Tag: Matter of A-B-

IN MATTER OF A-B-, SESSIONS DISINGENUOUSLY SUGGESTED SALVADORAN POLICE COULD PROTECT ABUSED WOMEN – THE TRUTH IS STARKLY DIFFERENT: American-Trained Cops Flee El Salvador Because Gangs Are In Control – Ex-Cops Granted Asylum While Helpless DV Victims Sent Back To Face Deadly Abuse – Trump Administration Continues To Pervert Asylum Law!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/its-so-dangerous-to-police-ms-13-in-el-salvador-that-officers-are-fleeing-the-country/2019/03/03/e897dbaa-2287-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html

Kevin Sief reports in WashPost:

SAN SALVADOR — They were given one of the most dangerous tasks in policing: Take down MS-13.

They were bankrolled by the United States and trained by FBI agents. But members of the Salvadoran police have been killed by the dozens in each of the past three years, most in attacks that investigators and experts blame on MS-13, an international street gang. At least nine officers were killed in the first month of this year.

Now, a number of El Salvador’s police officers are fleeing the gang they were tasked with eliminating.

There is no list in either El Salvador or the United States of Salvadoran police officers who have fled the country. But The Washington Post has identified 15 officers in the process of being resettled as refugees by the United Nations and six officers who have either recently received asylum or have scheduled asylum hearings in U.S. immigration courts. In WhatsApp groups, police officers have begun discussing the possibility of a migrant caravan composed entirely of Salvadoran police — a caravana policial, the officers call it.

The exodus of Salvadoran police points to how the country’s security forces have failed to break the stranglehold of organized crime. It also shows that among those seeking refuge in the United States during the Trump administration are some of America’s closest security partners.

“These are among the most vulnerable people in El Salvador,” said Julio Buendía, the director of migration at Cáritas El Salvador, a nonprofit organization that works with the United States and United Nations on refugee resettlement.

The United States has been bolstering the Salvadoran police, part of a regional strategy intended to stabilize Central America’s most violent countries and reduce migration. The State Department spent at least $48 million to train police in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras from 2014 through 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The department opened a law enforcement training academy in San Salvador, where 855 Salvadoran officers were trained by the FBI and other American law enforcement agencies in those four years.

“The Salvadoran government, with U.S. government support, has made significant gains in the area of security, including reductions in homicides and every other category of violent crime measured,” the State Department said in a statement issued in response to an inquiry by The Post.

Citing “privacy reasons,” the department would not comment on whether it was receiving asylum or refugee applications from Salvadoran police officers.

By some measures, the U.S.-backed security efforts appeared to be showing results. In 2018, El Salvador’s murder rate was 50.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. That was still among the highest in the world, but it was down from 60.8 per 100,000 in 2017 and 81 per 100,000 in 2016.

MS-13 was born in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, expanding as more Salvadorans arrived in the United States after fleeing the country’s civil war. The group splintered, with Barrio 18 becoming a chief rival, and both groups grew in American prisons before reaching El Salvador through mass deportations. Between 2001 and 2010, the United States deported 40,429 ex-convicts to El Salvador, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

El Salvador’s government adopted an “iron fist” response to the gangs, including more police operations. When that approach failed, it tried to broach a truce with the gangs in 2014. The pact quickly disintegrated and was followed by another surge in violence. It was then that the gangs began to explicitly broadcast their threats against police officers.

“If you kill a ‘pig,’ or a police officer, you’re more respected in these gangs. That’s the policy — using death as exchange currency,” said Héctor Silva Ávalos, a journalist and researcher who has written a book on the Salvadoran police and has served as an expert witness at several asylum hearings for former police officers in the United States.


A man with an MS-13 tattoo is detained by Salvadoran security forces during an operation in San Salvador in January. (Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images)

With salaries of $300 to $400 per month, the low-level police officers who make up the majority of the force often have no choice but to live in neighborhoods vulnerable to gangs. And so, in the vast majority of the cases, police officers are killed when they are home from work or are on leave.

In August, Manuel de Jesús Mira Díaz was killed while buying construction materials. In July, Juan de Jesús Morales Alvarado was killed while walking with his 7-year-old son on the way to school. In November, Barrera Mayén was killed after taking leave to spend time at home with his family.

The police investigated a number of the killings since 2014 and found members of the major gangs responsible.

“They have more control than we do. When we go home, we’re in neighborhoods where there’s one police to 100 gang members. We’re easy victims,” said one officer in the country’s anti-gang unit, who, after being threatened by MS-13 in his home, is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations. He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

An MS-13 member killed a man on a New York subway platform. The gang dates back to the 1970s.

Police arrested a 26-year-old man, who they said is an MS-13 member, after he fatally shot an alleged rival gang member Feb. 3 in Queens. (Allie Caren/The Washington Post)

Complicating their response to the threats, Salvadoran police are also not legally allowed to take their weapons home with them.

“I bring it home anyway. I sleep with it on my waist,” said a female officer, who is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations and spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety. “My husband and I take turns sleeping. We know they are going to come for us.”

Many units in the Salvadoran police are forbidden to wear balaclavas to conceal their identities. In anti-gang units, officers are allowed to wear such masks during operations, but they are frequently asked to testify in court, where they must show their faces and identify themselves by name while gang members look on.

In 2017, El Salvador’s attorney general, Douglas Meléndez, urged the government to do more to protect off-duty police, asking the parliament to pass a “protection law” for police and soldiers that would also provide funding to protect their families. The law was never passed.

Last month, security concerns played a central role in a presidential election won by San Salvador’s 37-year-old former mayor, Nayib Bukele. At least 285 people were killed in January, leading up to the vote, which many saw as the gangs’ attempt to leverage their influence amid the election campaign. In a security plan leaked to the Salvadoran news media, Bukele’s campaign wrote: “The expansion of these criminal groups is undeniable, as is the impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.”

In response to the targeting of police officers this year, El Salvador’s police chief introduced a policy: For their own protection, officers were not allowed to return to their homes. The police chief declined multiple interview requests.


Suspects are detained by police in a neighborhood in San Salvador dominated by MS-13. (Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images)

Many officers, feeling unprotected by their own force, have said their only option is to leave the country.

Organizations that work with the United Nations to resettle Salvadoran refugees in the United States say they have found more and more police officers arriving unannounced at their offices. In addition to the 21 asylum seekers and refugees identified by The Post, several others have recently arrived in Spain and Mexico, according to news reports, applying for humanitarian visas or other forms of protection. Lawyers for police officers and many officers themselves say that far more officers are preparing to flee.

One of the cases that Buendía, the migration director of Cáritas, referred to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is an officer who survived two attacks while off duty. First, he was shot eight times by suspected gang members; then, two years later, he was shot four times. The officer pleaded for protection from his commander.

Buendía included a letter from the commander in the officer’s refugee application. “There’s nothing we can do for you,” the commander wrote. “You need to protect yourself.”

A police spokesman declined to comment on the letter.

In one case, concerning a police officer now applying for asylum in U.S. immigration courts, gang members threatened to kidnap the officer’s child at an elementary school in rural El Salvador.

“That’s not what these guys signed up for. It’s one thing to be shot at on the job. It’s another for your family to be targeted while you’re off duty,” said Emily Smith, the attorney representing the officer.

Lawyers such as Smith who are representing the officers typically try to explain to immigration judges that as former police officers, their clients would be persecuted if they were forced to return to El Salvador. But the attorneys are also aware of how narrowly U.S. asylum law can be applied, and that the courts are unlikely to grant asylum to all former officers.

“What we chose to do is focus on the specific threats facing our client,” said Patrick Courtney, who last year represented a Salvadoran officer who had been physically assaulted in his home before fleeing. “We focused on his anti-gang views, on the fact that the threats were directed at him individually.”

Courtney’s client was granted asylum late last year. They discussed where he would live in the United States, and what he would do next. The former officer had only one goal: He wanted to join the United States military.

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Former policemen have been recognized by BIA precedent as a “particular social group” for asylum for many years. Matter of Fuentes, 19 I&N Dec. 658 (BIA 1988). However, in their rush to deny asylum to Central Americans, particularly under  this xenophobic Administration, some U.S. immigration Judges and BIA panels simply choose to ignore precedent or to manufacture other reasons to deny asylum.

Granting asylum to endangered former police officers clearly is appropriate; but, granting it to the women targeted because of their gender whom those police cannot protect is equally required. Nevertheless, Sessions simply “streamrolled” the asylum law in Matter of A-B-.

While some U.S. Immigration Judges have recognized that even A-B-, properly read without regard to its pernicious dicta, leaves plenty of room for protecting refugee women who have suffered or fear domestic violence, others, and a number of BIA “panels” have jumped on the “Sessions deportation express.” I wouldn’t count on new AG Bill Barr to restore justice to this system, particularly since he has retained some of Sessions’s worst and most unqualified henchmen on his staff.

That’s why we need a legitimate, independent Immigration Court system not beholden to prejudiced “enforcement only” officials in the DOJ and the Executive Branch. It’s also time for a better and wiser Congress to specifically write gender into the asylum law to guard against this and future scofflaw Administrations who seek to inflict cruelty and injustice on some of the most vulnerable and deserving among us.

PWS

03-04-19

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

JUDICIAL BRAIN DRAIN: As Outlaw Administration Attacks Due Process & Attempts To Institutionalize Xenophobic Bias, Experienced, Conscientious U.S. Immigration Judges Head For The Exits – Abandonment Of Scholarship, Fairness, Commitment To Due Process Threatens Entire U.S. Justice System!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/immigration-policy-judge-resign-trump

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

Being An Immigration Judge Was Their Dream. Under Trump, It Became Untenable.

“It has become so emotionally brutal and exhausting that many people I know are leaving or talking about finding an exit strategy,” said one immigration judge. “Morale has never, ever been lower.”

Hamed AleazizBuzzFeed News Reporter

Map of San Francisco, California

Reporting From

San Francisco, California

Posted on February 13, 2019, at 6:15 p.m. ET

Former immigration judge Rebecca Jamil in Fremont, California, on Dec. 28, 2018.

Constanza Hevia for BuzzFeed News

Former immigration judge Rebecca Jamil in Fremont, California, on Dec. 28, 2018.

SAN FRANCISCO — Rebecca Jamil was sitting in a nondescript hotel ballroom in suburban Virginia when she realized that her dream job — being an immigration judge — was no longer tenable. It was June 11, 2018, and then–attorney general Jeff Sessions, her boss, was speaking to a room packed with immigration judges, running through his list of usual complaints over what was, in his estimation, a broken asylum system.

Toward the end of the speech, Sessions let slip some big news: He had decided whether domestic abuse and gang victims could be granted asylum in the US. Advocates, attorneys, and judges had been waiting months to see what Sessions, who in his role as attorney general had the power to review cases, would do. After all, it would determine the fate of thousands of asylum-seekers, many fleeing dangerous situations in Central America.

Sessions didn’t reveal to the room the details of his ruling but Jamil, based in San Francisco since she was appointed in 2016, learned later that day that the attorney general had decided to dramatically restrict asylum protections for domestic abuse victims.

“I’d seen the faces of these families,” the 43-year-old judge said. “They weren’t abstractions to me.”

Hundreds of people overflow onto the sidewalk in a line snaking around the block outside a US immigration office with numerous courtrooms in San Francisco.

Eric Risberg / AP

Hundreds of people overflow onto the sidewalk in a line snaking around the block outside a US immigration office with numerous courtrooms in San Francisco.

Jamil, a mother of two young daughters, had been shaken by the images and sounds that came as a result of the Trump administration’s policy to separate families at the border. As a judge who oversaw primarily cases of women and children fleeing abuse and dangers abroad, this was the last straw.

Soon after, she stepped down from the court.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she told friends. “I felt that I couldn’t be ‘Rebecca Jamil, representative of the attorney general’ while these things were going on.”

In many ways, her resignation underscores the tenuous position of immigration judges, who are overseen by the attorney general and susceptible to the shifting winds of each administration. To avoid potential conflicts, the union that represents the judges has long called for its court to be an independent body, separate from the Department of Justice.

The Trump administration has undertaken a monumental overhaul of the way immigration judges, which total around 400 across the country, work: placing quotas on the number of cases they should complete every year, ending their ability to indefinitely suspend certain cases, restricting when asylum can be granted, and pouring thousands of previously closed cases back into court dockets.

In the meantime, the case backlog has jumped to more than 800,000 under the administration and wait times have continued to skyrocket to hundreds of days.

The quotas in particular have made judges feel as if they were cogs in a deportation machine, as opposed to neutral arbiters given time to thoughtfully analyze the merits of each case.

“The job has become exceedingly more difficult as the court has veered even farther away from being administered as a court rather than a law enforcement bureaucracy,” said Ashley Tabaddor, an immigration judge who heads the National Association of Immigration Judges, a union representing around 350 judges.

And it’s not just Jamil who has departed because of the massive changes to the court undertaken by the Trump administration, according to observers within the Department of Justice and those on the outside. While some, like Jamil, have resigned, others have retired early in large part because of the policies instituted under Trump, they said.

For those remaining at the immigration court, the mood is bleak.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference on Oct. 16, 2018.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference on Oct. 16, 2018.

“It has become so emotionally brutal and exhausting that many people I know are leaving or talking about finding an exit strategy,” said one immigration judge who declined to be named. “Morale has never, ever been lower.”

Another Justice Department official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told BuzzFeed News, “It is exhausting when you feel undervalued by the people at the top of your organization, especially when they are motivated by partisanship and have not spent their careers doing the job that you do.”

Tabaddor, the head of the union, said that her group has noticed a higher rate of retirements and resignations than in the past because of the way judges have been treated under Trump.

Some have been bold in their timing. John Richardson, a former immigration judge in Phoenix, stepped down on Sep. 30, 2018 — the day before the administration instituted a quota for the number of cases to be completed by judges.

“The timing of my retirement was a direct result of the draconian policies of the Administration, the relegation of [judges] to the status of ‘action officers’ who deport as many people as possible as soon as possible with only token due process, and blaming [judges] for the immigration crisis caused by decades of neglect and under funding of the Immigration Courts,” he said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

Another judge who resigned from the bench in September told staff members in a goodbye email, “I know things are getting difficult for you at [the Executive Office for Immigration Review], but I believe all you will ‘ride through the storm’ and ‘come out with a smile.’”

There have long been work challenges for immigration judges, including heavy caseloads and assignments, leading to comparatively high burnout rates. Justice Department officials told BuzzFeed News that concerns over retirements were nothing new.

According to the agency, from the beginning of fiscal year 2014 through Feb. 12, 2019, 94 immigration judges have retired, separated, or died. More than a third of those judges, 32, have left since Oct. 1, 2017. The agency does not track why judges leave their positions.

To those within the court and others who have recently retired, the situation has worsened to an unprecedented level. Richardson, the former judge in Phoenix, said he would have continued presiding over immigration cases if the status quo had remained.

“Yes, I was 75 years old with over 50 years of honorable federal service with the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice, but had no plans for retirement as long as I was treated with respect, appreciated, and provided adequate support,” he said. “I had 28 years as an IJ and very much enjoyed my job, even with the poor funding and lack of support by Congress and the White House during that 28 years.”

Jeff Chase, a former immigration judge who stepped down years ago and who speaks regularly with others who’ve left the bench, was blunt in his characterization.

“The fastest growth industry is former immigration judges,” Chase said. Those still on the bench have told him, “It’s horrible. Whatever you think it is, it is much, much worse.”

In the meantime, the Trump administration has hired more than 100 judges to not only fill the vacancies of those who’ve retired but to add numbers to the bench. It’s a rehauling of the courts that could “have a drastic impact,” according to Chase.

Many of the judges retiring in recent months are experienced jurists, hired by the Clinton administration in the mid to late ’90s, he said. These judges, Chase said, were more willing to push back on claims made in court by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or to allow immigrants extended time to make their cases in what could otherwise be a rushed procedure.

In their place, Chase said, are judges hired by the new administration with case completion quotas, a two-year probation period, and a mandate to avoid showing sympathy for the people appearing before them.

“Even if it doesn’t show up on the sheet, just the level of humanity, that makes a huge difference — that’s what this administration is trying to remove from the immigration judge corps,” he said.

Rebecca Jamil holds her immigration judge certificate.

Constanza Hevia for BuzzFeed News

Rebecca Jamil holds her immigration judge certificate.

For her part, Jamil wanted to become an immigration judge from the earliest moments of her legal career. After working as a staff attorney at the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals, she joined the government as a prosecutor with ICE in 2011, where she was able to use discretion to focus deportation efforts on those with serious criminal backgrounds. Under the Trump administration, ICE attorneys have been told that nearly all undocumented immigrants are priorities for deportation.

In 2014, Jamil took a chance to fulfill her dream: She applied to become an immigration judge. It was a 17-month process, full of drawn-out interviews in Washington, DC, but finally, in 2015 she received a phone call informing her that she got the job.

“I thought, and I must have told most people I know, that this is the last job that I would ever have. It’s all I wanted to do,” she said.

Jamil dedicated herself to the exhausting career. She oversaw a docket made up primarily of families and regularly heard cases in which women and children applied for asylum based on abuse that they had experienced by partners and family members abroad.

Day in and day out, Jamil heard intense testimony of physical and sexual violence against women and children.

“You’re sitting in a windowless room and people tell you the very worst parts of their life and you have to decide if it is enough to stay in the US,” she said. “That is very tiring day after day to be the person who makes that decision.”

Then, under the Trump administration, things started to change. In 2018, Sessions instituted a new policy, severely limiting when judges could suspend certain cases. Suddenly, her docket expanded and she wasn’t allowed to decide which cases deserved to remain in court and which didn’t.

Jamil and fellow immigration judges were in attendance at the Virginia conference where Sessions spoke for annual trainings on courtroom procedure. The year before, jurists heard substantive legal updates and trainings on bias in the courtroom.

This version of the training, however, felt different.

“The entire conference was profoundly disturbing. Do things as fast as possible. There was an overarching theme of disbelieving aliens and their claims and how to remove people faster,” Jamil said. “That is not what I saw my job as an immigration judge to be. I was not trained to do that.”

Soon after she returned home, Jamil put in her resignation. Her colleagues fretted, probing her about whether she had considered the type of judge that could fill her spot on the bench and the impact that could have.

She didn’t have an answer, but she knew that she couldn’t do it any longer.

“Family separations; Sessions making his own case law on asylum; when we could continue cases — I could no longer sit below the seal of the Department of Justice and represent the Department of Justice at that point,” Jamil said. “They just chipped away at our authority on a daily basis. It felt like we weren’t really judges. It was frustrating and demoralizing.”

A former colleague, Laura Ramirez, worked for years as an immigration judge in San Francisco. In December, she retired at the earliest date possible, five days after she turned 60.

The changes put in place by the Trump administration, especially the case quotas, and the politicization of her job, became too much to handle.

The loss of judges like Jamil and others could be immeasurable to both immigrants and Department of Homeland Security attorneys, Ramirez said.

“For the system of justice, there’s these highly qualified, fair, thoughtful people who are being squeezed out of the system for political reasons, basically,” she said. “If people like her are squeezed out, it’s a loss to people who appear before her. The system can’t be fair if good people like her are pushed out.”

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

Forcing the “best, brightest, and fairest” out. Reinforcing “worst practices.” Enabling judges with well-established records of anti-asylum, nationality-based, and misogynistic bias. Attacking those private attorneys who steadfastly defended legal and Constitutional rights that were being systematically undermined by the Administration. Blaming others for his own incompetence and lack of scholarship. That’s what the “Sessions program” was all about.

The only good news: folks like Judge Jamil, Judge Ramirez, Judge Richardson, and Judge Chase are now part of the ever-growing “Our Gang” of retired Immigraton Judges helping others to fight the injustices and destruction of Due Process being pushed by the Trump Administration and a DOJ that has abandoned its mission in favor of a White Nationalist political agenda. Our voices are being heard in support of the efforts of the “New Due Process Army.”

And, while I doubt that anyone outside of Trump and Miller can match the viscous lies, racism, and knowingly false narratives of Sessions, I wouldn’t expect much improvement under Barr. Barr thought Sessions was “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” That, more than the Mueller investigation, should have caused all Democrats to vote against his confirmation. He’ll just “lose” some of the overtly racist and inflammatory lingo of the White Nationalist restrictionists and attack immigrants on the basis of bogus “strict enforcement” platitudes.

Every American who believes in our Constitution and thinks that America is different from the “Banana Republics” we often criticize will be threatened by this development. Malicious harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all; and the collapse of one of the “building blocks” at the “retail level” of the American justice system will adversely affect everybody’s ability to get justice with fairness and impartiality.

Many of us don’t think we will need fair, independent, and impartial courts until we do. Once the Trump Administration destroys them, they won’t easily be rebuilt.

Who will defend your rights when the time comes if you stand by and watch the rights of others being trampled?

PWS

02-14-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: RECENT ARTICLES SHOW HOW SESSIONS’S SHOCKINGLY INAPPROPRIATE REMARKS TO NEW IMMIGRATION JUDGES VIOLATED EOIR CODE OF JUDICIAL ETHICS, SHOWED DISRESPECT FOR THE LAW, AND VIOLATED THE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF GOOD IMMIGRATION JUDGING BY DIRECTING JUDGES NOT TO BE SYMPATHETIC TO REFUGEES! – TURNING REFUGEE LAW AND HISTORY ON ITS HEAD!
  3. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

JUDGE SULLIVAN STUFFS TRUMP’S REQUEST TO KEEP ON VIOLATING ASYLUM LAW PENDING APPEAL — Stay Denied In Grace v. Whitaker!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/25/politics/sullivan-asylum-ruling/index.html

Dan Berman reports for CNN:

Washington (CNN)Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan on Friday rejected a Justice Department request to stay his earlier ruling blocking the Trump administration’s policy that makes it difficult for victims fleeing domestic and gang violence to qualify for asylum in the United States.

Last month, Sullivan agreed with a group of women and children who said the policy imposed a heightened standard in reviewing their claims, concluding that the administration must stop deporting migrants currently in the US “without first providing credible fear determinations consistent with the immigration laws.”
Friday, he wrote: “The government now requests a stay, pending appeal of the Court’s Order, to enable the unlawful policies to continue to apply in all expedited removal cases, except the plaintiffs. … Defendants’ motion for stay is DENIED.”
The attorney general has full authority over the immigration courts — a separate court system which operates under the Justice Department.
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We have an Administration without shame, human decency, or, obviously, the will and skill to govern. And, a DOJ where lawyers act not as legal guardians of the people’s rights, but continue to defend the indefensible, ill serves the American people.
PWS
01-25-19

Related posts:

  1. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  4. NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!

THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!

Related posts:

  1. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”

CHASE, SCHMIDT, & THE REST OF “OUR GANG” READY TO “STEP UP” TO TEACH ASYLUM LAW FOR FURLOUGHED U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES! – Read The Latest From Hon. Jeffrey Chase On How Asylum Law Can Be Properly Interpreted To Save Lives (What It’s Supposed To Do) & “Move” Dockets Without Curtailing Anyone’s Rights!

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IJs Grant Gender-Based Asylum Claims

As my friend Paul Schmidt announced on his excellent blog immigrationcourtside.com, immigration judges in San Francisco and Arlington, VA recently issued written decisions granting asylum to victims of domestic violence.  Notably, the decisions concluded that “Mexican females” and “women in Honduras” constituted cognizable particular social groups under applicable case law, including the former Attorney General’s decision in Matter of A-B-.

Asylum advocates have sought for many years to have the Board of Immigration Appeals recognize a particular social group defined by gender alone.  However, the BIA has declined to consider the issue.1 The need for such guidance from the Board has increased significantly since the issuance of Matter of A-B- last June.  Even under the holdings of that decision, gender continues to meet all of the criteria for a cognizable particular social group, as gender is an immutable characteristic fundamental to one’s identity, is sufficiently particular to provide a clear benchmark for inclusion, is socially distinct in all societies, and is not defined by the harm which gives rise to the applicant’s fear of persecution.

In the seven months since Matter of A-B- was issued, the BIA has yet to respond with a precedent decision affirming the continued viability of domestic violence-based asylum claims.  Nor has the BIA affirmed that gender alone may constitute a cognizable particular social group for the above reasons, in spite of the fact that its members have had years to consider the issue, and could rely on so many outstanding legal sources on the topic.  The BIA showed an ability to respond quickly in issuing a precedent decision in only two months time following the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira v. Sessions.  So the present silence should be interpreted as a specific choice by the BIA to remain silent, likely motivated by its fear of upsetting its higher-ups in the present administration.

In the absence of guidance from the BIA, and while waiting for appeals to work their way through the circuit courts (I am aware of appeals relating to this issue currently pending in the First and Fourth Circuits), the two recent immigration judge decisions are encouraging.  In the San Francisco case, Judge Miriam Hayward (who has since retired from the bench) found “Mexican females” to constitute a cognizable particular social group. In Arlington, Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Deepali Nadkarni made the same finding for the group consisting of “women in Honduras.”  Redacted copies of their written decisions may be read here: http://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/SF-IJ-Hayward-DV-PSG-grant.pdf;  http://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nadkarni-Grant-Women-in-Honduras-PSG.pdf

In addition to their particular social group analysis, both decisions conclude that at least one central reason for the persecution suffered was the asylum applicant’s membership in the gender-defined group.  For example, in the San Francisco case, Judge Hayward found such nexus was established by a combination of specific statements made by the male persecutor (i.e. “a woman’s only job was to shut up and obey her husband,” and “I’m the man and you’re going to do what I say”); a report of an expert on domestic violence citing gender as a motivating factor for domestic violence; and a statement in a multi-agency report that violence against women in Mexico “is perpetrated, in most cases, to conserve and reproduce the submission and subordination of them derived from relationships of power.”

In her decision, Judge Nadkarni held that the size of the group defined by gender does not prevent it from being defined with particularity, and noted that the BIA “has routinely recognized large groups as defined with particularity.”  It also bears mentioning that the ICE prosecutor in Judge Nadkarni’s case “conceded that the Honduran police was unable or unwilling to protect the respondent…” Without such concession in her case, Judge Hayward found that country reports and Mexican law itself were sufficient to establish that the government was unable or unwilling to protect the respondent even under the heightened standard expressed by the former AG in Matter of A-B-.

As I stated in an earlier article, immigration judges have received no guidance or training from EOIR in analyzing domestic violence claims in the aftermath of Matter of A-B-.  As a result, some immigration judges remain uncertain as to whether the law allows them to grant such claims at present.  It is hoped that these decisions will serve as a useful template for judges. It seems particularly instructive that one such decision was issued by Judge Nadkarni, a management-level judge who supervises all immigration judges sitting in the Arlington, Batavia, Buffalo, and Charlotte Immigration Courts, as well as the Headquarters court which hears cases remotely by televideo.  Judge Nadkarni is the direct boss of V. Stuart Couch, the Charlotte-based immigration judge whose refusal to grant asylum as directed by the BIA in Matter of A-B- led to the former Attorney General’s certifying that case to himself.

Congratulations to attorneys Kelly Engel Wells of Delores Street Community Services and Mark Stevens of Murray Osorio PLLC for successfully representing the asylum applicants.

In light of these decisions, and in the absence of guidance from EOIR, our group of former immigration judges and BIA members would be happy to provide sitting judges with outside training and resources on this topic.   Interested judges may contact me, and perhaps we can set up group training sessions for furloughed judged during the present shutdown.

Notes:

  1. See, e.g. Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388, 395, n. 16, acknowledging the argument of amici “that gender alone should be enough to constitute a particular social group in this matter,” but declining to reach the issue.

Copyright 2019 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

 

JEFF CHASE

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Thanks Jeffrey! I’m “with you” all the way, my friend!
EOIR would do much better if it were to lose the venomous “(junior) partner of DHS Enforcement, no sympathy, compassion, or kindness for the most vulnerable among us, and scofflaw” persona that it acquired under White Nationalist AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and act more like a real court of law (or at least a fair and impartial quasi-judicial tribunal) again.
While there is zero chance of it happening, soon to be AG Bill Barr (who grotesquely has painted himself as a great admirer of his biased and incompetent predecessor) would do himself and our country a great and lasting service if he hired a retired Federal Judge with a strong record in (positive) humanitarian law, individual due process, and court administration (e.g., a “reincarnation” of the late Judge Patricia Wald) to run and rebuild EOIR with a Due Process, independent adjudication, and judicial efficiency focus, and kept the politicos out of the process, no matter how much they might complain or not like fair results on the “deportation railway.” But, not going to happen till we get “regime change.”
Viewing “law enforcement” as a solemn responsibility to insure that individuals’ rights are protected, individuals are treated fairly regardless of status, creed, gender, or race, and that life-saving protection is generously granted whenever legally possible is as much a part of the Attorney General’s Constitutional responsibility as  booting folks out of the country. It’s sad, disturbing, and very damaging to our country, that so few Attorneys General have taken this responsibility seriously, particularly in recent years.
PWS
01-21-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”
  3. NY TIMES: Trump Mocks & Dehumanizes Vulnerable Refugees & His Administration Claims It’s OK To Return Them to Honduras; BUT The Facts Say The Opposite: Honduras Is An Armed Conflict Zone Where Gangs Exercise Quasi-Governmental Control & Those Who Resist Are Severely Punished, Often Maimed, Tortured Or Killed!
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

DUE PROCESS AT WORK: GENDER-BASED CLAIMS ARE WINNING: FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA, SOME U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES STAND UP FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND THE RIGHTS (& LIVES) OF REFUGEE WOMEN EVEN IN THE FACE OF A SCOFFLAW, XENOPHOBIC DOJ!

Here are two redacted “post-Matter of A-B-” decisions from U.S.Immigration Judges correctly interpreting the law to grant relief to refugee women from Central America who have been victims of gender-based persecution in the form of domestic violence.

Assistant Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Deepali Nadkarni of the Arlington Immigration Court granted this case based on a PSG of “women in Honduras.”

Nadkarni Grant – Women in Honduras PSG

And U.S. Immigration Judge Miriam Hayward of the San Francisco Immigration Court granted this case based on a PSG of “women in Mexico:”

SF IJ Hayward DV PSG grant

 

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Compare the outstanding organization, methodical scholarly analysis, proper use of country conditions, and logical conclusions of these decisions written by fair and impartial judges with the pages of legal gobbledygook and anti-asylum screed set forth by xenophobic politico Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-, 17 I&N Dec. 316 (BIA 2018).

In a properly functioning system, decisions like these would be the published precedents, not the misleading, inaccurate, and confusing decision of the Attorney General which has already been firmly rejected by U.S District Judge Sullivan in Grace v. Whitaker. Decisions like these two, if used as models, could actually help speed along the grant process in both the Asylum Office and the Immigration Courts, thus expediting justice without sacrificing Due Process.

As it is, these decisions should be helpful to counsel presenting cases of abused women in Immigration Court.

Assistant Chief Judge Nadkarni and Judge Hayward show what the U.S. Immigration Court system could be if the improper political meddling and enforcement bias were removed and the Immigration Court were allowed to operate independently. Unfortunately, there are some Immigration Judges out there who are intent not on judicial excellence, but on using Matter of A-B- to railroad refugees through the system into the “deportation mill” without Due Process. That’s why we need a diverse and independent appellate body that can reinforce “best practices” while keeping those judges who aren’t fairly and correctly applying asylum law in line and, perhaps, encouraging them to find other careers.

Congratulations to both Assistant Chief Judge Nadkarni and Judge Hayward for having the courage to stand tall for the rule of law, Due Process, and fundamental fairness for the most vulnerable in our society — the actual (if now largely discarded) mission of the U.S. Immigration Courts. I should know, since I helped draft that now-forgotten “vision statement.”

Also, many congrats to counsel Mark Stevens (who appeared before me many times in Arlington) and Kelly Engel Wells for their outstanding work and to the unnamed but still critically important ICE Assistant Chief Counsel who appear to have done an outstanding job of presenting these cases.

NOTE: Judge Miriam Hayward recently retired and has joined “Our Gang” now numbering at least 32 retired U.S. Immigration Judges and Appellate Immigration Judges.

PWS

01-17-19

 

Related posts:

  1. WINNING ASYLUM & SAVING LIVES IN THE “ERA OF A-B-“ – Seven Steps To Success
  2. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  3. MORE ARTICLES FEATURE “GANG OF RETIRED JUDGES’ STATEMENT” RE: SESSIONS’S OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON SETTLED PRINCIPLES OF PROTECTION LAW! — Media Exposing Corrupt, Inherently Unfair, Biased “Court” System Where The Prejudiced Prosecutor “Cooks” The Results to His Liking! — Jeff Sessions Degrades The American Legal System & Our National Values Each Day He Remains In Office!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

EOIR & USCIS ISSUE COURT-REQUIRED NEW GUIDANCE ELIMINATING LARGE PORTIONS OF SESSIONS’S BOGUS GUIDANCE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE/GANG RELATED CASES — Advocates Should Be Pushing This At All Levels In All Forums!

Dear Colleagues,

Following up on U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s powerful decision in Grace v. Whitaker, which found major elements of Matter of A-B- and the related USCIS Policy Memorandum to be inconsistent with the law, we are pleased to share the instructions which the Court ordered USCIS and EOIR to provide asylum officers and immigration judges conducting credible fear interviews and reviews of negative credible fear findings.  This guidance takes immediate effect and should be relied upon and cited to by advocates.

The Court declared that the following policies contained in Matter of A-B- and the related USCIS Policy Memorandum are arbitrary, capricious, and in violation of immigration law as applied to credible fear proceedings:

1.     The general rule against claims relating to domestic and gang violence.

2.     The requirement that a noncitizen whose claim involves non-governmental persecutors “show the government condoned the private actions or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victim.”

3.     The Policy Memorandum’s rule that domestic violence-based particular social group definitions that include “inability to leave” a relationship are impermissibly circular and therefore not cognizable.

4.     The Policy Memorandum’s requirement that individuals must delineate or identify any particular social group in order to satisfy credible fear based on the particular social group protected ground.

5.     The Policy Memorandum’s directive that asylum officers should apply federal circuit court case law only “to the extent that those cases are not inconsistent with Matter of A-B-.”

6.     The Policy Memorandum’s directive that asylum officers should apply only the case law of “the circuit” where the individual is “physically located during the credible fear interview.”

While the Court’s order is limited to credible fear interviews in the expedited removal process, we urge advocates to use the Court’s reasoning in merits hearings before the Asylum Office and the Immigration Court, and on review before the BIA and circuit courts.  Of the six findings above, only (4) and (6) are specific to the nature of the credible fear process, which is intended to be a low screening standard, providing the applicant with the benefit of the most advantageous case law.  The other four findings (1,2,3, and 5) are more broadly based on Judge Sullivan’s interpretation of key statutory terms of the refugee definition, and his reasoning should be adopted and argued in the merits context as well.

Best,

Karen
Karen Musalo
Bank of America Foundation Chair in International Law

Professor & Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

SSRN Author Page:  http://ssrn.c

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

Thanks, Karen. The actual guidance memos can be found at the link in Karen’s e-mail.

The EOIR “guidance” asserts that it applies only in credible fear reviews. While technically true, as Karen more accurately points out, the rationale of Judge Sullivan’s findings 1, 2, 3, and 5 should apply equally in removal proceedings. Even if the “captive” BIA won’t listen the real, Article III Courts should. That’s why it’s critical to challenge all A-B- denials in the Circuits. And, as I noted before, no Circuit has yet had an opportunity to review A-B-.

Most, if not all, cases denied on the basis of Sessions’s flawed decision in Matter of A–B– should be subject to remand from the Article IIIs.  Just another example of how Sessions continues to harm individuals who deserve Due Process, while contributing to the largely DOJ-made backlog and wasting the time of the Article III Courts.

PWS

01-13-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  2. NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!
  3. JUDGE SULLIVAN STUFFS TRUMP’S REQUEST TO KEEP ON VIOLATING ASYLUM LAW PENDING APPEAL — Stay Denied In Grace v. Whitaker!
  4. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”

PROFESSOR STEPHEN LEGOMSKY IN USA TODAY: Gender Is Clearly a “Particular Social Group” – Congress Must Amend The Law To Insure That Neither Bureaucratic Judges Nor Political Hacks Like Sessions & His Ilk Can Deprive Women & LGBTQ Individuals Of The Protections They Need & Deserve!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/01/02/gender-related-violence-grounds-asylum-refugee-women-congress-column/2415093002/

When women arrive at our shores asking only that they not be beaten, raped or murdered, delivering them to their tormentors isn’t an option.

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Our asylum laws have some gaping holes. These gaps endanger many groups, but none more so than women and girls who are fleeing domestic violence, honor killings, mass rape in wartime, gang rape by criminal gangs, and other gender-related violence. Congress must explicitly recognize gender-based persecution as a potential asylum ground.

Asylum requires a “well-founded” fear of being persecuted. But not just any persecution will do. The persecution has to occur for one of five specific reasons — your race, your religion, your nationality, your political opinion, or what the law calls your “particular social group.” Gender is notably missing from this list.

That omission is not surprising. U.S. asylum laws, like those of most other western countries, track the language of an international refugee convention that was adopted in 1951. Gender-related violence was simply not on the public radar at that time.

But it is now 2019. The historical excuse will no longer wash. With women’s marches, the MeToo movement, the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process and women’s stunning midterm electoral successes, gender-related violence is now part of our national consciousness.

Read more commentary:

As a Syrian refugee in US, I watched my country collapse. But there is a path to hope.

Refugees at US-Mexico border are treated like criminals

Bring more refugees to America. They’ll fill vacant jobs and boost our economy.

Without specific congressional recognition of gender-based persecution, women and girls fleeing the most horrific violence imaginable have had to argue that they will be persecuted because of their “particular social group.” Today that is easier said than done. The nation’s highest administrative tribunal that decides asylum claims — the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals — has been adding more andmore roadblocks to asylum claims that are based on “particular social group.”

This was not always the case. In 1985, the board defined “particular social group” as one in which membership is “immutable.” Gender, of course, meets that definition.

The immutability test makes perfect sense. If you will be persecuted only because of an innocuous characteristic that you can easily change, then you don’t need asylum. But if that characteristic cannot be changed, you have no other practical way to protect yourself. The immutability test thus allows asylum for those who need it and withholds it from those who don’t.

Justice constraints are harmful, irrational

But the board could not leave well enough alone. Along the way it invented two additional requirements. One is “social distinction.” If you claim persecution because of your membership in a “particular social group,” you must now prove that your home society describes that class of individuals as a “group.” Second, you must now prove what the board calls “particularity.” By this it means you must prove that your home society can figure out whether hypothetical other individuals are members of the group.

There are only four problems with those requirements: The board has no convincing legal authority to impose them. No one really understands what they mean. They are nearly impossible to prove. And they make no policy sense: why should the U.S. decision whether to grant asylum to someone depend on whether her home society thinks of the particular class as a “group,” or on whether the home society can tell which other individuals belong to that “group”?

Last June, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions made this bad situation worse. Overruling board precedent, he announced that, henceforth, anyone fleeing domestic violence (or, for that matter anyone fleeing gang violence) will “generally” be unable to prove either social distinction or particularity and therefore should be denied asylum. Although a federal court has blocked that decision for now, the Supreme Court will likely determine its ultimate fate.

But the problems go beyond that specific case. First, the artificial constraints that the board has imposed for all claims based on “particular social group” are both harmful and irrational. Second, it is only because gender is not on Congress’s list of specifically protected grounds that women and girls have had to fit their claims into “particular social group” in the first place.

Women would still prove need for asylum

What arguments could possibly be made for protecting people from racial or religious persecution but not from gender persecution?

Perhaps the fear is that domestic violence is too endemic, that allowing asylum would open the floodgates. We need not worry, for a woman or girl fleeing domestic violence has multiple legal burdens that minimize the numbers: She must prove that her fear is both genuine and well-founded, that the harm she fears is severe, that her government is unable or unwilling to protect her, that no place anywhere in her country would be safe, and — even if gender is added to the list — that the persecution will be inflicted because of her gender. These are all high bars, and proof requires meticulous, persuasive documentation. Canada has recognized domestic violence asylum claims since the 1990s, and no floodgates have opened.

The U.S. cannot singlehandedly eradicate all violence against women and girls — even here at home. But we can at least avoid being an accomplice. When women and girls arrive at our shores asking only that they not be beaten, raped or murdered, delivering them to their tormentors is not an option. Congress should restore the original meaning of “particular social group,” and it should recognize that gender, like race and religion, belongs in the list of specifically protected grounds.

Stephen Legomsky is a professor emeritus at the Washington University School of Law, the principal author of “Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy,” and the former Chief Counsel of US Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama Administration.

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

Steve is absolutely right! This needs a legislative solution. And, while they are at it, Congress also needs to insulate the Immigration Court against future bureaucratic and political shenanigans by creating an independent Article I Immigration Court with a merit-based judicial selection system.

Not coincidentally, the BIA added the intentionally unduly restrictive “particularity” and “social distinction” (formerly “social visibility”) requirements (remarkably, without dissent or even full en banc treatment) only after a group of BIA Judges, including me, who understood both asylum law and women’s rights, and weren’t afraid to vote accordingly, had been removed by Attorney General Ashcroft in a bogus and disingenuous politically motivated “downsizing” following the election of President George W. Bush in 2000. Since then, asylum seekers generally have had a hard time finding justice at the “captive” and politically controlled BIA.

And, the situation has become critical following the tenure of the White Nationalist, misogynist political hack Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Sessions abandoned even the pretense of fairness, deliberation, impartiality, and judicial temperament in his anti-asylum, anti-Due-Process, anti-women campaign to rewrite the law to fit his preconceived White Nationalist xenophobic agenda — one that he (understandably & fortunately) never was able to push through Congress during his tenure as a Senator.

PWS

01-04-19

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”

PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO: Persecution Of Women In El Salvador On The Basis Of Gender Is Real & Endemic – The Administration’s Attempts To Skew The Law Against Women Refugees Is Totally Dishonest, Immoral, & Illegal!

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/sites/default/files/Musalo_El%20Salvador_A%20Peace%20Worse%20Than%20War_30%20Yale%20J.L.%20&%20Fem.%203_20018.pdf

Here’s part of the conclusion of Karen’s article “EL SALVADOR–A PEACE WORSE THAN WAR: VIOLENCE, GENDER AND A FAILED LEGAL RESPONSE” published at 30 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 3 (2018):

Historical and contemporary factors have given rise to the extremely high levels of violence that persist in El Salvador today. Many of the Salvadorans interviewed for this article referred to a “culture of violence” going back to the brutal Spanish Conquest and continuing into more recent history, including the 1932 Matanza and the atrocities of the country’s 12-year civil war. Gender violence exists within this broader context. However, as almost every Salvadoran source noted, violence against women is even more deeply rooted than other expressions of societal violence as the result of patriarchal norms that tolerate and affirm the most extreme forms of domination and abuse of women.
. . . .

Levels of violence, including the killings of women, have continued to rise, while impunity has remained a constant. Criticism of the persistent impunity for gender violence resulted in El Salvador’s most recent legal development: the enactment of Decree 286, which created specialized courts. However, the exclusion of the most commonly committed gender crimes–intrafamilial violence and sexual violence–from the specialized courts’ jurisdiction, and the courts’ hybrid structure, which requires that cases still be initiated in the peace courts, do not inspire optimism for positive outcomes.

Notwithstanding these considerable obstacles, the Salvadorans interviewed for this article, who have long struggled for access to justice and gender equality, maintain the hope and the belief that change is possible. In the course of multiple interviews over a six-year period (2010 to 2016), Salvadoran sources have expressed deep frustration and disappointment but have not articulated resignation or defeat.

. . . .

The Salvadorans who I interviewed for this article have provided information, insights, and perspectives that are simply not available in written reports or studies. Although they come from a range of backgrounds–governmental and non-governmental; legal professionals as well as grassroots activists–they all acknowledge the complex causes of societal violence. As discussed throughout this article, they also have specific critiques and prescriptions for what must be done in order to see any real progress. Discussions of the country’s crisis, as well as of the international community’s response, must start by listening to the voices of the Salvadorans who, despite the seemingly intractable situation of violence and impunity in which they live, have refused to abandon the struggle for justice and equality. They are inspiring in their courage and resilience. By quoting extensively from these sources, this article has sought to amplify their voices.

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

Read Karen’s complete article at the above link.

Compare real scholarship and honest reflection of the experiences of women in El Salvador affected by this seemingly unending wave of persecution with the intentionally bogus picture painted by Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-. Hopefully, advocates will be able to use the research and expertise of Karen and others like her to enlighten fair-minded Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges, support their efforts to grant women the protection they merit as contemplated by the Refugee Act and the Convention Against Torture, and force the Article III Courts and eventually Congress to consign Sessions’s intentionally perverted reasoning to the dustbin of “Jim Crow Misogynist History” where it belongs.

Many thanks to my good friend and colleague in  “Our Gang,” Judge Jeffrey Chase, for passing this link to Karen’s important scholarship along.

Due Process For All Forever!

PWS

12-31-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. NY TIMES: Trump Mocks & Dehumanizes Vulnerable Refugees & His Administration Claims It’s OK To Return Them to Honduras; BUT The Facts Say The Opposite: Honduras Is An Armed Conflict Zone Where Gangs Exercise Quasi-Governmental Control & Those Who Resist Are Severely Punished, Often Maimed, Tortured Or Killed!
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/12/24/how-far-reaching-is-the-impact-of-grace-v-whitaker

How Far Reaching is the Impact of Grace v. Whitaker?

Six months after a significant number of U.S. immigration judges cheered a decision intended to revoke the hard-earned right of domestic violence victims to asylum protection, immigration advocates had their chance to cheer last week’s decision of U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Grace v. Whitaker.  The 107-page decision blocks USCIS from applying the standards set forth in a policy memo to its asylum officers implementing the decision of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Matter of A-B-.  Judge Sullivan concluded that “it is the will of Congress – and not the whims of the Executive – that determines the standard for expedited removal,” and therefore concluded that the policy changes contained in the USCIS memo were unlawful.

In his decision in Matter of A-B-, Sessions stated that “generally, claims…pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence will not qualify for asylum.”  In a footnote, Sessions added “accordingly, few such claims would satisfy the legal standard to determine whether an [asylum applicant] has a credible fear of persecution.”  Read properly, neither of those statements are binding; they are dicta, reflecting Sessions’ aspirations as to how he would like his decision to be applied in his version of an ideal world.  However, both the BIA and the author of the USCIS policy memo forming the basis of the Grace decision drank the Kool Aid.  The BIA almost immediately began dismissing domestic violence cases without the required individualized legal analysis.  And USCIS, in its memo to asylum officers, stated that in light of A-B-, “few gang-based or domestic violence claims involving particular social groups defined by the members’ vulnerability to harm may…pass the ‘significant probability’ test in credible fear screenings.”1

If one reads Matter of A-B- carefully, meaning if one dismisses the more troubling language as non-binding dicta, its only real change to existing law is to vacate the precedent decision in Matter of A-R-C-G- which had recognized victims of domestic violence as refugees based on their particular social group membership.2   A proper reading of A-B- still allows such cases to be granted, but now means that the whole argument must be reformulated from scratch at each hearing, requiring lengthy, detailed testimony of not only the asylum applicant, but of country experts, sociologists, and others.  Legal theories already stipulated to and memorialized in A-R-C-G- must be repeated in each case.  Such Sisyphean approach seems ill suited to the current million-case backlog.

However, the BIA and the USCIS memo chose to apply Sessions’ dicta as binding case law, an approach that did in fact constitute a change in the existing legal standard.  When the Department of Justice argued to the contrary in Grace, Judge Sullivan called shenanigans, as USCIS’s actual application of the decision’s dicta to credible fear determinations  harmed asylum applicants in a very “life or death” way. The judge also reminded the DOJ of a few really basic, obvious points that it once knew but seems to have forgotten in recent years, namely (1) that the intent of Congress in enacting our asylum laws was to bring our country into compliance with the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees; (2) that the UNHCR’s guidelines for interpreting the 1951 Convention are useful interpretive tools that should be consulted in interpreting our asylum laws, and (3) that UNHCR has always called for an expansive application of “particular social group.”  Judge Sullivan further found that as applied by USCIS, the should-be dicta from A-B- constitutes an “arbitrary and capricious” shift in our asylum laws, as it calls for a categorical denial of domestic violence and gang-based claims in place of the fact-based, individualized analysis our asylum law has always required.

How far reaching is the Grace decision?  We know that the decision is binding on USCIS asylum officers, who actually conduct the credible fear interviews.  But is the decision further binding on either immigration judges or judges sitting on the Board of Immigration Appeals?

USCIS of course is part of the Department of Homeland Security.  Immigration judges and BIA members are employees of EOIR, which is part of the Department of Justice.  Its judges are bound by precedent decisions of the Attorney General, whose decisions may only be appealed to the Circuit Courts of Appeal.  However, the credible fear process may only be reviewed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and only as to whether a written policy directive or procedure issued under the authority of the Attorney General is unconstitutional or otherwise in violation of law.3 This is how Grace ended up before Judge Sullivan.  The BIA and Immigration Judges generally maintain that they are not bound by decisions of district courts.

Despite these differences, the credible fear interviews conducted by USCIS are necessarily linked to the immigration court hearings of EOIR.  An asylum officer with USCIS recently described the credible fear interview process to me as “pre-screening asylum cases for the immigration judge.”  The credible fear process accounts for the fact that that the applicant has not had time yet to consult with a lawyer or gather documents, might be frightened, and likely doesn’t know the legal standard.  But the purpose of the credible fear interview is to allow the asylum officer to gather enough information from the applicant to determine if, given the time to fully prepare the claim and the assistance of counsel, there is a significant possibility that the applicant could file a successful claim before the immigration judge.  The credible fear standard has always been intended to be a low threshold for those seeking asylum. Before A-B-, a victim of domestic violence was extremely likely to meet such standard.  The USCIS memo reversed this, directing asylum officers to categorically deny such claims.  But now, pursuant to Grace, USCIS must go back to approving these cases under the pre-A-B- legal standard.

When an asylum officer finds that the credible fear standard has not been met, the only review is before an immigration judge in a credible fear review hearing.  Although, as stated above, EOIR generally argues that it is not bound by district court decisions, its immigration judges would seem to be bound by the Grace decision in credible fear review hearings.  Congress provided the district court the authority to determine that a written policy directive of the AG (which was implemented by the USCIS written policy memo) relating to the credible fear process was in violation of law, and Judge Sullivan did just that.  Even were EOIR to determine that the decision applies only to USCIS, the IJ’s role in the credible fear review hearing is to determine if USCIS erred in finding no credible fear. If USCIS is bound by Grace, it would seem that IJs must reverse an asylum officer’s decision that runs contrary to the requirements of Grace.

But since the credible fear standard is based entirely on the likelihood of the asylum application being granted in a full hearing before an immigration judge, can EOIR successfully argue that its judges must apply Grace to conclude that yes, a domestic violence claim has a significant chance of being granted at a hearing in which the IJ will ignore the dicta of A-B-, find that the only real impact of the decision was that it vacated A-R-C-G-, and will thus apply an individualized analysis to an expansive interpretation of particular social group (with reference to UNHCR’s guidelines as an interpretive tool)?  And then, once the case is actually before the court, ignore Grace, and apply what appears to the be BIA’s present approach of categorically denying such claims?

Many immigration judges are presently struggling to understand Matter of A-B-.  The decision was issued on the afternoon of the first day of the IJ’s annual training conference.  This year’s conference was very short on legal analysis, as the present administration doesn’t view immigration judges as independent and neutral adjudicators.  But the judges tapped for the asylum law panel had to throw away the presentation they had spent months planning and instead wing a program on the A-B- decision that they had only first seen the prior afternoon.  Needless to say, the training was not very useful in examining the nuances of the decision.  As a result, fair-minded judges are honestly unsure at present if they are still able to grant domestic violence claims.

Of course, a decision of a circuit court on a direct challenge to A-B- would provide clarification.  However, A-B- itself is presently back before the BIA and unlikely to be decided anytime soon.4  I am aware of only one case involving the issue that has reached the circuit court level, and it is still early in the appeal process.  My guess is that EOIR will issue no guidance nor conduct specialized training for its judges on applying A-B- in light of the Grace decision.  Nor will the BIA issue a new precedent providing detailed analysis to determine that a domestic violence claimant satisfied all of the requirements set out in A-B- and is thus entitled to asylum.

A heartfelt thanks to the team of outstanding attorneys at the ACLU and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies for their heroic efforts in bringing this successful challenge.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

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Four of the “scummiest” things about Sessions’s decision in Matter of A-B-.

  • Sessions is a biased prosecutor with well-know racist proclivities who had no business acting as a quasi-judicial decision maker in A-B-;
  • A-B- was purposely decided in a procedural context that made it impossible for the respondent to immediately challenge it in the Circuit Court;
  • Nevertheless, the untested dicta in A-B- cynically was used by USCIS to cut off access to the hearing system for refugee women who were unfairly returned to dangerous situations with no appeal rights;
  • Some U.S. Immigration Judges improperly used A-B- to “rubber stamp” these illegal denials of access to the hearing system, often mocking Due Process by barring the participation of attorneys attempting to represent refugee women and children.

There are few things more despicable than those charged with fairness and protecting the rights of others abusing their authority by  screwing the most vulnerable among us!

PWS

12-26-18

 

Related posts:

  1. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  2. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

GENDER-BASED PERSECUTION OF WOMEN IN CENTRAL AMERICA IS WIDESPREAD & WELL-ESTABLISHED! — Trump Administration’s Disingenuous Refusal To Treat Them As Refugees Is Illegal & Immoral! –“Homicides will only be brought under control when we teach society that women’s lives are worth more.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-is-better-not-to-have-a-daughter-here-latin-americas-violence-turns-against-women-11545237843?emailToken=5cbcc917221424825baa00c26277a3bdzdI+3vtll7KBkMM00Z6+dsoSHU6OaTUnSQQuir5waepAYBzkaUG3llg70bJ/Sf2HOx/vEO/irclDJDwOJpFXRJ2amiJz9BofjN/oVgB1wR4Meq2bA099I4KJFl6mnIF+UPdNqetFe3GINnT3AxJmN+bjIXPxZD7CpkIoH4UmAzE%3D&reflink=article_email_share

Juan Forero reports for WSJ:

Women in Latin America Are Being Murdered at Record Rates

The deadliest region for men has become perilous for women as well, especially in gang-riddled parts of Central America

655 COMMENTS

By

Juan Forero | Photographs by
Meridith Kohut for The Wall Street Journal

    •

    El PLATANAR, El Salvador—Andrea Guzmán was just 17 but sensed the danger. For weeks, the chieftain of a violent gang had made advances that turned to threats when she rebuffed him.

    He responded by dispatching seven underlings dressed in black to the two-room house she shared with her family in this hamlet amid corn and bean fields. They tied up her parents and older brother, covered Andrea’s mouth and forcibly led her out into the night in her flip-flops.

    Hours later, one of her abductors fired a shot into her forehead in a field nearby. And once again, another woman had been slain, one of thousands in recent years in this violent swath of Central America, simply because of her gender.

    “It is better not to have a daughter here,” said her weeping father, José Elmer Guzmán, recounting how he had found his girl, wearing the shorts and a T-shirt she liked to sleep in, off the side of a road. “I should have left the country with my children.”

    ‘Andrea’s only sin was being beautiful,’ said Claudia Solórzano, shown holding a photo of her murdered daughter. (The Wall Street Journal chose to publish the photograph of Andrea Guzmán’s murder, at top of article, because it viscerally shows the reality of violence sweeping Latin America. Her parents provided the image and gave the Journal permission to use it.)
    ‘Andrea’s only sin was being beautiful,’ said Claudia Solórzano, shown holding a photo of her murdered daughter. (The Wall Street Journal chose to publish the photograph of Andrea Guzmán’s murder, at top of article, because it viscerally shows the reality of violence sweeping Latin America. Her parents provided the image and gave the Journal permission to use it.)

    Latin America has the highest homicide rate in the world. The region’s most-murderous corner—the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, including El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala—annually registers the deaths of thousands of young men who shoot, stab, bludgeon and asphyxiate each other, often in gang-related violence.

    Now, the Northern Triangle is turning deadly for women, too.

    El Salvador, a tiny country of 6 million, has seen homicides of women more than double since 2013 to 469 last year. The death rate per 100,000 women, at 13.5, is more than six times that of the U.S., with Honduras and Guatemala close behind.

    Gang violence has turbocharged the problem here, but doesn’t explain all of it. Women die disproportionately at the hands of men throughout much of Latin America. From Mexico to Brazil, episodes of lethal domestic violence are frequent staples on social media and television.

    Women in Danger

    A total of 2,559 cases of femicide were reported in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2017. Central American nations top the list of the 10 riskiest countries for women.

    *The definition of femicide varies from country to country, but at its narrowest means the intentional murder of women because they are women.

    Source: United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

    In August, Brazilians were horrified after a TV news show broadcast security camera video showing a muscle-bound young man chasing his 29-year-old wife around the underground parking lot in their building and then struggling with her in the elevator as it ascended to their fifth-floor apartment. The camera then captured her lifeless body—she had been strangled, investigators later said—falling from the apartment balcony to the street below.

    A Peruvian man poured gasoline on 22-year-old Eyvi Ágreda Marchena on a public bus in April and set her on fire. The attack so horrified the country that President Martín Vizcarra visited her in the hospital before she died in June from the burns. Her assailant admitted killing her, telling investigators she had spurned his advances.

    “She uses her looks to use men,” he said, according to authorities. “I gave her a stuffed bear and flowers last year when I saw that she was sad. But she was annoyed. She said I wasn’t her boyfriend.”

    Friends and family gather at the wake of 31-year-old Berta Hernández Arce, who was murdered in El Salvador by MS-13 gang members after refusing to pay $8,000 they were trying to extort from her and her husband. The assailants shot her 40 times in front of her 6-year-old niece.

    What amounts to a public health crisis has women of all ages living in fear, according to researchers and interviews with dozens of women in El Salvador. As elsewhere in Latin America, the challenge is enormous for an overtaxed and poorly funded judicial system that can solve only a minority of homicides, let alone effectively prosecute rapes and spousal battery cases, also endemic here.

    The ramifications are broken families and traumatized children. The violence generates migration to the U.S., with women who say they flee to save their lives increasingly filing asylum claims before American immigration judges.

    “Women are looked down upon as they grow up, making them second-class citizens,” said Silvia Juárez, a lawyer with the Organization of Salvadoran Women for Peace, which catalogs violence against women. “Homicides will only be brought under control when we teach society that women’s lives are worth more.”

    Specialists studying violent crime in Central America say the killings of women often come at the hands of their partners, and that the rise of vicious gangs has added a tragic new dimension.

    “Violence against women existed before the gangs,” said Angelica Rivas, a women’s rights lawyer. “The gangs make it worse.”

    Activists hold a candlelight protest against femicides in El Salvador on Nov. 30.
    Activists hold a candlelight protest against femicides in El Salvador on Nov. 30.

    The two gangs that operate in nearly all of El Salvador’s 262 municipalities—MS-13 and Barrio 18—treat women as little more than slaves, say law-enforcement authorities and women’s-rights advocates.

    Once an initiated gang member, or homeboy as they call themselves, takes possession of a teenage girl or young woman, she risks a beating or death if she tries to leave without permission.

    “When you have a woman, she becomes property for you, and only for you, no one else,” said Wilfredo Cabrera, who is 24 and recently left a gang.

    The safe houses the gangs use to store weaponry, cash and contraband are also used to imprison girls, some as young as 12 and 13. Gang rape is not uncommon.

    Lisseth, a slight, 21-year-old woman, cried gently as she described her life in such a house of horrors. Escaping an abusive family at 12, Lisseth said she was lured by gang members “who said they would take care of me and give the love that my family had not given me.”

    Instead, she was forcibly kept in the basement of a safe house. At one point, she recalled, 12 gang members took turns raping her. “When they wanted to use me, they’d say, ‘Come on up,’” said Lisseth, who made an escape and is now in a home that protects women who have been victims of violence.

    Lisseth, 21, poses for a portrait while in hiding from the gang MS-13 in El Salvador.
    Lisseth, 21, poses for a portrait while in hiding from the gang MS-13 in El Salvador.

    Families with girls in gang-controlled regions know they, too, can be targeted if a homeboy takes an interest. Saying “no” isn’t an option.

    The local gang overlord in Manuel Juárez’s neighborhood on the outskirts of San Salvador wanted his oldest daughter, he recounted. He warned her that if she didn’t go along with him, her family would be killed.

    “He would see her. He would touch her, kiss her wherever, in the street,” Mr. Juárez, 45, said. “He came and told me, ‘I’m going to take your girl. Do not look for her or else I will kill you.’ ” Mr. Juárez was too afraid to go to the police.

    Gang members did take his daughter, leaving her pregnant before the family was able to get her, eventually, to a new life in Spain. Now, Mr. Juárez worries about his youngest daughter, just 16, and whether one option might be to flee to the U.S. should gang members take interest.

    RELATED

    It’s too late for Mr. Guzmán and his wife, Claudia Solórzano. They can only recount the sense of hopelessness and anguish they felt as gang members began to notice Andrea, with her blue eyes and long black hair.

    First it was a chieftain nicknamed Thunder, who dated Andrea. But when he was jailed, the homeboy who replaced him, who went by the alias Little Spoon, wanted her for himself, said her mother, Ms. Solórzano.

    He followed Andrea. He phoned her constantly. Sometimes, he’d wave his semiautomatic handgun at her father, making clear he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

    “He’d come across, tell her, ‘Be careful. You look real good,’ ” Ms. Solórzano said. “She would say, ‘I don’t want to be the girlfriend of a gang member.’ When he sent her chocolates, she didn’t eat them.”

    Andrea seemed to sense that her life could be cut short. Ms. Solórzano said that near the end, her daughter went so far as to tell a neighbor she wanted two black roses placed on her casket.

    Prosecutor Graciela Sagastume, who heads a new unit that investigates violence against women, said attacks have been so commonplace that Salvadoran society had become inured. She said that may be changing in the wake of several high-profile killings of professional women at the hands of their partners, among them a Health Ministry doctor beaten to death by her husband in January.

    “Sadly, it took the death of a woman doctor for us to take note that the deaths of women due to domestic violence exist,” Ms. Sagastume said. “They are everyday cases.”

    The casket had to be closed at the wake of Berta Hernández Arce because her body was so badly mutilated.
    The casket had to be closed at the wake of Berta Hernández Arce because her body was so badly mutilated.

    Last year in El Salvador, 345 women became victims of what authorities classified as femicides, the killing of a woman for no other reason than her gender.

    Unlike the killings of men, women slain here usually know their killers. In more than half the cases, it was a partner, ex-partner, family member or other acquaintance, including a gang member known to the victim.

    Intentional Homicide Rate (per 100,000 people)

    Sources: Igarapé Institute (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala); FBI (U.S.); National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Mexico)

    Whereas men are often shot to death, women are killed with particular viciousness, according to a 2015 Salvadoran government study on femicides that noted how some victims had been tortured, had fingers cut off, been raped, tied up or burned.

    “In many cases,” the report said, “the methods used surpassed those needed to cause death.”

    Ms. Sagastume said the violence sometimes arises when men are threatened by women who challenge the traditional gender roles of Salvadoran society.

    Those factors were at play in the case of Karla Turcios, a newspaper columnist asphyxiated in April, her body left on the side of a road. Prosecutors charged her husband, Mario Huezo. He is jailed, awaiting trial and says he is innocent.

    Ms. Sagastume said various aspects of the relationship between Ms. Turcios and Mr. Huezo led investigators to conclude he bristled at her success.

    He would drive her to work and then wait in the parking lot until she finished her shift. She couldn’t spend time with co-workers or friends. He held control of her bank accounts.

    Yet, she had been the one with the salaried job. She owned the car. She paid for the couple’s daily needs. Her death came after she asked him to contribute his fair share, Ms. Sagastume said, adding, “He felt humiliated by her.”

    Mario Huezo, the accused husband of slain journalist Karla Turcios, is led away by police after a court hearing in San Salvador.
    Mario Huezo, the accused husband of slain journalist Karla Turcios, is led away by police after a court hearing in San Salvador. PHOTO: RODRIGO SURA/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

    The Salvadoran government, with aid from the U.S., is developing courts to deal with violence against women and staffing them with specially trained prosecutors, judges and other personnel, among them psychologists, to work with victims. The number of cases of homicide processed has risen to 270 in 2017, from 130 in 2015. Convictions are still a minority of all cases but they rose from 76 in 2015 to 117 last year.

    Judge Glenda Baires said the new system, which also handles assaults and sex crimes against women, is persuading more women to denounce their assailants. “Women are now saying, ‘I’m going to say something before I get killed,’” she said.

    In a ballad popular here and elsewhere in Latin America, “Kill Them With An Overdose of Tenderness,” the singer advises an extreme response when confronting heartbreak.

    “Get a gun if you want, or buy a dagger if you prefer, and become a killer of women,” the lyrics go.

    It’s a melodic refrain sung with gusto at parties.

    More than a quarter of women in El Salvador reported being a victim of violence in their lifetime while 43% said they had suffered a sexual assault, according to a national household survey in 2017 by the country’s statistics agency.

    Women from the “La Cachada” theatre troupe perform a play about the struggles of informal street vendors in El Salvador based on their personal experiences. The troupe has delved into issues of gender-based violence both as a cathartic exercise for themselves and as a public service.
    Women from the “La Cachada” theatre troupe perform a play about the struggles of informal street vendors in El Salvador based on their personal experiences. The troupe has delved into issues of gender-based violence both as a cathartic exercise for themselves and as a public service.

    In San Salvador, Meghan López, an American expert on family violence working on her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, is carrying out research on the impact of parenting skills on children in dangerous, poverty-stricken environments.

    She uses a research tool called the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire, or ACE-IQ, which identifies 13 factors in young lives that can lead to problems in adulthood. Those ACEs, which include violence, sexual abuse, family dysfunction, neglect, poverty and other factors, are each assigned a point.

    Ms. López’s work is still preliminary, but she has found that parents of young children in the four communities she is examining score an average of 8, which she calls “astronomical.” In the U.S., a 4 would be considered high.

    Exposure to ACEs can alter the development of a child’s brain as well as their hormonal system, stunting the cognitive tools they need as adults to rationalize and react calmly to stressful situations, Ms. López said. That can cause the brain’s more primitive areas to overdevelop while those responsible for emotional control can be underdeveloped.

    What that means on a national scale is violence is bred from one generation to another in El Salvador, a country already buffeted by pervasive violence and the legacy of civil war in the 1980s.

    “If we don’t break the cycle of violence,” said Ms. López, “it’s not going to get better.”

    A mural painted by artist Julia Valencia on a wall in San Salvador denounces femicide.
    A mural painted by artist Julia Valencia on a wall in San Salvador denounces femicide.

    Write to Juan Forero at Juan.Forero@wsj.com

    Appeared in the December 20, 2018, print edition as ‘Latin America Turns Deadly for Women.’

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

    Go to the link above for the full article and to be able to read the charts!

    Folks, this is the Wall Street Journal, bastion of conservative thought and rhetoric, for Pete’s sake! It’s not HuffPost or Slate. And, it’s not just Latin American Countries that are guilty of devaluing the lives of women. Trump, Pence, Sessions, Kelly, Nielsen, Whitaker, Francisco, U.S. Immigration Judge Couch, some BIA Appellate Immigration Judges, EOIR Officials, DOJ Politicos, Pompeo, GOP Legislators, to name just a few dehumanize women and trash their legal rights on a regular basis by pushing a scofflaw restrictionist immigration agenda targeting people of color, particularly women and girls of color.

    “Women in [X Country]” clearly fits the three basic criteria for a “particular social group” protection under asylum and refugee law:  1) immutable/fundamental to identity; 2) particularized; 3) socially distinct. It’s not material that not all women are equally in danger. Those harmed clearly are targeted largely (sometimes entirely) because of their gender. So, there’s a clear “nexus” or “at least one central reason” as the law states. The idea pushed by Sessions and other restrictionists that countries in the Northern Triangle are “willing and able” to protect them is preposterous, as this article demonstrates.

    Also women who are activists, members of religious groups opposed to gangs, political candidates, or members of indigenous populations are targeted for political, racial, or religious reasons.

    In other words, refugee women fleeing Central America often fit squarely within “classic” refugee protection.

    Some are granted protection by conscientious and courageous U.S. Immigration Judges who simply refuse to let the anti-refugee, anti-Central-American bias of their “superiors” in the Administration influence their decisions. But, many other female refugees find themselves improperly denied (or denied any hearing at all by the Asylum Office) by those anxious to please the White Nationalist restrictionists in power, to “expedite” dockets by looking for anti-immigrant “handles” in Sessions’s skewed precedents, or actually relish their chance to release their own anti-asylum biases on women of color.

    And, in the absence of positive BIA precedents requiring grants and recognizing the truth about female refugees from Central America, justice is terribly uneven and depends largely on the “luck of the draw.” Traditionally, U.S. Immigration Judges serving in DHS Dentition Centers and at the border often have been less willing than others to recognize legitimate refugees by granting asylum. Not incidentally, those also happen to be locations where representation rates for asylum seekers are lowest.

    The treatment of these legitimate refugees by our country is a national disgrace! Recently, in Grace v. Whitaker, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan (what a difference a real, truly independent judge makes) began the arduous process of exposing the legal flaws and bias in the Sessions-initiated attack on justice for vulnerable refugees from Central America.

    But, it will take much more effort, as well as a continuing outcry of public outrage, for justice to be restored to the system corrupted by Sessions and his restrictionist ilk. It’s also something that Democrats must and should address for the record during the upcoming Barr confirmation hearings.

    No more “Jeff Sessions” as Attorney General! We need a U.S. Attorney General (regardless of party) who will uphold human dignity and enforce the legal rights and privileges of everyone under our Constitution, not just the privileged. We also need an Attorney General with the confidence in and respect for our justice system to let the BIA and the Immigration Courts operate in an independent manner and set their own dockets and legal standards, free from political interference and White Nationalist restrictionist agendas.

    PWS

    12-26-18

    Related posts:

    1. NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!
    2. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
    3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
    4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

    “OUR GANG” OF RETIRED JUDGES ISSUES STATEMENT ON GRACE v. WHITAKER!

    Thanks to “Our Leader” Judge Jeffrey Chase for making this happen!

    Retired Immigration Judges and Former Member of the Board of Immigration Appeals Statement on Grace v. Whitaker

    December 19, 2018

    Today’s decision in Grace v. Whitaker provides a lesson in what it truly means to return to the rule of law. In a 107-page decision, Judge Sullivan reminded the current administration of the following truths: that more than 30 years ago (in a decision successfully argued by our former colleague,Immigration Judge Dana Marks), our nation’s highest court recognized that the purpose of the 1980 Refugee Act was to honor our international treaty obligation towards refugees, and that the language of that treaty was meant to be interpreted flexibly, to adapt to changes over time in the agents, victims, and means of persecution, and to be applied fairly to all. The decision affirms that our asylum laws are meant to be applied on an individual, case-by-case basis and not according to a predetermined categorical rule. The decision wisely considered the interpretation of the UNHCR Handbook, and afforded it greater weight than the personal agenda of a former Attorney General in determining our legal obligations to afford protection to refugees who are victims of domestic violence.

    The decision imposes a permanent injunction on DHS from applying the awful decision of the former Attorney General in Matter of A-B- in its credible fear determinations. This reasoned decision will prevent this administration from continuing to deny women credibly fearing rape, domestic violence, beatings, shootings, and death in their countries of origin from having the right to their day in court. We applaud Judge Sullivan’s just decision, as well as the truly heroic efforts of the lawyers at the ACLU and Center for Gender and Refugee Studies that made such outcome possible. We also thank all of the attorneys, organizations, judges, experts, and others whose contributions lent invaluable support to this effort.

    Hon. Steven R. Abrams

    Hon. Sarah M. Burr

    Hon. Teofilo Chapa

    Hon. George T. Chew

    Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase

    Hon. Cecelia M. Espenoza

    Hon. Noel Ferris

    Hon. John F. Gossart, Jr.

    Hon. Rebecca Jamil

    Hon. William Joyce

    Hon. Carol King

    Hon. Elizabeth A. Lamb

    Hon. Margaret McManus

    Hon. Charles Pazar

    Hon. George Proctor

    Hon. John Richardson

    Hon. Lory D. Rosenberg

    Hon. Susan Roy

    Hon. Paul W. Schmidt

    Hon. Polly A. Webber

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

    Thanks to Jeffrey and the rest of the “Gang” for speaking out so promptly and forcefully!

    PWS

    12-20-18

     

    Related posts:

    1. NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!
    2. SCOFFLAWS THWARTED: U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE EMMET G. SULLIVAN EXPOSES SESSIONS’ S OUTRAGEOUSLY ILLEGAL WHITE NATIONALIST ATTACK ON U.S. ASYLUM LAW — MATTER OF A-B- EXCEEDED SCOFFLAW A.G.’S AUTHORITY — Grace v. Whitaker
    3. JUDGE SULLIVAN STUFFS TRUMP’S REQUEST TO KEEP ON VIOLATING ASYLUM LAW PENDING APPEAL — Stay Denied In Grace v. Whitaker!
    4. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!

    SCOFFLAWS THWARTED: U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE EMMET G. SULLIVAN EXPOSES SESSIONS’ S OUTRAGEOUSLY ILLEGAL WHITE NATIONALIST ATTACK ON U.S. ASYLUM LAW — MATTER OF A-B- EXCEEDED SCOFFLAW A.G.’S AUTHORITY — Grace v. Whitaker

    Grace v. Sessions, U.S.D.C. D.D.C., 12-19-18, Hon. Emmet G. Sullivan, Published

    Grace 106 12-19-18

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

    MY STATEMENT ON GRACE V. WHITAKER:

     

    As a former United States Immigration Judge, Chair of the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals, and Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel of the “Legacy INS” involved in developing the Refugee Act of 1980, I am deeply gratified by the decision of U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan today in Grace v. Whitaker. Judge Sullivan strongly supports the rule of law and the generous humanitarian protections and procedural rights afforded by Congress to vulnerable asylum seekers against a lawless and unjustified attack by former Attorney General Sessions in Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (AG 2018) and the largely erroneous Policy Memorandum incorporating that decision issued by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”).

     

    Among the most important holdings, Judge Sullivan:

     

    • Reaffirmed the duty of the Executive Branch to comply with the rule of law as enacted by Congress to protect individuals fleeing persecution;
    • Reaffirmed the generous humanitarian intent of the asylum provisions of the Refugee Act of 1980;
    • Recognized the generous “well-founded fear” (10% chance) standard for asylum as enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca;
    • Reaffirmed the “extraordinarily low” bar for applicants in “credible fear” interviews before DHS Asylum Officers: “to prevail at a credible fear interview, the alien need only show a ‘significant possibility’ of a one in ten chance of persecution, i.e., a fraction of ten percent;”
    • Found that Congress intended that the term “particular social group” must be interpreted generously in accordance with the United Nations’ guidance;
    • Rejected Sessions’s unlawful attempt to generally preclude domestic violence and gang-related claims from qualifying for asylum;
    • Reaffirmed the necessity of case-by-case determinations of credible fear and asylum;
    • Rejected Session’s unlawful attempt to engraft a “condoned or completely helpless” requirement on the interpretation of when a foreign government is “unwilling or unable” to protect an individual from persecution by a private party;
    • Reaffirmed Congress’s unambiguous understanding that persecution means “harm or suffering . . . inflicted either by the government of a country or by persons or an organization that the government was unable or unwilling to control;”
    • Rejected DHS’s misinterpretation of the “circularity requirement” in the Policy Memorandum;
    • Rejected the Department of Justice’s disingenuous argument that Article III Courts must “defer” to administrative interpretations of Article III Court decisions;
    • Rejected the Policy Memorandum’s illegal requirement that an asylum applicant (usually unrepresented) “delineate” the scope of a particular social group at the credible fear interview;
    • Emphatically rejected the Policy Memorandum’s attempt to elevate administrative precedents over the conflicting decisions of U.S. Courts of Appeals.

     

    Judge Sullivan’s cogent decision dramatically highlights the problems with an U.S. Immigration Court system that is controlled by political officials, like former Attorney General Sessions, who are not fair and impartial judicial officials and whose actions may be (and in Sessions’s case definitely were) driven by political philosophies and enforcement objectives inconsistent with judicial responsibilities to insure that non-citizens are fairly considered for and when appropriate granted the important, often life-saving, protections conferred by law and guaranteed by due process. A clearly biased political official like Jeff Sessions should ethically never been permitted to act in a quasi-judicial capacity.

     

    As a result of Sessions’s anti-immigrant bias, unlawful actions, and gross mismanagement of the Immigration Courts, innocent lives have been endangered and one of our largest American court systems has been driven to the precipice with an uncontrolled (yet unnecessary) backlog of over 1.1 million cases and crippling quality control issues. When it finally plunges over, it will take a large chunk of our American justice system and the Constitutional protections we all rely upon with it!

     

    Congress must create an independent Article I United States Immigration Court to ensure that the immigration and refugee laws enacted by Congress are applied to individuals in a fair, efficient, and impartial manner.

     

    Many, many thanks to the ACLU and all of the other wonderful pro bono lawyers who stood up for the rule of law and the rights of the most vulnerable among us against the intentionally illegal actions and unethical behavior of this Administration.

     

    PWS

    12-19-18

     

    Related posts:

    1. NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSER JEFF SESSIONS ALSO TARGETED REFUGEE WOMEN & GIRLS FOR DEATH, RAPE, TORTURE, & OTHER MAYHEM — HIS EVIL PLANS HIT A ROADBLOCK: THE LAW! — Read The Latest Commentary From Hon. Jeffrey S.Chase On Challenges To Sessions’s Effort To Pervert The Law — Matter of A-B- In Light Of Grace v. Whitaker!
    2. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”
    3. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
    4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

    WINNING ASYLUM & SAVING LIVES IN THE “ERA OF A-B-“ – Seven Steps To Success

    WINNING ASYLUM

    WINNING ASYLUM & SAVING LIVES IN THE “ERA OF A-B-“ – Seven Steps To Success*

    By Paul Wickham Schmidt

    United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

    NEW YORK CITY BAR

    DECEMBER 4, 2018

     

    Good evening, and thanks so much for inviting me.  In the “old days,” I would have started with my comprehensive disclaimer. But, now that I’m retired, I’m just going to hold the Bar Association, my fellow panelists, and anyone else of any importance whatsoever “harmless” for my remarks tonight.  They are solely my views, for which I take full responsibility. No sugar-coating, no bureaucratic doublespeak, no “party line,” no BS – just the unvarnished truth, as I see it!

    “We’ve had situations in which a person comes to the United States and says they are a victim of domestic violence; therefore, they are entitled to enter the United States. Well, that’s obviously false but some judges have gone along with that.” “Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day—like water seeping through an earthen dam—to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the act. That is our most serious duty.”

     

    Those, my friends, are obviously not my words. They are the words of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Incredibly, this totally biased, xenophobic, misinformed, and glaringly unqualified individual was in charge of our U.S. Immigration Court system which helps explains why it is such a total mess today. And Acting Attorney General Whitaker’s certification of two cases yesterday promises a continuation of improper political interference with the Immigration Courts in derogation of Due Process.

     

    One of Sessions’s most cowardly and reprehensible actions was his atrocious distortion of asylum law, the reality of life in the Northern Triangle, and Due Process for migrants in Matter of A-B-. There, he overruled the BIA’s important precedent in Matter of A-R-C-G-, a decision actually endorsed by the DHSat the time, and which gave much need protection to women fleeing persecution in the form of domestic violence. Take it from me, Matter of A-R-C-G-was one of the few parts of our dysfunctional Immigration Court system that actually worked and provided a way of consistently granting much needed protection to some of the most vulnerable and most deserving refugees in the world.

     

    Sessions is gone. But, his ugly legacy of bias and unfairness remains. Fortunately, because he was a lousy lawyer on top of everything else, he failed to actually accomplish what he thought he was doing: wiping out protection for refugee women, largely from Central America. That’s why it’s critically important for you, as members of the “New Due Process Army” to fight every inch of the way, for as long as it takes, to restore justice and to force our U.S Immigration Courts to live up to their unfulfilled, and now mocked, promise of “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all!”

     

    I’m going to give you seven very basic tips for overcoming Matter of A-B-.  I’m sure that my colleagues, who are much more involved in the day to day litigation going on in the courts than I am, can give you lots of additional information about addressing specific issues.

     

    First, recognize that Matter of A-B- really doesn’t change the fundamental meaning of asylum.It just rejected the way in which the BIA reached its precedent in A-R-C-G-— by stipulation without specific fact-findings based on the administrative record. Most of it is mere dicta. On a case by case basis, domestic violence can still be a proper basis for granting asylum in many cases. Indeed, such cases still are being granted by those Immigration Judges committed to following the rule of law and upholding their oaths of office, rather than accepting Sessions’s invitation to “take a dive.”

     

    Just make sure you properly and succinctly state your basis, establish nexus, and paper the record with the overwhelming amount of reliable country condition information and expert opinion that directly contradicts the bogus picture painted by Sessions.

     

    Second, resist with all your might those lawless judges in some Immigration Courts who are using, or threatening to use, Sessions’s dictum in Matter of A-B- to deny fair hearings or truncate the hearing process for those claiming asylum through domestic violence.If anything, following the overruling of A-R-C-G-,leaving no definitive precedent on the subject, full, fair case-by-case hearings are more important than ever. Under Due Process, asylum applicants are entitled to a full and fair opportunity to present their claims in Immigration Court. Don’t let wayward, biased, or misinformed Immigration Judges deny your clients’ constitutional and statutory rights.  

     

    Third, keep it simple. Even before A-B-, I always said that any proposed “particular social group” (“PSG”) longer than 25 words or containing “circular” elements is D.O.A. I think that it’s time to get down to the basics; the real PSG here is gender! “Women in X country” is clearly a cognizable PSG.  It’s undoubtedly immutable or fundamental to identity; particularized, and socially distinct. So, it meets the BIA’s three-part test.

     

    And, “gender” clearly is one of the biggest drivers of persecution in the world. There is no doubt that it is “at least one central reason” for the persecution of women and LGBT individuals throughout the world.

     

    Fourth, think political. There is plenty of recent information available on the internet showing the close relationship between gangs and the governments of the Northern Triangle. In some cases, gangs are the “de facto government” in significant areas of the country. In others, gangs and local authorities cooperate in extorting money and inflicting torture and other serious harm on honest individuals who resist them and threaten to expose their activities. In many cases, claiming political or religious persecution will be a stronger alternative ground than PSG.

     

    Fifth, develop your record.  The idea that domestic violence and gang-based violence is just “common crime” advanced by Sessions in A-B-is simply preposterous with regard to the Northern Triangle. Establish records that no reasonable factfinder can refute or overlook! Use expert testimony or expert affidavits to show the real country conditions and to discredit the watered down and sometimes downright false scenarios set forth in Department of State Country Reports, particularly under this Administration where integrity, expertise, and independence have been thrown out the window.

     

    Sixth, raise the bias issue. As set forth in a number of the Amicus Briefs filed in Matter of A-B-, Sessions clearly was a biased decision maker. Not only had he publicly dismissed the claims of female refugees suffering from domestic violence, but his outlandish comments spreading false narratives about immigrants, dissing asylum seekers and their “dirty lawyers,” and supporting DHS enforcement clearly aligned with him with one party to litigation before the Immigration Courts. By the rules governing judicial conduct there was more than an “appearance of bias” here – there was actual bias. We should keep making the record on the gross violation of Due Process caused by giving a biased enforcement official like Sessions a quasi-judicial role.

     

    Seventh, and finally, appeal to the “real” Article III Courts. What’s happening in Immigration Court today is a parody of justice and a mockery of legitimate court proceedings. It’s important to “open the eyes” of the Article III Judges to this travesty which is threatening the lives of legitimate refugees and other migrants.

     

    Either the Article III’s do their jobs, step in, and put an end to this travesty, or they become complicitin it. There’s only one “right side of the law and history” in this fight. Those who are complicit must know that their actions are being placed in the historical record – for all time and for their descendants to know – just like the historical reckoning that finally is happening for so- called “Confederate heroes” and those public officials who supported racism and “Jim Crow.”

     

    Now is the time to take a stand for fundamental fairness and decency! Join the New Due Process Army and fight to vindicate the rights of asylum seekers under our laws against the forces of darkness and xenophobic bias! Due process forever!

     

     

    *This is not a “verbatim transcript” of what I said. Rather it is a compendium and extension of the “talking notes” that I used as a member of the panel.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Related posts:

    1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
    2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
    3. HON. JEFFREY CHASE: Speaking Out Against The “Notable Minority” Of U.S. Immigration Judges Who Demonstrated Bias Against Women & Asylum Seekers – “Think about that: some federally appointed immigration judges cheered the fact that women who had been violently raped and beaten in their country can no longer find refuge here, and will be sent back to face more violence, and possibly death. Will there be any consequences for their actions? Were the many outstanding immigration judges who have been proud to grant such cases in the past, who were saddened and sickened by this decision, able to openly jeer or weep or curse this decision? Or would that have been viewed as dangerous?”
    4. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”

    GENDER-BASED PERSECUTION IN THE FORM OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE KILLED 87,000 WOMEN LAST YEAR, & UNDOUBTEDLY MAIMED, DISABLED, TORTURED, & DISFIGURED MANY MORE – Jeff Sessions Misrepresented Facts & Manipulated Law To Deny Protection To Victims & Potential Vctims In Matter of A-B- — Dead Women Can’t “Get In (The Non-Existent) Line,” Gonzo! – It’s A “Pandemic” Aided, Abetted, & Encouraged By Corrupt Officials Like Sessions

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/domestic-violence-most-common-killer-of-women-united-nations_us_5bfbf61ee4b0eb6d931142ac

    Alanna Vagianos reports for HuffPost:

    The most dangerous place for women is in their own homes, a new report from the United Nations concludes.

    The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released the “Global Study on Homicide: Gender-related Killing of Women and Girls” on Sunday to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The report analyzed the violence perpetrated against women worldwide in 2017, looking at intimate partner violence and family-related killings such as dowry- and honor-related murders.

    Last year, 87,000 women were murdered around the world, and more than half (50,000 or 58 percent) were killed by partners or family members. Over a third (30,000) of those intentionally killed last year were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. This means that, globally, six women are killed every hour by someone they know.

    U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres described violence against women as a “global pandemic” in a Sunday statement marking the international day of recognition.

    “It is a moral affront to all women and girls, a mark of shame on all our societies and a major obstacle to inclusive, equitable and sustainable development,” he said. “At its core, violence against women and girls is the manifestation of a profound lack of respect ― a failure by men to recognize the inherent equality and dignity of women. It is an issue of fundamental human rights.”

    The U.N. report also highlighted that women are much more likely to die from domestic violence than men are. According to the study, 82 percent of intimate partner homicide victims are women and 18 percent are men.

    “While the vast majority of homicide victims are men, women continue to pay the highest price as a result of gender inequality, discrimination and negative stereotypes. They are also the most likely to be killed by intimate partners and family,” UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said.

    The study suggested that violence against women has increased in the last five years, drawing on data from 2012 in which 48,000 (47 percent) of female homicides were perpetrated by intimate partners or family members.

    Geographically, Asia had the most female homicides (20,000) perpetrated by intimate partners or family members in 2017, followed by Africa (19,000), North and South America (8,000), Europe (3,000) and Oceania (300). The U.N. does point out that because the intimate partner and family-related homicide rate is 3.1 per 10,000 female population, Africa is actually the continent where women are at the greatest risk of being murdered by a partner or family member.

    Head over to the U.N. study to read more. 

    HuffPost’s “Her Stories” newsletter brings you even more reporting from around the world on the important issues affecting women. Sign up for it here.

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

    Sessions is already America’s most notorious unpunished child abuser! Now, he can add “aiding and abetting domestic violence” and “voluntary manslaughter” to the many human rights and civil rights violations and transgressions of the teachings of Jesus Christ for which he will someday have to answer to his Maker (even if he has the undeserved good fortune to escape “earthly accountability” for his actions).

    Meanwhile, advocates should be using the factual information in this report and other expert opinions on the “pandemic” to overcome the fabricated factual and legal basis for Matter of A-B- and the bogus arguments manufactured by restrictionists..

    The real “particular social group” staring everyone in the face is “women in X country.” It’s largely immutable and certainly “fundamental to identity,” particularized, and socially distinct. It clearly has a strong nexus to the grotesque forms of harm inflicted on women throughout our world. And, there is an ever-growing body of expert information publicly available to establish that, totally contrary to Sessions’s bad-faith distortion of the record in A-B-, many countries of the world are unwilling, unable, or both unwilling and unable to offer a reasonable level of protection to women facing gender-based persecution in the form of DV. 

    Sessions has unwittingly set the wheels of positive change in motion! It’s time to force judges at all levels, legislators, and government officials to recognize the reality of gender-based persecution in today’s world and that it is one of the major forms of persecution clearly covered by the U.N. Convention.

    Forget about the bogus “floodgates” argument.  The U.N. Convention came directly out of World War II and was intended to insure that the Holocaust and the “Red Terror” did not happen again.  The definition would clearly have covered most of the pre-War European Jewish population and tens of millions (perhaps hundreds of millions) of individuals stuck behind the Iron Curtin. If the numbers are large, then it’s up to the signatory countries to come together, pool resources, and think of constructive ways of addressing the problems that generate refugee flows, not just inventing creative ways of avoiding their legal and moral responsibilities.

    Don’t repeat 1939! Due Process Forever! Join the “New Due Process Army” and fight for human rights, human values, and human decency against the selfish forces of darkness and dishonesty who have gained control of too many countries in the Western World (including, sadly, our own)!

    PWS

    11-27-18

     

    Related posts:

    1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
    2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
    3. NY TIMES: Trump Mocks & Dehumanizes Vulnerable Refugees & His Administration Claims It’s OK To Return Them to Honduras; BUT The Facts Say The Opposite: Honduras Is An Armed Conflict Zone Where Gangs Exercise Quasi-Governmental Control & Those Who Resist Are Severely Punished, Often Maimed, Tortured Or Killed!
    4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”