

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

A link to a complete copy of the IG Report is embedded in Tal’s report above.

Eyore’s Continuing Clown Show 🤡 rolls on, grinding up ☠️ and spitting out 🤮ruined human lives and mocking due process every day! When, oh when, will Congress and/or the Article IIIs do their jobs and put this grotesque spectacle of injustice out of its misery and end the unnecessary and clearly unconstitutional human pain and suffering that it inflicts? Is there no human decency and integrity left anywhere in our failing institutions beyond the regime’s direct control?

After dealing with the Trump Kakistocracy, Eyore probably never figured he’d be followed and exposed by tenacious folks like Tal & Tanvi who actually know more about what’s really happening at America’s Star Chambers than he does! Why don’t our legislators and judges have the same awareness, courage, and integrity as journalists like Tal and Tanvi? Why have those whose primary job it is to protect the Constitution and the general welfare by holding an overtly corrupt and maliciously incompetent Executive accountable gone “belly up?”

As usual, Judge Tabaddor is “right on.” Any resemblance between EOIR and a “court system” is purely coincidental. But, this mess is all too real for its victims — asylum seekers and other migrants asking for justice. The real question: How do the legislators and life-tenured Article III Judges who ignore and enable these deadly abuses get away with it? How do they sleep at night knowing that Eyore will trample more rights and destroy more lives of vulnerable fellow humans tomorrow, on “their watch!”

Due Process Forever! Institutional Complicity Never!

PWS

06-10-20

DEBUNKING THE TRUMP REGIME’S WHITE NATIONALIST MYTHS☠️: Furthering & Protecting Immigrants’ Rights Benefits Society — Bogus “COVID-19” Visa Restrictions & Other Nativist Nonsense Enabled By Feckless Congress & Failing Courts Hurts America!

Gaurav Khanna
Assistant Professor of Economics
U.S. San Diego

https://apple.news/AtzkkrgAGThCSMutjCZCjAg

From SCIENMAG:

New Visa restrictions will make the US economic downturn worse

New research shows legal protections for immigrants improve lives and livelihoods of citizen workers

The Trump administration is expected to set limits on a popular program that allows international students to work in the U.S. after graduation while remaining on their student visas. The restrictions on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program are designed to help American graduates seeking jobs during the pandemic-fueled economic downturn; however, the move is likely to further hurt the economy, according to new University of California San Diego research on immigrant rights.

In a new research paper, economists find that immigrant rights enhance the lives and livelihoods of native-born workers in many ways. Drawing from a sweeping collection of studies on the U.S. labor market over the past century, the paper is the first of its kind to look at how legal protections for immigrants affect domestic workers of immigrant-receiving countries in terms of generating income, innovation, reducing crime and increasing tax revenues.

One in eight persons living in the United States was born in a different country. Therefore understanding the impact of migrant worker rights on receiving economies is crucial to immigration policymaking, especially with the White House’s immigration policies growing more exclusionary during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This time the political restrictions seem to be on high-skill foreign-born, like students, OPTs and those with H1B visas,” said Gaurav Khanna, co-author and assistant professor of economics at the UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS). “Many high-skill workers have lost their jobs, which means many will have to leave the country soon. When the U.S. crisis abates, there may be a scarcity of high-skill professionals, which could stall a robust recovery.”

Legal protections for immigrants aid entrepreneurship and innovation

About 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. These companies amass more than $6 trillion in revenue per year and include tech-giants like Google-Alphabet, Microsoft, Tesla and Apple. With one in four of computer scientists born in a different country, the U.S. immigrant workforce comprises of many of Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs, current CEOs or company founders.

As entrepreneurs know, starting a business requires a lot of money up front while the return on investment may take years, but the benefits to the local populations prove to be very positive from the start.

With the economy contracting at unprecedented levels, the White House’s decision to impose more visa restrictions is expected make economic recovery more difficult because the less confidence immigrants have in their status, the less likely they are to seed innovation and create businesses.

Providing legal permanence and stability to immigrants may help incentivize long-term local investments like businesses which lead to an increase in jobs and a larger tax base, Khanna and co-author Anna Brown, a graduate of GPS’s Master of Public Policy program write.

H1-B under fire, despite its well-documented economic benefits

Most technology workers enter the U.S. on H-1B visas, which are temporary work visas that are valid for three years and renewable up to another three years. At the end of the six-year period, these highly-skilled workers must either leave the country or apply for a costly green card that has a long waitlist, particularly for citizens of India and China.

“Extending the H-1B limit or making the green card process easier would provide immigrants with a longer legal work status in the U.S. and allow employers to retain high-skill talent, which could have downstream effects on other industries that use software, like banking, manufacturing and other sectors,” the authors write.

Since the H-1B visa was in introduced in 1990, it has yielded many economic benefits. For example, U.S.-born workers gained $431 million in 2010 as a result of the H-1B, according to previous research from Khanna. Moreover, another study of his revealed that hiring H-1B workers was strongly associated with firms introducing newer products.

However, new restrictions to the H-1B, the same type of visa the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, used to begin working in the U.S., could be released soon as the White House recently indicated it is reevaluating the program. This could yield another roadblock for the legalization of immigrants with entrepreneurial ambition.

“Unless immigrants are certain they will be allowed to remain within a country, they may not invest in developing a business in that country,” Khanna and Brown write. “This highlights a problem faced by many migrants who have ambitions to start businesses but will not because they know they may not be able to stay in the country for long.”

More protections for immigrants increases the likelihoods of jobs going to native born-workers, over immigrants

In addition to analyzing how immigrant rights aid entrepreneurship, Khanna and Brown also looked at how these policies impact the competition between native-born and immigrant workers. Immigrant worker rights protect migrant workers from employer exploitation; an indirect benefit of these laws is that they even the playing field between immigrants and non-immigrants.

“Migrant workers, who are not legally protected, face much lower wages compared with their native counterparts,” according to Khanna. “This is detrimental to U.S. born workers, who are less likely to be hired. Ensuring migrant workers have substantial rights inadvertently helps U.S. born workers as well.”

The study points to exclusionary immigration policies over the course of U.S. history, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ policies targeted at farmworkers, all of which were driven by fear of low-skill laborers from other countries depressing wages of native-born workers in the U.S.

However, economist all over the world have been unable to find evidence that proves these theories. Rather, in each of these cases throughout U.S. history, employers adjusted to the missing workers in ways other than substantially bidding up wages, such as by shifting to production technologies that use less labor.

“Often, such policies have been motivated by resentment against foreign workers; however, this fear may be based on false perceptions and lack of evidence,” the authors of the paper, which appeared in the UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs, write. “This resentment may also be driven by racial prejudices and xenophobia.”

Rights for immigrants also lower crimes in receiving countries

Even as the discussion on the impact of immigration has predominantly focused on wages and employment, the current U.S. President has strongly alluded to a link between immigrants and crime, propelling growing discourse on the subject.

Between 2001 and 2017, Gallup polls consistently reflected that roughly half (45 percent to 58 percent) of American respondents believe immigrants make the crime situation worse. These assumptions are false. The authors cite ample research that sheds light on incarceration rates being lower for immigrants, and far lower for newly arrived immigrants, revealing the baseline for criminal activity among immigrants is lower than native-born workers.

In addition, the authors point to previous studies that revealed a correlation between immigrant rights with decreased crime over the course of four decades (1970 to 2010).

“This is because the less protection and work opportunities immigrants have, the more likely they are to turn to criminal activity, as an act of desperation,” said Khanna. “Criminal behavior is widely understood to be a result of necessity and when given legal employment opportunities at livable wages, crime is reduced.”

For example, after the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of was implemented in 1986, which gave legal status to three million immigrants in the U.S., it led to a marked decrease in crime up to 5 percent.

Legal protections lower the fiscal burden and reduce deficits

Contrary to popular belief, undocumented migrant workers pay taxes, mostly income taxes, which are estimated to at $11.7 billion. Yet the number would be higher (by $2.2 billion) if undocumented migrants were granted legal status, an important consideration as the national deficit mounts in the wake of COVID-19.

Additional ways more protections for migrants would help domestic populous could be lower health care costs. Undocumented migrants may not be eligible for insurance, adding to healthcare costs in times of emergency.

“We find that the fiscal burden can be greatly reduced if immigrants are given working status and allowed to contribute to the tax base,” the authors wrote. “In conclusion, we find there are several areas where strengthening migrant worker rights benefits native-born workers, outweighing any costs borne by them.”

To read the full paper, go to the UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs website.

Media Contact
Christine Clark
ceclark@ucsd.edu
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/new-visa-restrictions-will-make-the-u.s-economic-downturn-worse

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

The fear mongering, racist lies, anti-scientific BS, and White Nationalist false narratives pushed by the Trump regime and enabled by a feckless Congress and complicit Article III Courts that refuse to give meaning to our Constitution and statutes while failing to require honesty and candor from the Administration are destroying America.

No, everything can’t be changed overnight. Sadly, the damage inflicted by Trump, his corrupt cronies, and his supporters on America and on our democratic institutions is huge; it will take years if not decades to repair. That’s what makes the exceptionally poor performance of Congress and the Federal Judiciary as a whole under the defective leadership of the Supremes so reprehensible. Far, far too many of the wrong people in the wrong jobs at the worst time in our history for fecklessness, lack of courage, and absence of integrity, not to mention empathy and compassion for “the other.” Disgraceful!

But regime change and appointing Federal Judges who demonstrate “community creds,” a commitment to due process, fundamental fairness, equal justice under law, human rights, and human decency would be an important necessary step to making social justice in America a reality rather than just a slogan. It would also help protect us against any future “Trump-style, neo-fascist regime.”

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

06-06-20

🤡CLOWN SHORTAGE IN AMERICA? — EOIR CAN’T FIND ONE TO FILL DEPUTY DIRECTOR JOB — Re-Advertises, Again! — ☠️☠️☠️WARNING: Successful Candidate Must Have Experience in “Cooking Books” & Be Willing “Fall Guy” For America’s Most Dysfunctional Parody of a “Court System!”☠️☠️☠️

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

Deputy Director

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Executive Office for Immigration Review

Overview
Locations
Duties
Requirements
Required Documents
Benefits
How to apply

Help Help

Overview

Open & closing dates
Opening and closing dates 06/02/2020 to 07/02/2020

Service
Senior Executive

Pay scale & grade
ES 00

Salary
$131,239 to $197,300 per year

Appointment type
Permanent

Work schedule
Full-Time

Help Help

Location

1 vacancy in the following location:

Falls Church, VAFalls Church, VA

Relocation expenses reimbursed

No

Telework eligible

No

Help Help

This job is open to

Senior executives
Those who meet the five Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs).

Clarification from the agency

U.S. Citizens

Apply

Print Print

Share Share

Save

Announcement number

SES-10830644-20-AS

Control number

569755300

Duties
Help Help
Duties
Summary
If you are interested in a rewarding and challenging career, this is the position for you!

Learn more about this agency
Responsibilities
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) seeks highly-qualified individuals to join our team of expert professionals in becoming a part of our challenging and rewarding Agency. The primary mission of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is to adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering the Nation’s immigration laws. Under delegated authority from the Attorney General, EOIR conducts immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings. EOIR consists of three adjudicatory components: The Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, which is responsible for managing the Immigration Courts where Immigration Judges adjudicate individual cases; the Board of Immigration Appeals, which primarily conducts appellate reviews of these Immigration Judge decisions; and the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer, which adjudicates immigration-related employment cases.

This position is located in the Office of the Director, Executive Office for Immigration Review, U. S. Department of Justice. Incumbent serves as the Deputy Director. This position enjoys the full delegated authority of the Director to manage all aspects of EOIR operations. Thus, the incumbent is responsible for the supervision of the Chairman of BIA, the Chief of OCIJ, the Chief of OCAHO, and all agency personnel in the execution of their duties.

Typical work assignments will include:

Responsible for the formulation and administration of policies affecting the mission of EOIR.

Manages the development, evaluation, and implementation of policies for agency-wide programs.

Explores and plans long-range development goals, as well as short-term strategies.

Develops and implements funding and resource strategies to further the agency’s goals and oversees strategic planning for all agency components.

Exercises the authority delegated by the Attorney General and represents the position and policies of EOIR the the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Members of Congress and other governmental bodies, the press, the bar, and private groups interested in immigration matter.

Travel Required
Occasional travel – You may be expected to travel for this position.Supervisory status
Yes

Promotion Potential
00

Job family (Series)
0905 Attorney

Requirements
Help Help
Requirements
Conditions of Employment

You must be a U.S. Citizen or National.

You must complete a background investigation, credit check, and drug test.

Selective Service Registration is required, as applicable.

May be required to file a Financial Disclosure.

Salary payments must be by direct deposit to a financial institution.

Probationary period: For those entering the SES career service for the first time are subject to a one-year probationary period.

Managerial qualifications of those not a current or former SES employee must be approved by OPM before appointment.

Those who completed the Candidate Development Program (CDP) and have ECQ’s certified by OPM must provide a copy with the application.

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement.

Qualifications
In order to qualify for the Deputy Director position, you must meet the following minimum qualifications:

Education: Applicants must possess a LL.B. or a J.D. degree.

-AND-

Licensure: Applicants must be an active member of the bar, duly licensed and authorized to practice law as an attorney under the laws of a U.S. state, territory, Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia (include the MM/YY date of your admission to the bar).

-AND-

Experience: Applicants must be U.S. citizens and must have practiced as an attorney, post-bar admission, for a minimum of seven (7) years at the time the application is submitted with at least 1 year of experience at a level equivalent to the GS-15 in the Federal service.(Your resume must CLEARLY demonstrate this experience)

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. If your resume does not support your questionnaire answers, we will not allow credit for your response(s).

For more information on the qualifications for this position, click here.

Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs):

ECQ 1- LEADING CHANGE. This core qualification involves the ability to bring about strategic change, both within and outside the organization, to meet organizational goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to establish an organizational vision and to implement it in a continuously changing environment.

Leadership Competencies: Creativity & Innovation, External Awareness, Flexibility, Resilience, Strategic Thinking, Vision

ECQ 2- LEADING PEOPLE. This core qualification involves the ability to lead people toward meeting the organization’s vision, mission, and goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to provide an inclusive workplace that fosters the development of others, facilitates cooperation and teamwork, and supports constructive resolution of conflicts.

Leadership Competencies: Conflict Management, Leveraging Diversity, Developing Others, Team Building

ECQ 3 – RESULTS DRIVEN. This core qualification involves the ability to meet organizational goals and customer expectations. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to make decisions that produce high-quality results by applying technical knowledge, analyzing problems, and calculating risks.

Leadership Competencies: Accountability, Customer Service, Decisiveness, Entrepreneurship, Problem Solving, Technical Credibility.

ECQ 4- BUSINESS ACUMEN. This core qualification involves the ability to manage human, financial, and information resources strategically.

Leadership Competencies: Financial Management, Human Capital Management, Technology Management

ECQ 5- BUILDING COALITIONS. This core qualification involves the ability to build coalitions internally and with other Federal agencies, State and local governments, nonprofit and private sector organizations, foreign governments, or international organizations to achieve common goals.

Leadership Competencies: Partnering, Political Savvy,Influencing/Negotiating

Mandatory Technical Qualification Requirements:

In addition to the ECQs above, qualified candidates must possess the following technical qualifications. Possession of these technical qualifications must be clearly documented in your application package and should be addressed separately.

1. Ability to interpret cases, statues and administrative regulations and apply them to an organizations mission.

2. Comprehensive knowledge of immigration law and procedure, with particular expertise in administrative and Judicial case law and regulations.

3. Ability to draft regulations to implement Department and agency policy and statutory requirements.

4. Ability to represent an organization in administration hearings and proceedings.

5. Demonstrated decision-making, problem- solving, and legal writing skills.

6. Ability to create a customer-service driven organization.EducationAdditional information
Conditions of Employment: Only U.S. Citizens or Nationals are eligible for employment with the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Dual citizens of the U.S. and another country will be considered on a case-by-case basis. All DOJ applicants, both U.S. citizens and non-citizens, whose job location is with the U.S., must meet the residency requirement. For a total of three (not necessarily consecutive years) of the five years immediately prior to applying for a position, the applicant must have: 1) resided in the U.S., 2) worked for the U.S. overseas in a Federal or military capacity; or 3) been a dependent of a Federal or military employee serving oversees.

NOTE: Veteran’s preference does not apply to this position. 5 USC 2108(3), which defines “preference eligible”, indicates this does not include applicants for, or members of, the Senior Executive Service.

If you are unable to apply online or need to fax a document you do not have in electronic form, view the following link for information regarding an Alternate Application.Read moreHow You Will Be Evaluated
You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.
Once the application process is complete, a review of your resume and supporting documentation will be made and compared against your responses to the assessment questionnaire to determine if you are qualified for this job.

In order to be rated as meeting the minimum qualifications, we must be able to determine from your application package that you have the education and/or specialized or general experience that is required.

Applicants who have qualifying experience performed on less than a full-time basis must specify the percentage and length of time spent in performance of such duties.Read more
Background checks and security clearance
Security clearance
Top Secret Drug test required
Yes

Required Documents
Help Help
Required Documents
To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package by the closing date of this announcement, which includes:

1. Your Resume showing relevant experience; cover letter optional

2. A complete Assessment Questionnaire

3. For those attempting to enter the SES career service for the first time, you must submit mandatory statements to address the Executive Core Qualifications (ECQ).

4. All applicants are required to submit the Mandatory Technical Qualifications (MTQ).

5. Current or former SES must submit SF-50 and/or SES certificate to show current or prior service.

Note: Please ensure that your resume contains your full name, address, phone number, employment information such as: Employer name and location; From and to dates (or from date to present for current position), which include the month and year MM/YY for each description of experience, with grade level held, if applicable, education, training etc. Qualifying experience performed on less than a full-time basis must specify the percentage and length of time spent in performance of such duties.
If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:
Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.

Benefits
Help Help
Benefits
A career with the U.S. Government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Learn more about federal benefits.Review our benefits
Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time, or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

How to Apply
Help Help
How to Apply
You must submit a complete application package by 11:59 PM (EST) on the closing date of the announcement.

* To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire, which can be previewed here: https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/10830644.

* Click the Submit My Answers button to submit your application package.

* It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date.

* To verify your application is complete, log into your USAJOBS account, select the Application Status link and then select the more information link for this position. The Details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process.

* To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete.Read more
Agency contact information
Allison Smith Allison Smith
Phone
(816) 426-5706
Email
allison.smith@opm.govAddress

Office of the Director

5107 Leesburg Pike, Ste. 2300

Falls Church, VA 22041

USLearn more about this agencyNext steps
You will be notified of your application status during the hiring process, as applicable. You may check your application status by accessing the USAJOBS website and clicking “Application Status”. The process may take up to 6 weeks.

The four points of notification are:

Application Received or Application Incomplete

Minimum Qualification Requirement Met/Not Met

Eligible (Application Referred) or Eligible (Application Not referred)

Selected or Not Selected

If your name is referred to the hiring official, you may be contacted directly by that office for a possible interview.Read more

Fair & Transparent
Fair & Transparent
The Federal hiring process is setup to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.
Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
The United States Government does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) for federal employees & job applicants

Read more
Reasonable Accommodation Policy
Federal agencies must provide reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities where appropriate. Applicants requiring reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process should follow the instructions in the job opportunity announcement. For any part of the remaining hiring process, applicants should contact the hiring agency directly. Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.
A reasonable accommodation is any change to a job, the work environment, or the way things are usually done that enables an individual with a disability to apply for a job, perform job duties or receive equal access to job benefits.
Under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, federal agencies must provide reasonable accommodations when:

An applicant with a disability needs an accommodation to have an equal opportunity to apply for a job.

An employee with a disability needs an accommodation to perform the essential job duties or to gain access to the workplace.

An employee with a disability needs an accommodation to receive equal access to benefits, such as details, training, and office-sponsored events.

You can request a reasonable accommodation at any time during the application or hiring process or while on the job. Requests are considered on a case-by-case basis.
Learn more about disability employment and reasonable accommodations or how to contact an agency.Read more

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

According to insiders, this is the fourth or fifth attempt by the current regime to fill what normally would be a “highly desirable” career Senior Executive position. But, in the kakistocracy, it’s likely to be a “career ender.”

My advice: make sure you have paid up liability insurance and “alternate career plans” if you apply. A good “White Collar Crime” lawyer on retainer wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

PWS

06-05-20

🏴‍☠️“BIZARRO COURTS” — THE CONSTITUTION APPLIES TO ALL PERSONS IN THE U.S., YET ICE & THEIR “PARTNERS” AT EOIR HAVE ESTABLISHED A CONSTITUTION-FREE “COURT SYSTEM” THAT OPERATES BEYOND THE LAW & MORALITY IN A LEGAL NEVER-NEVER LAND 🧚‍♂️ — How Do They Get Away With It Under The Noses Of Congress & Article III Courts? — An Outrageous Story of Gross 🤮 Institutional & Personal Failures & Ethical Lapses Across All Three Branches of Our Federal Government ☠️👎🏻!

Paul Moses and Tim Healy report for The Daily Beast:

‘The Bizarro-World’ Immigration Courts Where the Constitution Isn’t Applied Detainees can be held for weeks or months before seeing a judge. The Justice Department gave “the word of the agency under penalty of perjury” that it would fix that—but only in NY

·         ICE officials acknowledged that they couldn’t handle the volume of arrests their own agents made; the major clog was in getting a legal review from the agency’s understaffed legal unit.

·         In 11 of the 55 venues that heard more than 500 cases last year, detainees spent six weeks or more in jail before an initial hearing. Such long waits would be unconstitutional in criminal cases; the right to due process requires authorities to not only get a case filed but also to provide an arraignment promptly, generally in no more than 48 hours.

·         Among the 55 venues that handled 500 or more detainee cases last year, the longest waits from arrest to initial hearing were in hearing locations at privately run lockups under contract with ICE: Winn Correctional Center in Winnifield, Louisiana, a median of 140 days; T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, 72 days; Richwood Correctional Center in Richwood, Louisiana, 64 days…

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

Ironically, by his own overt corruption and open disdain for our Constitution and the rule of law, Trump has exposed the deep flaws, grotesque derelictions of duty, and unethical complicity throughout our Constitutional institutions that are supposed to protect all of us, particularly the most vulnerable among us like civil immigration detainees and asylum seekers, from abuses by would-be authoritarian tyrants like Trump!

Here’s a gem:

“The larger question behind this mass of numbers is why DHS is detaining so many people when both its legal office and the court lack the staffing—not only judges but support staff as well—to handle them.

‘I would just say, they are the prosecuting agency and in this context, they have complete control over the timeline,’ said Aaron Hall, an immigration lawyer who practices at the court in Aurora, Colorado, which has had substantial delays. ‘If the charging document isn’t ready to go, why are they arresting them?’”

Good question! But don’t expect a straight answer from the “malicious incompetents” at DHS. Nor will today get anything except misleading nonsense from their “partners” at EOIR (“ICE Jr.”).

DOJ was forewarned of this disaster by an independent consultant back in 2017. But, rather than solving the problem, then AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions intentionally made things even worse at EOIR. You might remember “Gonzo” as the “mastermind” behind the regime’s unconstitutional child separation policy. His victims were returned to abuse, scarred for life, or imprisoned for the “crime” of asserting their Constitutional and legal rights to fair treatment.

All of this is wrong, plain and simple! It’s part of “Dred Scotiffication” — now playing out across our nation in many ways. Finally, the systematic “dehumanization of the other” as aided, abetted, and actually encouraged by a majority of the Supremes, is getting some much-needed and long overdue “pushback.”

But the abuses of our Constitution and our values, and the unaccountability of corrupt public officials, present and former, of the Trump immigration kakistocracy, won’t cease until we get “regime change.” That requires substantial personnel and attitude changes across all three branches of our reeling Federal Government! And that definitely includes accountability for those who have failed to insure “equal justice for all” and instead permitted and sometimes aided and abetted the existence of “Constitution-Free Zones” right under their noses!

Due Process Forever! Complicit Officials & Institutions, Never!

PWS

6-04-20

KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE UNDER THE EOIR BIG TOP 🤡🎪🤹‍♂️ — TRAC DECLARES EOIR’S BOGUS STATISTICS TO BE NATIONAL DISASTER! ☠️— “The EOIR’s apparent reckless deletion of potentially irretrievable court records raises urgent concerns that without immediate intervention the agency’s sloppy data management practices could undermine its ability to manage itself, thwart external efforts at oversight, and leave the public in the dark about essential government activities.”🤮 — WHERE’S THE OVERSIGHT? WHERE’S THE ACCOUNTABILITY?

https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/611/

EOIR’s Data Release on Asylum So Deficient Public Should Not Rely on Accuracy of Court Records

TRAC has concluded that the data updated through April 2020 it has just received on asylum and other applications for relief to the Immigration Courts are too unreliable to be meaningful or to warrant publication. We are therefore discontinuing updating our popular Immigration Court Asylum Decisions app, and will take other steps to highlight this problem[1]. We also wish to alert the public that any statistics EOIR has recently published on this topic may be equally suspect, as will be any future reports the agency publishes until these major data deficiencies are explained and rectified[2].

The EOIR’s apparent reckless deletion of potentially irretrievable court records raises urgent concerns that without immediate intervention the agency’s sloppy data management practices could undermine its ability to manage itself, thwart external efforts at oversight, and leave the public in the dark about essential government activities. Left unaddressed, the number of deleted records will compound each month and could trigger an expensive data crisis at the agency. And here the missing records are the actual applications for asylum, and how the court is handling them. This is a subject on which there is widespread public interest and concern.

EOIR Data Irregularities Approaching Point of No Return

Despite TRAC’s appeals to the EOIR, Immigration Court records continue to disappear each month. TRAC initially reported 1,507 missing applications for relief in our October 2019 report, which grew to 3,799 missing applications the following month. We wrote EOIR Director James McHenry providing a copy of the 1,507 missing applications asking for answers on why these records were missing from their files. We wrote again when the number of missing applications more than doubled the following month. These letters were met with silence. Not only have these cases disappeared entirely, they have not been restored in any subsequent data releases and the number of missing relief applications continue to grow. (See the final section for a short explanation of TRAC’s methodology.)

Alarmingly, the number of relief applications that were present in the March 2020 data release but were missing in the April release jumped to 68,282. This is just the number of records that disappeared over a single month. It does not include the ever growing number of applications that had previously disappeared month-by-month. As was true in past months, roughly four out of five of the records in the March 2020 release that disappeared from April’s release concerned applications on which the court had rendered its decision, including many cases in which the immigration judge had granted asylum as well as other forms of relief.

To put that into perspective, the number of missing cases just last month is more than the 63,734 asylum applications received by the Immigration Courts during all of FY 2015. If these applications are missing because they have been deleted from the Court’s own master files, the magnitude of the task of restoring just this single month’s destruction—assuming this is even possible—is enormous. To go back and restore the cumulative number of relief applications that went missing during previous months will obviously be even greater.

In fact, so many asylum decisions were dropped from EOIR’s April release that the cumulative number of asylum decisions went down, not up, despite asylum decisions continuing to be made. The volume of disappearing records has reached a scale that little faith can be placed in the factual accuracy of reports published by the EOIR based on its data.

The EOIR’s escalating data problems should raise dire concerns for Congress, policymakers and the public who routinely put their faith in federal agencies to provide complete and accurate information about their work. Indeed, the management of the court system itself, including the quota system recently imposed on immigration judges, presupposes the accuracy of the court’s own records. It is deeply worrisome that the EOIR and the Department of Justice appear unconcerned with ensuring that their own records are accurate and uncommitted to providing the public with accurate and reliable data about the Court’s operations.

TRAC Urges EOIR to Take Immediate Action

To date, the EOIR has not responded to TRAC’s requests for an explanation of these disappearances, nor has the EOIR responded to TRAC’s FOIA requests for records that would shed light on this matter.

Therefore, TRAC has written a third letter to Director McHenry reporting our findings of 68,282 new disappearances and we are again seeking a commitment from him to take the steps needed to address the problem. More urgently, we are asking that the EOIR immediately preserve—rather than destroy—all back-up tapes or other media in the hopes that records apparently improperly deleted from the Court’s master files might be restored. We assured Director McHenry that we would be more than happy to work cooperatively with the agency to help them better ensure that going forward the public is provided with more accurate and reliable data about the Immigration Court’s operations.

How EOIR’s Data Mismanagement Impacts TRAC’s Immigration Court Tools

TRAC’s mission is to provide the public with accurate, reliable, unbiased, and timely data on the operations of the federal government, and to ensure that the public is informed about changes that impact our data.

The EOIR’s disappearing records fall under the data related to applications for relief. The record on the existence of the court case itself is present, but for a growing number of these cases there now is no record that the immigrant ever applied for relief, or the court’s decision on that application. One of the key moments in the life of the case—including applications for asylum—is missing entirely. As a direct consequence TRAC does not have the information needed to provide reliable or meaningful updates on the court’s handling of applications for asylum and must therefore discontinue updating its asylum decision app.

While each of the other files in EOIR’s monthly data releases also have the same problem of records disappearing, the magnitude of these disappearances has not reached the levels seen with applications for relief. While still worrisome, these levels have not yet climbed to where we believe we can no longer use the information we receive. Thus, we are continuing to update the rest of our other Immigration Court apps. We continue to closely monitor the situation, while we urge EOIR to explain why records keep disappearing. We further continue to ask the agency to take the steps needed to rectify the situation.

TRAC will continue to retain all previous and future EOIR data shipments for research purposes.

How did TRAC Identify the EOIR’s Data Irregularities?

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) oversees the nationwide Immigration Court system, including more than 60 physical Immigration Court locations (as well as many more remote hearing locations including teleconference sites and ad hoc “tent” courts), hundreds of Immigration Judges, and millions of immigration cases that pass through the court system. The EOIR records information on each case and tracks various proceedings, filings, hearings and other aspects of each case in a large database. This database is central to the Court’s ability to manage its workload, prepare and publish reports for the public, and respond to queries from Congress about its operations. It is also used in implementing new practices, including the recent decision to impose new evaluation criteria for Immigration Judges.

As a result of TRAC’s ongoing FOIA requests, the EOIR releases a large batch of anonymized Immigration Court data each month that provides a snapshot of a great deal of the information recorded in this database on the handling of each case. In short, TRAC does not create data on the EOIR; rather, TRAC’s uses the EOIR’s own data. This data is the foundation for TRAC’s Immigration Court data tools which help ensure transparency and accountability for the American public.

TRAC used this data to precisely identify deleted records. While the information TRAC receives does not identify individuals, EOIR’s computer system assigns a unique computer sequence number to each case that identifies it. Because TRAC receives comprehensive data shipments from the EOIR each month that include these unique computer-assigned tracking numbers, TRAC can match each record received in the previous month with the same corresponding record in the following month’s release. Each release is also cumulative. That means it should include every record from the previous month plus every new record that has been added to the database over the course of the current month. As a rule, records should therefore never disappear[3].

When a record that was present is not included in the next month’s release, TRAC refers to these as missing or disappearing records. Because humans maintain most databases including EOIR’s, mistakes will occur. Therefore no database is ever perfect. So a few disappearing records might be expected. However, as is the situation here, concern is warranted whenever significant numbers of records disappear. Indeed, alarm bells should ring as the number of disappearing records grow. This situation means the data can no longer be trusted to reliably track the court’s proceedings.

Footnotes

[1] EOIR monthly releases consist of a series of tables covering different aspects of its workload. While each of these tables continue to have disappearing records each month, the magnitude of these missing records varies by table. For example, in the table that tracks each case before the court there were 228 cases present in March that disappeared from the April release, compared with 41,233 new cases that were added. While the problem of disappearing case records remains very troubling for the case table along with each of the other EOIR tables, TRAC believes that their magnitudes do not rise to the same level as the problem for applications for relief where the data now are so unreliable and misleading that they do not warrant the public placing any trust in them. At this time, we therefore are continuing to update our other Immigration Court apps while alerting the public to this continuing serious problem that affects the reliability of EOIR data releases more generally.

[2] For an example of a recent EOIR publication that may contain significant data errors, see the graph and table reporting total asylum applications through March 2020, which was generated using data from April 2020: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1106366/download.

[3] Even when a data entry error is made, the database has special codes to indicate that a record should be disregarded because it was a data entry error so that rarely is it necessary to actually delete records.

TRAC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit data research center affiliated with the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Whitman School of Management, both at Syracuse University. For more information, to subscribe, or to donate, contact trac@syr.edu or call 315-443-3563.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of TRAC’s report at the link.

EOIR isn’t willing and able to do its only function: provide fair, impartial, and timely adjudications to asylum seekers and other migrants while following best judicial practices.

But they do have time to waste taxpayers’ money on nonsense like the chart at this link: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/file/1217001/download. This was obviously designed to further the Trump regime’s false narrative regarding the merits of asylum claims. While the chart is largely incomprehensible, misleading nonsense, what stands out is this:

At the end of an abusive process during which the law has been illegally skewed against asylum seekers and “judges,” most of whom are not experts in asylum law and who have never even represented an asylum seeker, are encouraged to deny meritorious claims for protection, against the odds, over 25% (12 of 47) of those who actually get through this biased dysfunctional mess still get asylum!

It’s reasonable to believe that under a fair system, with impartial decision makers who have expertise in asylum law, and without the interference of biased, overtly anti-asylum politicos like Sessions and Barr, asylum seekers would succeed the majority of the time, as they did before efforts by both the Obama and Trump Administrations to “ratchet down” asylum grants so that the EOIR system would serve DHS Enforcement as a “deterrent” to those seeking protection.

Obviously, the DOJ is afraid that under a fair, independent judicial system that actually employed judges who were experts in asylum law and who had real life experience representing asylum applicants, the majority of claims would be granted, thereby exposing the fraud, dishonesty, and misconduct involved in the present anti-asylum system.

It’s a national disgrace that is actually harming and sometimes killing those deserving of protection under our law.

Due Process Forever! Dishonest, Unethical, Incompetent, and Intentionally Biased “Courts” Never!

PWS

06-04-20

🤡AMERICA’S CLOWN PRINCE DECLARES WAR ON: AMERICA! — As America Burns 🥵, He Throws Gasoline On Fire, Poses For Photo Op! — Malicious Incompetence, Unsuitability For Office On Full Display As Leaderless America Careens From Pandemic to Civil Rights Crisis! — “ Trump appeared to be trying to project strength at a moment when his presidency seems feckless and as the nation spins out of control. If it occurred abroad and not in the White House, Americans might perceive a ridiculous self-deluding act of a wanna-be strongman.”

Trump Clown — Donald J. Trump
Dangerous American Clown

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/02/politics/donald-trump-george-floyd-protest-military/index.html

Stephen Collinson reports for CNN:

(CNN)President Donald Trump‘s made-for-TV embrace of authoritarianism’s imagery and tools at a brittle national moment risks unleashing toxic political forces that threaten America’s democratic traditions.

Trump on Monday turned security forces on peaceful protesters in front of the White House, as tear gas and rubber bullets flew, before declaring himself the “law and order” President. Then, in one of the most bizarre moments in modern presidential history, he strode across the park to stand in front of an iconic church holding a Bible aloft in a striking photo op.

It was a moment of vanity and bravado — orchestrated for the cameras and transparently political — as Trump struggles to cope with protests sweeping the country after the killing of George Floyd and tries to cover up his botched leadership during the coronavirus pandemic. Overnight, the White House’s official Twitter account released a triumphant video of the moment set to music but omitting any signs of the mayhem unleashed on the protesters.

Trump appeared to be trying to project strength at a moment when his presidency seems feckless and as the nation spins out of control. If it occurred abroad and not in the White House, Americans might perceive a ridiculous self-deluding act of a wanna-be strongman.

Trump threatens military force if violence in states isn’t stopped

“I thought I was watching a scene from something in Turkey, and not in the United States,” retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who commanded National Guard troops in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

And after using St. John’s Church, the “church of the presidents,” which had experienced a basement fire during Sunday’s demonstrations, Trump drew immediate criticism from faith leaders, including Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

“The President just used the Bible, our sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus,” Budde said on “AC360.”

Trump’s showmanship was motivated in part by anger at media coverage saying he had sheltered in a bunker below the White House on Friday night amid protests in Washington, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Kevin Liptak reported. It shows how far Trump will go to protect his own thin skin and how his power plays are often motivated by assaults on his dignity.

But his behavior is also alarming, considering the vast power at his command, uses of demagogic tropes and capacity to buckle the traditions and structures of civilian, democratic government. So while Trump’s turn to the rhetoric of the despotic leaders he so admires had elements of farce, it opened a sinister new chapter in his presidency and a challenge to American norms.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Stephen’s report at the link.

America’s national nightmare can’t end until Trump and his GOP enablers are removed from office at the ballot box. Just because he’s an incompetent, cowardly, bully doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. He is!

This November, vote like your life and our nation’s future existence depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

06-02-20

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: Will Trump’s Incompetence Save America From His Maliciousness?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-all-about-deregulation–except-when-it-comes-to-his-enemies/2020/05/28/dcfb9638-a116-11ea-b5c9-570a91917d8d_story.html

Catherine writes:

. . . .

That’s because the pretense was nonsense from the start. Trump’s regulatory agenda was never about helping the economy; it was always about rewarding friends and punishing enemies. White House officials have weaponized the “administrative state” they claim to hate and have repeatedly tried to strangle disfavored groups with regulations and red tape.

Not just Twitter, either.

Arbitrary delays in processing visa applications, for example, have been used to punish immigrants and the companies that employ them. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has rejected visa applications because applicants lack a middle name. It has also waited to mail approved visas until (oops!) after the visas had already expired.

The additional costs and uncertainty these processing changes create for workers and their employers are a feature, not a bug.

Elsewhere, both federal and state officials have ratcheted up bureaucratic hurdles for the poor, as Georgetown University professors Pamela Herd and Donald P. Moynihan have documented.

Right now, for example, states can decide a poor family is automatically eligible for food assistance if the family is enrolled in other means-tested safety-net programs. The Trump administration is trying to block states from doing this, and require more paperwork to prove eligibility. By the administration’s own calculations, this would cause 1 million children to lose their automatic eligibility for free school lunches.

The administration, of course, argues that its regulatory decisions are determined not by Trump’s political whims but by meticulous analysis of what’s best for the economy.Helpfully, a method exists to check their work: the cost-benefits analysis that agencies must produce ahead of major rule changes.

These records show, however, that the administration has repeatedly struggled to prove that its regulatory actions actually increase economic and social welfare.

To get the numbers to work out in its favor, the administration has had to cook the books.

. . . .

The only upside to this slapdash math is that it makes the administration’s most damaging and punitive regulatory changes less likely to hold up in court. Already, the Trump administration has lost more than 90 percent of the legal challenges to its regulatory policies, according to New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. By comparison, previous administrations lost only about 30 percent of the time.

“A lot of these losses have been because of the poor quality of the analysis — who’s harmed, who’s helped, by how much,” said Richard Revesz, a law professor who directs the institute.

The only thing that may save us from the administration’s regulatory vindictiveness is its incompetence.

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

Read the rest of Catherine’s article at the link.

As usual, Catherine’s analysis is “spot on.” My problem is this.

If the same private litigant and his or her lawyers kept presenting Federal Courts with false, misleading, or just plain faked evidence and statistics, the private lawyers likely would be facing discipline or disbarment for failure to provide “candor to a tribunal.” The client would be facing large penalties and likely contempt for continuing to institute or cause frivolous litigation.

Yet, except for occasional “harsh but toothless” language in judicial opinions or a couple of minor fines, Trump, his sycophantic toadies, and his battery of unethical Government lawyers get off scot-free for abusing the Article III Judiciary and our legal and judicial processes. Meanwhile, the private litigants are forced to file the same challenges over and over again in different jurisdictions across the country. In the area of immigration, asylum, and human rights, most of the lawyers are donating their time pro bono, while the unethical Government attorneys and their corrupt clients are on the taxpayer’s dime.

The occasional Equal Access to Justice Act award against the Government seldom comes close to compensating private lawyers for their actual lost time and lost opportunities. Nor does it deter the Trump regime, because it comes out of “you of the taxpayers’” pocket.

A Federal Judge demands accurate statistics from DHS after private litigants show the last batch was bogus; the DHS merely submits another set of bogus or misleading data, forcing the private litigants to once again have to demonstrate their unreliability. Government officials and their attorneys claim, contrary to fact, that there is no “child separation” policy, but suffer no consequences other than to be told to stop violating the Constitution. Instead of doing that, they “repackage” unconstitutional child separation as a bogus “parental choice.” So, now the private litigants, who have already won once, have to show that the latest iteration of a clearly illegal and contemptuous policy is what it is: unlawful.

A Federal Judge orders they DHS to make individualized release determinations for detainees held in overcrowded substandard conditions that violate the Government’s own health guidance. Instead of doing that, the DHS merely moves them to another, slightly less crowded facility with equally bad conditions and falsely claims they have “fixed” the problem. Again, the private litigants have to gather new evidence that the move has not materially reduced the health risks to the clients. And so on.

Essentially, the Trump regime and their lawyers are playing a big game of “hide the ball;” every time the private advocates show the Federal Judge where the ball actually is hidden, the Government simply moves it again. And, unfortunately, most Federal Judges give the regime and its ethics-challenged lawyers unlimited “plays” at the expense of the other side. Even when relief is ordered, it just solves the “problem of the moment” rather than halting the pattern of ethical abuses, contemptuous attitudes, and unlawful conduct by the regime and its complicit lawyers.

In effect, the regime has “weaponized” the Federal Courts and the Article III Judiciary in a way not dissimilar from how Sessions and Barr have “weaponized” the Immigration Courts. Turning the Article III Courts into a feckless “runaround” where the individuals and their lawyers “lose even when they win” makes the process punitive and serves as a deterrent to those seeking to challenge the regime’s overtly lawless agenda.

The November election is the chance to throw a scofflaw regime out of office. But, the deep-seated institutional and integrity problems of an Article III Judiciary, beginning with the dangerously complicit and spineless in the face of tyranny “Roberts Court,” that has allowed itself to be “weaponized” and used by the army of authoritarian scofflaws to punish those seeking to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law won’t be solved so quickly. The Article III Judiciary requires an institutional re-examination and a philosophical and ethical overhaul so that it serves the Constitution, due process of law, and equal justice for all, rather than protecting the interests of an insular right-wing minority that seeks nothing less than the disintegration of our nation and our cherished democratic institutions.

PWS

05-29-20

🤮KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: Trump Regime’s “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡 Bankrupts Once-Self-Supporting Government Agency — With No Mission, No Leadership, No Integrity, & Low to No Morale, USCIS Seeks “Taxpayer Bailout” 💸🔥 From Congress!

CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Geneva Sands

https://apple.news/AOZfzNDVvT0Oxx63CeRSlyw

Geneva Sands & Phil Mattingly report for CNN:

Federal immigration agency to furlough employees unless Congress provides funding

6:05 PM EDT May 26, 2020

US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency responsible for visa and asylum processing, is expected to furlough part of its workforce this summer if Congress doesn’t provide emergency funding to sustain operations during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Unfortunately, as of now, without congressional intervention, the agency will need to administratively furlough a portion of our employees on approximately July 20,” USCIS Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow wrote in a letter sent to the workforce on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the agency — which has 19,000 government employees and contractors working at more than 200 offices — requested $1.2 billion from Congress due to its budget shortfall.

Since then, the agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, has been working with members of Congress and their staffs to educate Capitol Hill on the agency’s finances and operations.

Communications from the agency to Congress have grown more urgent as the threat of potential rolling furloughs could number in the thousands, according to one source familiar with the discussions.

The goal would be to attach the needed funds to the next coronavirus relief bill, which lawmakers plan to negotiate next. Still, with both parties far apart on any resolution, there is currently no clear pathway for lawmakers to fulfill the emergency request.

The immigration agency is primarily fee-funded and typically continues most operations during lapses in funding, such as last year’s government shutdown. However, during the pandemic the agency suspended its in-person services, including all interviews and naturalization ceremonies.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS has seen a dramatic decrease in revenue and is seeking a one-time emergency request for funding to ensure we can carry out our mission of administering our nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity, and protecting the American people,” said a USCIS spokesperson.

The agency proposed a 10% surcharge on USCIS application fees to reimburse taxpayers at a later time. USCIS previously estimated that application and petition receipts will drop by approximately 61% through the end of fiscal year 2020, exhausting funding this summer, according to the agency.

Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told CNN earlier this month that USCIS’ depleted funds are the “inevitable result” of the administration’s policies, which decreased the number of petitions — and thus fees — received by the agency.

“Between the end of fiscal years 2017 and 2019, USCIS received nearly 900,000 fewer petitions. This decrease was largely driven by the administration’s own decisions, such as ending Temporary Protected Status for nationals of several countries or drastically decreasing the number of refugees admitted to the United States,” she said.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

Sarah Pierce of MPI is totally right! This self-created “emergency” has to do mostly with the Trump regime’s ill-advised decision to turn what was supposed to be an agency providing impartial, expert, professional services to the public, and specifically the immigrant community, into a “junior branch of DHS enforcement.”

The need for a bailout or huge fee increases appears specious. How about giving USCIS the money that the regime illegally reprogrammed for Trump’s unneeded wall or the money used to maintain unfilled detention spaces and unneeded detention programs?

Right now, USCIS is engaged in improperly “slow walking” naturalization applications to prevent new citizens from being able to vote in the Fall 2020 elections. As a minimum requirement for further bailout, Congress should require that the “Naturalization Program” be removed from USCIS and returned to the supervision of the Article III Federal Courts.

I actually was once a “big fan” of “administrative naturalization,” believing that it could be done most efficiently and with the best public service by adjudicators serving within the Examinations Branch of the “Legacy INS” which eventually “morphed” into USCIS. I supported the concept and helped lay the groundwork for it during my time at the “Legacy INS.”

The Trump kakistocrats have proved me wrong. The function is too important, too politicized, and too tied into the White Nationalist anti-immigrant agenda to remain within the Executive Branch. It also requires competent, professional, apolitical leadership which does not exist within today’s “DHS mass of disastrous politicized incompetence.”

PWS

05-27-20

FAILED STATE: America’s “Clown Prince” 🤡 More Like Infamous Marshal Petain Than Leader Of The Free World — “But the leader he brings to mind is Marshal Philippe Pétain, the French general who, in 1940, signed an armistice with Germany after its rout of French defenses, then formed the pro-Nazi Vichy regime. Like Pétain, Trump collaborated with the invader and abandoned his country to a prolonged disaster. And, like France in 1940, America in 2020 has stunned itself with a collapse that’s larger and deeper than one miserable leader,” Says George Packer @ The Atlantic!🆘😰👨🏻‍⚖️

Henri Petain
Famous French Collaborator/Traitor

George Packer
American Journalist, Author, Playwright

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/

Packer writes in The Atlantic:

When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.

This article appears in the Special Preview: June 2020 issue.

The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly—not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message.

Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos.

Adam Chilton, Kevin Cope, Charles Crabtree, and Mila Versteeg: Red and blue America agree that now is the time to violate the Constitution

Donald Trump saw the crisis almost entirely in personal and political terms. Fearing for his reelection, he declared the coronavirus pandemic a war, and himself a wartime president. But the leader he brings to mind is Marshal Philippe Pétain, the French general who, in 1940, signed an armistice with Germany after its rout of French defenses, then formed the pro-Nazi Vichy regime. Like Pétain, Trump collaborated with the invader and abandoned his country to a prolonged disaster. And, like France in 1940, America in 2020 has stunned itself with a collapse that’s larger and deeper than one miserable leader. Some future autopsy of the pandemic might be called Strange Defeat, after the historian and Resistance fighter Marc Bloch’s contemporaneous study of the fall of France. Despite countless examples around the U.S. of individual courage and sacrifice, the failure is national. And it should force a question that most Americans have never had to ask: Do we trust our leaders and one another enough to summon a collective response to a mortal threat? Are we still capable of self-government?

This is the third major crisis of the short 21st century. The first, on September 11, 2001, came when Americans were still living mentally in the previous century, and the memory of depression, world war, and cold war remained strong. On that day, people in the rural heartland did not see New York as an alien stew of immigrants and liberals that deserved its fate, but as a great American city that had taken a hit for the whole country. Firefighters from Indiana drove 800 miles to help the rescue effort at Ground Zero. Our civic reflex was to mourn and mobilize together.

Partisan politics and terrible policies, especially the Iraq War, erased the sense of national unity and fed a bitterness toward the political class that never really faded. The second crisis, in 2008, intensified it. At the top, the financial crash could almost be considered a success. Congress passed a bipartisan bailout bill that saved the financial system. Outgoing Bush-administration officials cooperated with incoming Obama administration officials. The experts at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department used monetary and fiscal policy to prevent a second Great Depression. Leading bankers were shamed but not prosecuted; most of them kept their fortunes and some their jobs. Before long they were back in business. A Wall Street trader told me that the financial crisis had been a “speed bump.”

All of the lasting pain was felt in the middle and at the bottom, by Americans who had taken on debt and lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings. Many of them never recovered, and young people who came of age in the Great Recession are doomed to be poorer than their parents. Inequality—the fundamental, relentless force in American life since the late 1970s—grew worse.

This second crisis drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.

Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.

David Frum: Americans are paying the price for Trump’s failures

Trump came to power as the repudiation of the Republican establishment. But the conservative political class and the new leader soon reached an understanding. Whatever their differences on issues like trade and immigration, they shared a basic goal: to strip-mine public assets for the benefit of private interests. Republican politicians and donors who wanted government to do as little as possible for the common good could live happily with a regime that barely knew how to govern at all, and they made themselves Trump’s footmen.

Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field, Trump began to immolate what was left of national civic life. He never even pretended to be president of the whole country, but pitted us against one another along lines of race, sex, religion, citizenship, education, region, and—every day of his presidency—political party. His main tool of governance was to lie. A third of the country locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying.

Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault, politicization by both parties, and steady defunding. He set about finishing off the job and destroying the professional civil service. He drove out some of the most talented and experienced career officials, left essential positions unfilled, and installed loyalists as commissars over the cowed survivors, with one purpose: to serve his own interests. His major legislative accomplishment, one of the largest tax cuts in history, sent hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and the rich. The beneficiaries flocked to patronize his resorts and line his reelection pockets. If lying was his means for using power, corruption was his end.

Read: It pays to be rich during a pandemic

This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion, with no vision of a shared identity or future.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Packer’s article at the link.

Very discouraging. But, it’s not too late, yet. We have a chance in November to throw out the Trump/GOP Kakistocracy and start rebuilding America with a vision of the common good, common sense, and human dignity! Be the best, rather than running a “race to the bottom.”

Let’s consign Trump and his toadies to the same “dustbin of history” as Pétain and his collaborators!

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

04-21-20

“GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE” SPOTLIGHTS EOIR HQ’s CORONAVIRUS “PLAN” — “[C]lose your eyes and cross your fingers”** 🤡☠️🤡☠️🤡☠️🤡

** Quote from a member of the Round Table of Retired Immigration Judges

https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/04/immigration-review-office-remains-open-despite-potential-covid-19-exposure/164584/

Erich Wagner reports for Government Executive:

Immigration Review Office Remains Open Despite Potential COVID-19 Exposure

Most support staff at the Executive Office of Immigration Review in Falls Church, Va., remain unable to telework even after two floors had to be deep cleaned after an employee exhibited coronavirus symptoms at work last week.

ERICH WAGNER | APRIL 13, 2020 05:29 PM ET

CORONAVIRUS

IMMIGRATION

TELEWORK

The agency responsible for conducting removal proceedings in immigration courts still is not providing telework for many of its employees, even after an employee exhibited coronavirus symptoms at work.

On April 8, an employee on the 20th floor of the Executive Office of Immigration Review’s office in Falls Church, Va., which the agency shares with the Social Security Administration, had symptoms consistent with COVID-19, although the employee has not been tested for the virus.

As a result, employees on that floor and the 21st and 22nd floors were temporarily sent home on weather and safety leave until contractors could conduct a deep cleaning. The 21st and 22nd floor employees returned to work Friday, while the 20th floor reopened on Monday, except to those who came in contact with the employee, who are now undergoing a 14-day quarantine.

“I want to advise you that an EOIR employee working on the 20th floor of the Skyline Tower Building has displayed symptoms of COVID-19,” wrote Executive Office of Immigration Review Director James McHenry in an email to employees last week. “The employee is now self-quarantined for two weeks and all persons identified as close contacts have been advised of their interaction with the symptomatic employee. We are conducting an enhanced cleaning of the 20th and 21st floors and the building’s common areas in compliance with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines. The CDC guidance does not indicate that any additional EOIR spaces would require cleaning.”

An agency employee, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said that employees on the 17th floor were told that if they were uncomfortable continuing to work in the office, they would have to take personal leave. And they said that while the attorneys and paralegals may work remotely, the agency still is not allowing most support staff and clerks to telework, citing a lack of laptops.

“Unlike at the immigration judge level, we’re still fully operational,” the employee said. “There’s been no change, no modification to the way we’re operating. We’re 100% fully staffed and we have attorneys, paralegals and support staff.”

The office remains open despite guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget urging agencies to “maximize telework” for employees wherever possible. Additionally, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Assistant Attorney General for Administration Lee Lofthus directed Justice Department components to “move to a posture of maximum telework” in the Washington, D.C., region beginning March 16.

“Components should exploit all flexibilities in their telework policies, including adjusting duties and work to expand availability of telework to employees whose duties did not previously support telework, and even if the employee would only have enough duties to telework for part of a work day,” Lofthus wrote.

The EOIR employee said the agency has been resistant to implementing a continuity of operations plan that would prioritize detainee cases over non-detainee cases, as immigration courts have done to reduce the time needed to be in the office, and said they fear the agency is more concerned with “keeping up production numbers” than employees’ well-being.

“Why can’t we go into COOP status to minimize staff in the office?” the employee said. “We could go into only working detained cases, just like the courts, and we wouldn’t need as many staff. And with a smaller docket, maybe we could introduce rotations or stagger shifts. Right now the only option to stagger shifts is allowing some employees to work from 6 a.m. until 3 and then someone else could work later.”

The employee noted that, by comparison, when there was a positive coronavirus case among the Social Security Administration’s employees in the building, the agency completely evacuated the office, and employees have not returned since.

“Why did we come back to work so much faster [than Social Security]?” they asked. “SSA had one incident and they’re on 17 different floors, and they haven’t been back.”

The agency did not respond to a request for comment.

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

Interestingly, in past “Government shutdowns,” most EOIR HQ personnel were deemed “nonessential” and told to say home. Now, with a true emergency that could affect employee health and safety, and with the Immigration Courts’ “non-detained docket” — more than 95% of the EOIR workload — shut down, it becomes necessary to drag HQ staff in. To do what? Exactly what “essential services” are being performed that justify risking the health and safety of employees, their families, and their communities?

But, I suppose it’s no surprise that an agency sitting on a largely self-created backlog of 1.4 million cases, with no plausible plan for dealing with it, would essentially tell its own employees to “show up and hope for the best.”

PWS

04-14-20

“BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT” — Michael Gerson @ WashPost Says Evidence Proves Trump’s “Deadly Negligence” In Face of Pandemic!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/13/trumps-deadly-negligence-is-now-demonstrated-beyond-reasonable-doubt/

Michael Gerson writes in the WashPost:

Those who complain about the media’s relentless focus on President Trump during a pandemic have yet to internalize the horrendous reality of his pandemic response: Trump’s failures of leadership and character have increased the death toll and continue to threaten lives.

For me, that is a difficult sentence to write. Having spent time in the executive branch, I realize how complicated presidential decisions can be. America’s chief executives are often forced to make momentous choices, based on scant information, under the pressure of a ticking clock. It is easier to attack such decisions than to make them.

But the fact of Trump’s deadly negligence is now demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. Detailed investigative articles in The Post and New York Times have established that there were six weeks of denial and dithering between a credible warning about the virus and decisive action by the president. It is now evident that Trump:

• ignored early intelligence reports of a possible pandemic;
• delayed the ramp up of practical preparations;
• was often more focused on political considerations, on the news cycle and on stock market performance than on epidemiological reality;
• deceptively played down what he knew to be a rising threat;
• coddled China when it should have been confronted;
• instinctively distrusted experts and seemed unable to absorb simple information and sound advice;
• lashed out at aides who took the crisis seriously;
• shifted reluctantly and belatedly from a strategy of containment to mitigation;
• is strangely obsessed with unproven treatments for the novel coronavirus; and
• has systemically lied about the promptness of his own response.

These accounts reveal a White House staffed by incompetent loyalists, distracted by turnover and riven by feuds. A White House carefully pruned and shaped to resemble the chaos in Trump’s mind.

[Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]

I urge you to read the articles themselves. In this case, it is a duty of informed citizenship. Americans need to understand the epic smallness of our president in times that demanded something more.

The tension between National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony S. Fauci and President Trump has been simmering for weeks. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

All this is bad enough. But our interest, unfortunately, should not be merely forensic. Trump draws bitterness and resentment out of his experience of the world. He does not draw lessons or wisdom. And he remains just as dangerous to public health on the back side of the curve as he was on the front.

. . . .

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

Read the complete op-ed at the link.

“Deadly negligence,” “ malicious incompetence,” “criminal recklessness” — call it what you will, there is more than ample proof that Trump is unqualified in every imaginable way for the office he holds.

Of course, Trump will remain a danger to our national health, safety, and welfare. He has neither the capacity for nor interest in anything beyond himself.

PWS

04-14-20

“MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” IS COSTLY: In a Functioning System, DHS Would Release As Many Detainees As Possible Applying “Best Health Guidance” & EOIR Judges Would Insure Prompt, Uniform Compliance By DHS – Under Today’s Totally Dysfunctional System, It Rests With Private Attorneys & U.S. District Judges Across America To Do The Job That DHS & EOIR Won’t – Not Surprisingly, The Results Are Expensive, Time-Consuming, & Uneven!

Andrea Castillo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=910bd5e6-d0d0-4291-af81-af2ba51ed37d&v=sdk

Andrea Castillo and Brittny Mejia report for the LA Times:

For weeks, as the coronavirus spread, Jose Hernandez Velasquez worried about the dangers of being detained inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

The 19-year-old Guatemalan immigrant listened uneasily as other men called their families, begging them to do everything possible to get them released so as to reduce their odds of contracting the deadly illness.

Ultimately, in light of the pandemic, a federal judge ordered immigration authorities to release Hernandez, an asylum seeker with hypertension who had spent nearly 21/2 years at the facility. When a guard came to tell him the news, Hernandez was speechless. Other detainees burst into applause.

“I was really worried,” he said in a phone call after his release. “It was so difficult to be inside.”

As an increasing number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees across the country test positive for COVID-19, California lawyers are working to free as many clients as they can by invoking constitutional rights and arguing on humanitarian grounds. In the last two weeks, U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. ordered at least 10 people released from Adelanto, one of the country’s largest detention centers, holding nearly 2,000 people.

It’s unclear how many detainees have been released nationwide because of coronavirus concerns. In recent weeks, federal judges across the country have ordered the release of more than 40 detainees.

Like Hernandez, most have been released after lawyers petitioned federal courts on their behalf. Others have been released on bond or through humanitarian parole, which is free to people with a compelling emergency.

In response to the pandemic, ICE has instructed field offices to assess and consider for release those deemed to be at greater risk of exposure, reviewing cases of individuals age 60 and older, as well as those who are pregnant.

In court filings, ICE has argued that concern about detainees contracting COVID-19 is “based on mere speculation” and that releasing large numbers of them would set a precedent that would persist even after the virus subsides.

Until ICE agrees to release more detainees, “you’re going to keep seeing petitions like this,” said Jessica Bansal, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which got Hernandez and others released from Adelanto. “Because people need to get out.”

The ACLU has sued ICE facilities in multiple states over coronavirus concerns.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the article at the above link.

Empowering a regime that functions in such a contemptuous, cruel, and incompetent manner is insane and wasteful to boot. Everyone, including the legitimate needs of DHS enforcement (not much resemblance to the current racially-driven scofflaw mess) would benefit from a professionalized, accountable, and properly focused DHS and an independent, due process with efficiency-oriented U.S. Immigration Court.

Immigration enforcement could focus on priorities that actually relate to the safety and security of our nation, the private and NGO immigration bar could expand individual case representation before the Immigration Courts thus promoting efficiency with due process, and the U.S. District Courts could return to other cases. It would be a win-win-win, notwithstanding the bogus blather of the White Nationalist restrictionists who seek to use the pandemic as a weapon to “zero out” legal immigration and force all migration into the “black market” where it can more easily be exploited and abused by them and their cronies.

Due Process Forever! Malicious Incompetence Never!

PWS

04-13-20

BREAKING: AILA FILES FOR TRO AGAINST DANGEROUS PRACTICES BY DHS & EOIR — Says U.S. Government Needlessly & Recklessly Putting Lives At Risk During Pandemic! ☠️☠️⚰️⚰️🆘🆘

For Immediate Release

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Contact:

Maria Frausto, mfrausto@immcouncil.org, 202-507-7526

George Tzamaras, GTzamaras@aila.org, 202-507-7649

Sirine Shebaya, sshebaya@nipnlg.org, 202-656-4788

Temporary Restraining Order Requested to Stop Dangerous EOIR and ICE Policies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

WASHINGTON, DC–Immigration groups today moved for an emergency temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in order to protect the health of immigration attorneys, immigrants, and the public from the impact of dangerous and unconstitutional policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Represented by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIPNLG) and the law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, NIPNLG, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and the Immigration Justice Campaign–a joint initiative of the American Immigration Council and AILA–filed the TRO, in NIPNLG, et al., v. EOIR, et al., to seek a brief pause of in-person hearings for detained individuals and facilitate remote confidential communication between attorneys and their clients. The pause would enable EOIR and ICE to adopt policies, practices, and procedures to enable the consistent and safe conduct of remote hearings (for example by video teleconference) that are protective of attorney-client privilege.

EOIR and ICE have repeatedly ignored recommendations regarding how to maintain health and safety in the courts and in detention, including the use of remote access. Detainees, court staff, and attorneys are subject to inconsistent practices and procedures for in-person hearings in 58 of the nation’s 69 immigration courts.

A copy of the motion for the emergency temporary restraining order is available at the link here.

###

The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIPNLG) is a national non-profit organization that provides technical assistance and support to community-based immigrant organizations, legal practitioners, and all advocates seeking and working to advance the rights of noncitizens. NIPNLG utilizes impact litigation, advocacy, and public education to pursue its mission. Follow NIPNLG on social media: National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild on Facebook, @NIPNLG on Twitter.

The American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change–litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. Follow the latest Council news and information on ImmigrationImpact.com and Twitter @immcouncil.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members. Follow AILA on Twitter @AILANational.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

American Immigration Lawyers Association

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

Thanks, Laura, for sending this around and for everything you and AILA are doing to save some lives from the “malicious incompetence” of the Trump regime.

Will the Article III Courts finally do the right thing? Or will they continue their “head in the sand” approach to the ever-worsening disaster in our Immigration Courts and the New American Gulag? I’d have to say that at this point, while some U.S. District Judges notably have “stepped up to the plate” in a number of cases involving a limited number of releases or threatened releases, I have seen little to indicate an inclination toward taking the necessary bold, decisive nationwide action to save lives in the face of this crisis.

Let’s hope for the best!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

034-08-20

WASHPOST: “Maliciously Incompetent” Trump + Foot-Dragging GOP Govs = Existential Threat To America’s Health & Welfare — The Mortal Dangers of a “Governing” Kakistocracy Incapable Of Acting in the Overall Public Interest in Times of Real Crisis! ⚰️☠️🆘😰👎🏻🧫🦠🤡

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/foot-dragging-gop-governors-are-imperiling-the-whole-country/2020/04/03/b2fe45ee-75e0-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html

By Editorial Board

April 4 at 8:00 AM ET

PRESIDENT TRUMP likens the struggle against the pandemic to a war that will yield a colossal toll in human lives, but refuses to urge states uniformly to issue stay-at-home orders. The president’s equivocations have produced an uncoordinated jumble of policy subverted by foot-dragging governors who treat the coronavirus less as a national emergency and more as a political annoyance. They are guilty of an abdication of leadership whose consequences will be measured in body bags.

Messaging is critical in this crisis. By telling people in the strongest terms to stay at home, even with certain exceptions, most governors have conveyed the gravity of the spreading threat; that is likely to save many lives. By failing to do that, and treating a plague as one interest to be balanced among many, other governors treat the peril with a nod and a wink. Their message, sotto voce, is: Let’s not all get our knickers in a twist.

[[Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]]

The nod-and-a-wink governors — in the Dakotas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas and elsewhere — pose as powerless to order a lockdown, or note they have already closed schools, restaurants, gyms and other establishments, but won’t order blanket edicts to individuals. They point at other states’ exceptions that allow people to carry on with essential work, or get groceries and pharmaceuticals. In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson says staying at home is a matter of “individual responsibilities”; in Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson scoffs there is nothing “magical” about stay-at-home directives; in Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds protests that “I can’t lock everybody in their home.”

Those governors, all Republicans, have been enabled by Mr. Trump, who points to states that don’t yet “have the problem,” and remarks that it’s “awfully tough to say, ‘Close it down.’ ” He favors flexibility and is seconded by Vice President Pence, who says the federal government “will defer to state and local health authorities on any measures that they deem appropriate.”

As the White House leads from behind, the effect is to endorse and induce complacency. Faced with a stealthy pathogen that can spread from asymptomatic individuals, or incubate for weeks before a victim falls ill with fever, states are free to delude themselves into thinking the virus has passed them by — until, having bidden its time, it erupts inside their cities and towns. Governors of those states can entertain the illusion of alternative facts, imagining their borders are impermeable. They can, like Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, resist a stay-at-home order for weeks until discovering just this week — surprise! — that the virus is “transmitting before people see signs.”

[[The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.]]

Their magical thinking endangers the nation. It gives people license to minimize the threat — a threat the White House says could kill up to 240,000 people even with effective social distancing. It allows state-to-state gaps in the firewall that will likely encourage a raging disease to erupt in a series of rolling blazes across the country. As many states get tough, even deploying the police to encourage people to stay indoors, their odds of impeding the pandemic’s path of destruction are undercut by their neighbors’ selfishness.

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

Steps for survival:

Tune out Trump & his political hack/toadies (the GOP Govs listed in this editorial are prime examples);
Listen to and follow advice from our health professionals;
Stay home unless you are actually performing “essential functions;”
Vote Trump and the GOP out of office, on every level, in November (but you have to survive the Trump/GOP kakistocracy to get to November).

NOTE: Not all GOP Governors are in the “Trump Kakistocracy.” Larry Hogan (MD), Mike DeWine (OH), and Charlie Baker (MA) and others are among those who have heeded public health advice.

Vote Like You Life Depends On It In November! Because Four More Years Of Trump & His GOP Toadies Could Kill Us All!☠️⚰️☠️⚰️☠️⚰️☠️⚰️

PWS

04-05-20

Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Institutional Complicity Never!

Related posts:

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

Related posts:

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Complicit Officials & Institutions, Never!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Dishonest, Unethical, Incompetent, and Intentionally Biased “Courts” Never!

Related posts:

This November, vote like your life and our nation’s future existence depend on it! Because they do!

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Due Process Forever! Malicious Incompetence Never!

Related posts:

Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Steps for survival:

Vote Like You Life Depends On It In November! Because Four More Years Of Trump & His GOP Toadies Could Kill Us All!☠️⚰️☠️⚰️☠️⚰️☠️⚰️

Related posts: