"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals PAUL WICKHAM SCHMIDT and DR. ALICIA TRICHE, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Actually, only two of them”went to Gorsuch,” that is, were set for re-arguement next Fall, presumably because the Justices were tied 4-4. The other case was kicked back to the 9th Circuit to reconsider in light of Ziglar v. Abbasi, the Court’s recent decision on “Bivens actions.” Here’s a link to my prior Ziglar blog:
You can read all about it over on ImmigrationProf Blog in a short article by Dean Kevin Johnson at this link:
PWS
06-26-17
Here’s the Court’s complete “per curiam” (unsigned) opinion with separate concurring and dissenting opinion by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, & Alito:
The Supreme Court handed the Trump Administration at least a partial victory on the controversial “Travel Ban 2.0” which had been enjoined by the Ninth and Fourth U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals. The Court: 1) granted the petitions for certiorari filed by the Solicitor General in behalf of the Trump Administration and scheduled the case for Oral Argument at the beginning of the October 2017 Term; and 2) granted in part the Solicitor General’s request to stay the lower courts’ injunctions pending review.
However, in partially lifting the injunctions, the Court left in effect a significant part of those injunctions: the Travel Ban may not be applied to a) “foreign nationals who have a [pre-existing] credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,” and b) “an individual seeking admission as a refugee who can credibly claim a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
The dissent would have stayed all parts of the lower courts’ injunctions. Justice Thomas, joined by Justices Alito and Gorsuch, criticized the majority for having cerated a non-statutory category of individuals who can “credibly claim a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” He fears that the meaning of these exceptions will itself become a fertile ground of additional litigation before the Court can resolve the merits of these cases.
Additionally, the Court noted that since the bar on internal review of procedures relating to visa issuance was lifted on June 14, 2017, and the Government has represented that the review will be completed within 90 days, the case with respect to visa issuance to non-refugees might well be moot before the Court can get to the merits. The court instructs the parties to brief that issue.
“Quickie Analysis”
The Trump Administration can legitimately view this as a much-needed (from their standpoint) victory. All nine Justices appear to be prepared to rule that the Executive has virtually unbridled authority to bar the admission, at least temporarily, of foreign nationals with no connections to the United States.
It also appears that Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito would find that the Executive’s essentially unreviewable authority extends even to individuals who have a connection with the United States.
However, those challenging the Travel Ban have some reason to hope because at least six Justices seem to remain open to the possibility of engaging in some type of meaningful judicial review of Executive decisions regarding foreign nationals abroad who have established some connections to the U.S.
There may also be mootness issues with respect to some or all of the injunction with respect to refugee admissions. The new fiscal year for refugee admissions begins on October 1, 2017, before the Court will have heard argument in these cases. Before the beginning of the fiscal year, the Trump Administration must under the Refugee Act of 1980 “consult” with Congress on the number and allocation of refugee admissions for fiscal year 2018. “Statutory consultation” was one of the things that the Trump Administration neglected to do before purporting to suspend refugee admissions and dramatically slash the number of fiscal year 2017 refugee admissions established by the Obama Administration after undertaking the required statutory consultation.
The lack of any reasonable rationale by the Trump Administration for reversing the prior statutory determination made by the the Obama Administration after consultation with Congress was cited by the Ninth Circuit in upholding the original injunction. But, that issue should also be moot before the Court decides theses cases on the merits.
PWS
06-26-17
Nolan writes:
“The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a new decision on President Donald Trump’s March 6 Executive Order 13780, “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”
The court affirmed the portions of the district court injunction that apply to the 90-day, six-country travel ban, but it vacated the portions of the injunction that relate to the government doing an internal review of its vetting procedures, which could lead to a much larger ban based on a different criterion.
. . . .
Where this is headed
Unlike the travel ban, which, notwithstanding pessimistic claims to the contrary, is just a 90-day suspension, the new ban will apply to uncooperative governments until they agree to cooperate, which in some cases will never happen. What’s more, it almost certainly will apply to more than six countries. According to DHS Secretary John Kelley, in addition to the six countries on the travel ban list, 13 or 14 other countries also have very questionable vetting procedures.”
*********************************************
Read Nolan’s complete article in The Hill at the link.
Congratulations, Nolan, on reaching then”century mark!” You are prolific. Just from putting together this blog, I can appreciate all of the hours of reaearch, writing, and interviews that 100 published articles represents. And, unlike you, I don’t even have to deal with an editor (although my wife Cathy points out that I could use one).
Here’s a link to a list of all 100 of Nolan’s published articles:
Congrats, again, Nolan! Looking forward to the “next 100.”
PWS
06-26-17
Steven V. Roberts writes in a WashPost op-ed:
“These are all good examples that will, hopefully, ease the “cultural anxiety” Noorani writes about. But he shies away from discussing a key dimension of Trump’s appeal: racism. “A significant portion of the American electorate felt their country had been taken away,” he writes, but he doesn’t complete the thought. Taken away by whom? Let’s be honest. Many of those voters believe that their country has been overrun by dark-skinned, foreign-language-speaking aliens.
While it is wildly unfair to call all Trump supporters racists, it is equally inaccurate to ignore that the president deliberately inflamed racist impulses to win the election.
Moreover, Noorani lacks a larger perspective. Trump is a very American figure. Anti-immigrant fears didn’t start with globalization and weren’t “triggered” by the election of Barack Obama. Throughout our history, spasms of nativist hostility have erupted against each new group arriving on our shores: Germans and Jews, Irish and Italians, Japanese and Chinese.
Hispanics and Muslims are now the objects of this animosity, and the language directed against them is the same that’s been used to demonize newcomers for more than two centuries: This group will degrade our culture and alter our identity. But today’s targets can take comfort from the clear lessons of history.
Immigrants do change our culture — for the better. They reenergize and revitalize our civic spirit. The haters are always wrong, and the haters will eventually lose. Tiwana and Noorani himself prove that truth.
*********************************************
Read the entire op-ed at the link.
Trump and his supporters might be on the right side of the political equation at this point in time, but they are squarely on the wrong side of history. Before joining up with the Trump Team, folks ought to think about being remembered by their grandchildren and great grandchildren in the same way that we think about such notorious racists as Alabama Governor George Wallace, Georgia Governor Lester “Pickax” Maddox, and Arkansas Governor Orvil Faubis, or those who engineered and championed such abominations as the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Even iconic American historical figures like President Woodrow Wilson and Gen. Robert E. Lee have recently had their racism and support for racist causes eventually catch up with them and tarnish their reputations. In the long run, the cause of intolerance, fear, and bias promoted by Trump, Pence, and today’s GOP will look pretty bad. Yeah, we’ll all be gone by then. But, our descendants and history will remember where we stood.
PWS
06-25-17
Bakos writes:
“Every time President Trump tweets, journalists and Twitter followers attempt to analyze what he means. Intelligence agencies around the world do, too: They’re trying to determine what vulnerabilities the president of the United States may have. And he’s giving them a lot to work with.
Trump’s Twitter feed is a gold mine for every foreign intelligence agency. Usually, intelligence officers’ efforts to collect information on world leaders are methodical, painstaking and often covert. CIA operatives have risked their lives to learn about foreign leaders so the United States could devise strategies to counter our adversaries. With Trump, though, secret operations are not necessary to understand what’s on his mind: The president’s unfiltered thoughts are available night and day, broadcast to his 32.7 million Twitter followers immediately and without much obvious mediation by diplomats, strategists or handlers.
Intelligence agencies try to answer these main questions when looking at a rival head of state: Who is he as a person? What type of leader is he? How does that compare to what he strives to be or presents himself as? What can we expect from him? And how can we use this insight to our advantage?
At the CIA, I tracked and analyzed terrorists and other U.S. enemies, including North Korea. But we never had such a rich source of raw intelligence about a world leader, and we certainly never had the opportunity that our adversaries (and our allies) have now — to get a real-time glimpse of a major world leader’s preoccupations, personality quirks and habits of mind. If we had, it would have given us significant advantages in our dealings with them.
. . . .
Analysts would also be likely to use technology to perform content analysis on the president’s tweets in the aggregate. Intelligence agencies can employ a more robust version than the open-source projects that news organizations have used, because they can marry Trump’s tweets with information they collect through intercepts and other means. Software could look for patterns in speech or word categories representing confidence related to policy, whether Trump is considering opposing points of view and if he harbors uncertainty toward any subject. Computers can perform metadata analysis to build timelines and compare Trump’s Twitter feed with his known public schedule, creating a database of when and where he tweets and what else he’s doing at the time. Anything that provides a digital footprint adds context to the analysis.
Trump says it’s the press’s fault that he uses Twitter as much as he does. His aides clearly want him to stop, but the president just as clearly wants and needs to be heard unfiltered. Fortunately for him, the platform lets him speak directly to his supporters whenever he chooses. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they aren’t the only ones listening.”
********************************************
Read the entire article about how our President’s reckless behavior and childish lack of self-restraint endangers America. And, this doesn’t even get into his inviting Russian diplomats into the White House, handing over classified information, or ignoring the seriousness of the Russian’s attempts to interfere with our last election.
Yeah, I know that according to recent reports, the Obama Administration badly flubbed the Russian election investigation. Big time! But, Trump is President now, and he seems determined to sweep the Kremlin’s attack on our fundamental institutions under the rug rather than getting to the bottom of it and taking effective steps to prevent its repetition.
PWS
06-25-48
Maria Sacchetti reports in the Washington Post:
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that the Trump administration “fully supports” Texas’s harsh new ban on sanctuary cities, and the Department of Justice will help defend it against a federal court challenge next week.
Lawyers for the tiny border city of El Cenizo, the League of United Latin American Citizens and major cities such as Dallas and Austin say the law requiring them to detain immigrants for federal deportation agents is “patently unconstitutional” for a number of reasons. On Monday, they will urge U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio to block the law from taking effect Sept. 1.
The state of Texas argues that the government is within its rights to bar localities from interfering with immigration enforcement. Under the law, officials could lose their jobs, police chiefs could go to jail, and governments could face fines of up to $25,500 a day if they adopt or enforce policies that prevent law enforcement officers from asking about a person’s immigration status or complying with requests to detain immigrants, a job that has been chiefly the responsibility of federal agents.
“President Trump has made a commitment to keep America safe and to ensure cooperation with federal immigration laws,” Sessions said in a statement. “Texas has admirably followed his lead by mandating state-wide cooperation with federal immigration laws that require the removal of illegal aliens who have committed crimes.”
Luis Roberto Vera, Jr. the national general counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, which is a plaintiff in the case, said the Texas law is discriminatory because it primarily targets Hispanics, one of the state’s largest groups.
El Cenizo Mayor Raul Reyes. El Cenizo is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that will seek to temporarily halt Texas’ sanctuary cities ban before it takes effect Sept. 1. (Matthew Busch/Matthew Busch For The Washington Post)
“It’s a continuation of Donald Trump’s war on Mexicanos,” Vera said. “That’s the sad part about this.”
The faceoff comes amid rising tensions nationwide over the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and its relentless march forward despite a string of losses in federal courts.
On Friday, congressional aides said House Republicans are advancing a bill that would withhold some federal grant money from so-called sanctuary cities; give greater legal weight to immigration detainers, which are requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to local jails to hold immigrants who are being targeted for deportation; and shield local governments from lawsuits related to detainers. A second bill would increase penalties against deported immigrants who return illegally.”
*********************************************
Yup, full employment for lawyers, on all sides.
Bad time to be an immigrant, refugee, or minority in America. Great time to be a lawyer!
PWS
06-24-17
AP reports:
“DETROIT (AP) — A judge on Thursday temporarily halted the deportation of more than 100 Iraqi Christians living in the Detroit area who fear torture and possible death if sent back to Iraq.
U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith said in a written order that deportation is halted for 14 days while he decides if his court has jurisdiction to hear their plight.
The Justice Department had argued that the detainees, including many who were recently rounded up after decades in the U.S., must go to immigration court to try to remain in the U.S., not U.S. District Court. But the American Civil Liberties Union said they might be deported before an immigration judge can consider their requests to stay.
Goldsmith heard arguments Wednesday. He said he needs more time to consider complex legal issues.
Potential physical harm “far outweighs any conceivable interest the government might have in the immediate enforcement of the removal orders before this court can clarify whether it has jurisdiction to grant relief to petitioners on the merits of their claims,” Goldsmith said.
Most of the 114 Iraqis are Chaldean Christians, but some are Shiite Muslims and converts to Christianity. They were arrested on or about June 11 and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said all have criminal convictions.
Iraq recently agreed to accept Iraqi nationals subject to removal from the U.S.
“The court took a life-saving action by blocking our clients from being immediately sent back to Iraq,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a release. “They should have a chance to show that their lives are in jeopardy if forced to return.”
Besides the 114 arrested in the Detroit area, 85 other Iraqi nationals were arrested elsewhere in the country, according to ICE. As of April 17, there were 1,444 Iraqi nationals with final orders of removal from the U.S. Eight already have been returned to Iraq.
The detainees include Louis Akrawi, who served more than 20 years in Michigan prisons for second-degree murder. He was accused of arranging a shooting that killed an innocent bystander in 1993.
“He’s 69 years old, he has two artificial knees, and he needs surgery on both eyes. Sending him back to Iraq is unfair,” his son, Victor Akrawi, told The Detroit News.”
*************************************************
Perhaps, Evangelical Christians who supported Trump thought they would get a break. But, in this particular operation, being a Christian doesn’t seem to have helped. Muslims are also being removed.
PWS
06-23-17
Somini Sengupta reports in the NY Times:
“A prominent Syrian dissident has been told he cannot get political asylum in the United States because he organized a conference with Syrian opposition groups — even though the American government has supported members of those same groups in the Syrian civil war.
The case of the dissident, Radwan Ziadeh, 41, who lives in a suburb of Washington, reveals a stark gap between American immigration law and foreign policy.
Ever since counterterrorism provisions were expanded after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States government has considered many armed opposition groups around the world, including some that it backs diplomatically or financially, to be “undesignated terrorist organizations.” Anyone who provides “material support” to those groups can be disqualified from receiving immigration papers.
Mr. Ziadeh is a prominent political opponent of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. He has received fellowships at Harvard, Georgetown and the United States Institute of Peace, which is funded by Congress. He has testified in Congress, written books and served briefly as a spokesman for the Syrian opposition umbrella group that the American government supported.
But early this month, Mr. Ziadeh was informed that he would be denied political asylum in the United States. In a 12-page letter laying out the government’s “intent to deny” his asylum claim, Citizenship and Immigration Services explained that he had provided “material support” to Syrian groups that the government considered undesignated terrorist organizations.
Mr. Ziadeh said he was shocked. He and his wife have lived in the United States for 10 years on a series of temporary permits, the latest of which expires next spring. Their children were born here.
“Right now, I can’t even plan for the future,” he said. “What will happen? I have three American kids. I love, actually, the U.S. I visited all 50 states, even U.S. territories. I visited all the presidential libraries.”
Going back to Syria is not an option. The government there has a warrant out for his arrest; the Islamic State has him on a list of Syrians it wants dead.
At issue, specifically, is that Mr. Ziadeh organized a series of conferences from November 2012 to May 2013 to discuss a democratic transition in Syria.
Among those invited to the workshops, held in Istanbul, were self-described commanders in a loose confederation of rebel groups called the Free Syrian Army, as well as political leaders affiliated with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.
Both groups are well known to the American government. For years, the Central Intelligence Agency and its counterparts in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other countries have provided some Free Syrian Army factions with salaries, arms and other supplies. The State Department has also provided aid.
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s members also had central roles in the Syrian National Council, the political umbrella group that the United States supported.
Robert S. Ford, a former American ambassador to Syria, said in an email that the American government did not consider either of the groups that Mr. Ziadeh invited to the workshops to be a terrorist organization.
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Ford added, has no “administrative connection” to Muslim Brotherhood factions in other countries. (President Trump’s advisers have debated but not decided whether to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.)
Moreover, Mr. Ford said, both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, as secretaries of state, met with opposition delegations that included Brotherhood members.
“The U.S. administration, myself included, regularly spoke with members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood who were themselves members of Syrian opposition coalitions and delegations,” he wrote.
In its letter to Mr. Ziadeh, Citizenship and Immigration Services said he had provided “material support” to members of the groups when his organization, the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies, paid for their airfare and hotel bills in Istanbul, using money from the Canadian government.
“As both the FSA and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood used weapons with the intent to endanger the safety of Syrian government officials, both groups have engaged in terrorist activity such that they met the definition of an undesignated terrorist organization (Tier III) at the time you provided material support,” the letter states.
“You have therefore ‘engaged in terrorist activity,’” it went on to say.
Mr. Ziadeh is appealing the government’s decision.
His lawyer, Steven H. Schulman, said that inviting members of opposition groups to a conference to discuss the political future of Syria should not be seen as promoting the groups’ agendas or providing them with material support.
“I find it offensive, because no reasonable person would sit down and say Radwan Ziadeh is a terrorist,” Mr. Schulman said. “There are real terrorists out there. We all know that. Somehow, we are unable to distinguish between people who actually engage in terrorist activity and who do not engage in terrorist activity.”
The label “undesignated terrorist organization” has been in place since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Many organizations that have engaged in violence, whether or not the United States supported them, have fallen under that term, said Anwen Hughes, a lawyer who specializes in asylum cases at Human Rights First, an advocacy group.
Providing “material support” to those groups can mean anything from fighting alongside them to paying them ransom. In 2008, an Iraqi man who worked as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq was denied a green card because he had belonged to a Kurdish group seeking to oust Saddam Hussein.
Ms. Hughes said one of her former clients had been denied asylum because he paid a ransom to an armed group in order to release a kidnapped family member. “It’s a fairly widespread problem that’s not limited to Syrians,” she said.”
*********************************************
Read the complete story at the link.
Unfortunately, U.S. Immigration Judges’ hands are tied on this provision. Not only must they apply it, but they have been denied authority to issue the limited waivers available. Instead, that authority has been given to lower level adjudicators at the USCIS with no right to appeal a denial. In fact, there isn’t even a process to actually apply for the waiver. Only ICE can “refer” a case from Immigration Court to USCIS for consideration of the waiver.
Article III Courts have had various opportunities to shut down this “arbitrary, capricious, and absurdly overbroad” abuse of Legislative and Executive authority. But, perhaps because they lack the backbone to stand up for individuals caught up in the aura of a “national security” problem, they have looked the other way.
To make things worse, the Trump Administration appears to be moving in the direction of revoking all or some of the currently existing waiver authority. No wonder our foreign policies in Syria and many other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere are so ineffective and in such disarray. Who would offer to help to a feckless country that treats its friends and allies like enemies?
PWS
06-23-17
Anita Isaacs writes in this NY Times op-ed:
“On a recent Wednesday, 75 Guatemalans disembarked from one of three charter flights, all full of deportees from the United States, scheduled that day. The group was led into a hangar, where authorities gave them a perfunctory welcome: a hello, a snack and bus fare to wherever they were headed.
The Guatemalan government’s relationship to the deportees ended there. Considering them a burden, even an embarrassment, the Guatemalan state and society are unable and unwilling to assist the thousands of migrants being sent back home.
Reintegrating them is no doubt a challenge. But so is doing nothing. And Guatemala and the United States have far more to gain by harnessing the economic, social and political capital these migrants bring back with them.
One reason Guatemala doesn’t do much with deportees is the widespread belief that they won’t stay for long.
On a recent visit to the country, I heard businessmen, public officials and community activists insist that Donald Trump and his wall would not intimidate aspiring migrants. But migrants aren’t wasting time, either. As a community leader told me, “Everyone is saying that they better rush now before Mr. Trump finishes his wall.”
In fact, many Guatemalans want the migrants to go back. Their return spells an end to remittances that constitute about 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. And returning migrants are flooding an already depressed job sector, where three-quarters of the labor force works off the books.
Not surprisingly, returning migrants aren’t particularly liked. Guatemalans figure they were sent home for breaking the law; those with tattoos are ostracized, assumed to belong to a violent street gang. Employers won’t hire them, and passers-by glance away.
Of course, such treatment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Denying migrants the assistance to reintegrate economically and socially will just make the country’s problems worse.
Marginalized individuals often join street gangs in a search to belong, and drug gangs and human traffickers recruit returning migrants. They know how to get across the border; many have lived in communities where gangs and organized crime fester; and they are the Guatemalans most familiar with the United States.
While it’s true that some migrants will head back north, many have no interest. One man I know, whose remittances were used to set up a T-shirt factory that employs his 10 children in his village, is heading home for good. Older returnees, especially those who have squirreled away enough money to survive, no longer feel pulled toward the United States.
Categorizing all deportees as criminals is equally misleading. Whereas a minority are felons, many more committed misdemeanors, and the majority are guilty only of crossing the border illegally and working without a permit.
Indeed, many migrants represent an untapped resource. Most left their countries as unskilled peasants, yet through resourcefulness and hard work in the United States they acquired a diverse set of professional skills and rose through the ranks.
During my visit, I encountered bricklayers and carpenters who undertook sophisticated home renovation projects, professional landscapers who worked on golf courses, a leather craftsman who oversaw a briefcase-making business and a young sushi chef who spoke fluent English and even rudimentary Japanese. They are eager to put their skills to work in Guatemala, either by opening their own businesses or by finding a private-sector partner.
For starters, the government should provide credit and, for those in the construction and tourism industries, ease cumbersome certification requirements so that they can ply their trade immediately. It could also develop a returnee-specific “linked in” program, where returning migrants would advertise their skills, connected to an effort to match them with businesses committed to diversifying and modernizing the Guatemalan economy.
Inasmuch as the migrants could help stabilize the Central American region, the United States could also benefit from the skills of deportees. The Alliance for Prosperity, which the American government has provided funds for, aims to curb migration by alleviating poverty, lawlessness and violence. Among other things, it fosters international, public and private investments in education, health care and vocational training — goals that skilled returning migrants can help achieve.”
********************************************************
Our short-sighted policies, unwillingness to invest wisely in the futures of foreign countries (beyond military and law enforcement aid), and apparent inability to look for different approaches (beyond just arrest, detain, and deport, arrest, detain, and deport) virtually guarantees a continuation of the cycle of illegal entries, reentries, and expensive, resource intensive immigration enforcement. Walls, fences, more detention centers, more DHS agents, and, yes, even more U.S. Immigration Judges are not going to solve this problem.
PWS
06-22-17
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr and Aaron El Sabrout write in honor of World Refugee Day (June 20):
“Today is World Refugee Day, a day to commemorate the strength, perseverance, and courage of displaced people around the world. Over 65 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced from their homes, the highest number since World War II. Turkey alone has accepted nearly 3 millionrefugees from Syria.
In our current political climate, some consider refugees a security threat and a drain on national resources. But America benefits economically, socially, and morally by accepting more refugees.
A new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that after six years in the United States, refugees work at higher rates than citizens. A similar 2016 study by the Tent Foundationfound that refugees fill gaps in the labor market, work harder to learn skills and languages than economic migrants, and have a “dynamic” impact on growth.
The myth that refugees drain a nation’s economic resources is false. Yes, refugees initially require a substantial resettlement cost (approximately $15,000), and often initially need welfare services. However, after eight years in the United States, refugees receive welfare at the same rate as U.S. citizens with similar education and language skills. Over a 20-year period, refugees in the U.S. pay an average of $21,000 more in taxes than the initial cost of resettling them. In fact, a study by Texas A&M professor Kalena Cortes shows that over time, refugees tend to out-earn other immigrants and add more value to the economy than the initial cost of resettling them. For example, Vietnamese-Americans, many of whom arrived as refugees, tend to be more financially stable and more employed than the average American, and therefore less likely to need welfare benefits.
Refugees play a key role in creating new jobs and raising overall wages. This is in part because they are more likely than other groups to open small businesses, creating new jobs rather than taking old ones. For example, refugees were a major factor in stabilizing the economy of Utica, NY, because they filled important gaps in the labor force and created greater economic demand for goods.Even when refugees do low-skilled work, they do not displace American workers. A study by scientists at the University of California, Davis and the University of Copenhagen found that an influx of low-wage immigrant labor tends to raise wages for everyone.
Refugees also contribute tremendously to innovation and growth. Examples of famous refugees or children of refugees who have advanced U.S. culture and knowledge include Marc Chagall, Gloria Estefan, Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger, Enrico Fermi, Steve Jobs, and Albert Einstein.
That history is in jeopardy. President Trump issued an executive order in March slashing refugee admissions from 110,000 to 50,000 this year and temporarily suspends all refugee admissions. That order, which federal courts have temporarily blocked, insults our history and our legacy. We have a precedent of being welcoming and gracious. That precedent is not just rooted in altruism; accepting refugees is good for America. It’s time to step up and embrace our history of welcoming people fleeing persecution around the world. As a country, we have an economic and moral imperative to be what we once promised we would be: a refuge for the world’s huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.”
______
Stephen Yale-Loehr is Professor of Immigration Law Practice at Cornell Law School, where he co-directs an asylum clinic. Aaron El Sabrout is a law student at Cornell Law School.
******************************************
Sorry, Steve & Aaron. Truth, values, morality, and simple human decency play no role in this debate. Refugees are foreigners, many with different religions, other cultures, other languages, and non-white skins (we wouldn’t seriously be having this debate if all refugees were white, English speaking, Christians from, say, Australia, Canada, the UK, and New Zealand). So in the world of Trump, his Xenophobic (and sometimes also racist) followers, and their GOP “fellow travelers” that’s all you need to know.
It’s not really about making America Great or keeping us safe; it’s about building political power by stoking xenophobia and unjustified resentment. And, the target is by no means just refugees and other migrants. No, it’s also about ginning up resentment against American citizens of Hispanic, Black, Arabic, and to some extent Asian American descent. Not coincidentally, these ethnic groups often are thought to vote more for Democrats than the GOP.
Happy Refugee Day!
PWS
06-22-17
Here’s the Court’s Syllabus (NOT part of the decision);
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
MASLENJAK v. UNITED STATES CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
No. 16–309. Argued April 26, 2017—Decided June 22, 2017
Petitioner Divna Maslenjak is an ethnic Serb who resided in Bosnia during the 1990’s, when a civil war divided the new country. In 1998, she and her family sought refugee status in the United States. In- terviewed under oath, Maslenjak explained that the family feared persecution from both sides of the national rift: Muslims would mis- treat them because of their ethnicity, and Serbs would abuse them because Maslenjak’s husband had evaded service in the Bosnian Serb Army by absconding to Serbia. Persuaded of the Maslenjaks’ plight, American officials granted them refugee status. Years later, Maslenjak applied for U. S. citizenship. In the application process, she swore that she had never given false information to a government of- ficial while applying for an immigration benefit or lied to an official to gain entry into the United States. She was naturalized as a U. S. cit- izen. But it soon emerged that her professions of honesty were false: Maslenjak had known all along that her husband spent the war years not secreted in Serbia, but serving as an officer in the Bosnian Serb Army.
The Government charged Maslenjak with knowingly “procur[ing], contrary to law, [her] naturalization,” in violation of 18 U. S. C. §1425(a). According to the Government’s theory, Maslenjak violated §1425(a) because, in the course of procuring her naturalization, she broke another law: 18 U. S. C. §1015(a), which prohibits knowingly making a false statement under oath in a naturalization proceeding. The District Court instructed the jury that, to secure a conviction un- der §1425(a), the Government need not prove that Maslenjak’s false statements were material to, or influenced, the decision to approve her citizenship application. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the convic- tion, holding that if Maslenjak made false statements violating
2 MASLENJAK v. UNITED STATES Syllabus
§1015(a) and procured naturalization, then she also violated §1425(a).
Held:
1. The text of §1425(a) makes clear that, to secure a conviction, the
Government must establish that the defendant’s illegal act played a role in her acquisition of citizenship. To “procure . . . naturalization” means to obtain it. And the adverbial phrase “contrary to law” speci- fies how a person must procure naturalization so as to run afoul of the statute: illegally. Thus, someone “procure[s], contrary to law, naturalization” when she obtains citizenship illegally. As ordinary usage demonstrates, the most natural understanding of that phrase is that the illegal act must have somehow contributed to the obtain- ing of citizenship. To get citizenship unlawfully is to get it through an unlawful means—and that is just to say that an illegality played some role in its acquisition.
The Government’s contrary view—that §1425(a) requires only a vi- olation in the course of procuring naturalization—falters on the way language naturally works. Suppose that an applicant for citizenship fills out the paperwork in a government office with a knife tucked away in her handbag. She has violated the law against possessing a weapon in a federal building, and she has done so in the course of procuring citizenship, but nobody would say she has “procure[d]” her citizenship “contrary to law.” That is because the violation of law and the acquisition of citizenship in that example are merely coincidental: The one has no causal relation to the other. Although the Govern- ment attempts to define such examples out of the statute, that effort falls short for multiple reasons. Most important, the Government’s attempted carve-out does nothing to alter the linguistic understand- ing that gives force to the examples the Government would exclude. Under ordinary rules of language usage, §1425(a) demands a causal or means-end connection between a legal violation and naturaliza- tion.
The broader statutory context reinforces the point, because the Government’s reading would create a profound mismatch between the requirements for naturalization and those for denaturalization: Some legal violations that do not justify denying citizenship would nonetheless justify revoking it later. For example, lies told out of “embarrassment, fear, or a desire for privacy” (rather than “for the purpose of obtaining [immigration] benefits”) are not generally dis- qualifying under the statutory requirement of “good moral charac- ter.” Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759, 780; 8 U. S. C. §1101(f)(6). But under the Government’s reading of §1425(a), any lie told in the naturalization process would provide a basis for rescinding citizenship. The Government could thus take away on one day what
Cite as: 582 U. S. ____ (2017) 3
Syllabus
it was required to give the day before. And by so unmooring the rev- ocation of citizenship from its award, the Government opens the door to a world of disquieting consequences—which this Court would need far stronger textual support to believe Congress intended. The stat- ute Congress passed, most naturally read, strips a person of citizenship not when she committed any illegal act during the naturaliza- tion process, but only when that act played some role in her naturalization. Pp. 4–9.
2. When the underlying illegality alleged in a §1425(a) prosecution is a false statement to government officials, a jury must decide whether the false statement so altered the naturalization process as to have influenced an award of citizenship. Because the entire naturalization process is set up to provide little room for subjective pref- erences or personal whims, that inquiry is properly framed in objec- tive terms: To decide whether a defendant acquired citizenship by means of a lie, a jury must evaluate how knowledge of the real facts would have affected a reasonable government official properly applying naturalization law.
If the facts the defendant misrepresented are themselves legally disqualifying for citizenship, the jury can make quick work of that inquiry. In such a case, the defendant’s lie must have played a role in her naturalization. But that is not the only time a jury can find that a defendant’s lies had the requisite bearing on a naturalization decision, because lies can also throw investigators off a trail leading to disqualifying facts. When relying on such an investigation-based theory, the Government must make a two-part showing. Initially, the Government must prove that the misrepresented fact was suffi- ciently relevant to a naturalization criterion that it would have prompted reasonable officials, “seeking only evidence concerning citizenship qualifications,” to undertake further investigation. Kungys, 485 U. S., at 774, n. 9. If that much is true, the inquiry turns to the prospect that such an investigation would have borne disqualifying fruit. The Government need not show definitively that its investiga- tion would have unearthed a disqualifying fact. It need only estab- lish that the investigation “would predictably have disclosed” some legal disqualification. Id., at 774. If that is so, the defendant’s mis- representation contributed to the citizenship award in the way §1425(a) requires. This demanding but still practicable causal standard reflects the real-world attributes of cases premised on what an unhindered investigation would have found.
When the Government can make its two-part showing, the defend- ant may overcome it by establishing that she was qualified for citizenship (even though she misrepresented facts that suggested the opposite). Thus, whatever the Government shows with respect to a
4
MASLENJAK v. UNITED STATES Syllabus
thwarted investigation, qualification for citizenship is a complete defense to a prosecution under §1425(a). Pp. 10–15.
3. Measured against this analysis, the jury instructions in this case were in error. The jury needed to find more than an unlawful false statement. However, it was not asked to—and so did not—make any of the necessary determinations. The Government’s assertion that any instructional error was harmless is left for resolution on remand. Pp. 15–16.
821 F. 3d 675, vacated and remanded.
KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. GORSUCH, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which THOMAS, J., joined. ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
************************************************
Interestingly, Justice Gorsuch, in his first immigration-related decision, wrote a separate concurring opinion agreeing with the majority that a misrepresentation must be “material” but indicating that he would not have gone on to attempt to articulate a test for “materiality.”
Doubt that the Government’s max-enforcement effort in the Federal Courts is out of touch with reality and the law? Try this: With a supposedly conservative majority Supreme Court, the Gov has lost two recent cases this one and Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions(http://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/05/31/led-by-justice-thomas-unanimous-supremes-reject-usgs-attempt-to-deport-mexican-man-for-consensual-sex-with-a-minor-strict-interpretation-carries-the-day/) by a total vote of 17-0. Yes, that’s right, 17-0! Not one Justice has sided with any of the nonsense that the Solicitor General has advanced on behalf of Government overreach on immigration enforcement. Justice Thomas even wrote the unanimous opinion in Esquivel (Justice Gorsuch sat that one out).
And, remember that these were positions developed and defended by the DOJ under the Obama Administration.
PWS
06-22-17
Jonathan Blitzer writes in The New Yorker:
“In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions travelled to Nogales, Arizona, to make an announcement. “This is the Trump era,” he said. “The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigrations laws, and the catch-and-release practices of old are over.” While his tone was harsh, and many of the proposals he outlined were hostile to immigrants, he detailed one idea that even some of his critics support: the hiring of more immigration judges.
U.S. immigration courts are facing a backlog of over half a million cases—and each one, on average, takes almost two years to close. These delays mean that everyone from asylum seekers to green-card holders faces extended stays in detention while awaiting rulings. Speaking about the problem, one immigration judge recently told the Times, “The courts as a whole lose credibility.”
Much of the backlog can be traced back to the Obama Administration, when spending on immigration enforcement went up, while Congress dramatically limited funds for hiring more judges. The number of pending cases grew from a hundred and sixty-seven thousand, in 2008, to five hundred and sixty thousand, in 2017, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The broader trend, though, goes back farther. Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, in 2002, the increase in resources allocated for border security and immigration policing has always significantly outpaced funding for the courts. (Immigration courts are part of the Department of Justice.) As more and more people have been arrested, detained, and ordered deported, the courts have remained understaffed and underfunded. “We’ve always been an afterthought,” Dana Leigh Marks, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told me.
Roughly three hundred judges nationwide are responsible for the entire immigration caseload, and hiring is slow—filling a vacancy typically tak
es about two years, according to the Government Accountability Office. In Nogales, Sessions said that he would try to streamline the hiring process. But until that happens the Administration has been relocating judges to areas where they’re deemed most necessary. “We have already surged twenty-five immigration judges to detention centers along the border,” Sessions said, as if talking about military troop levels.”
*****************************************************
To state the obvious, a court should be run as an independent court system, not a bureaucratic agency within a highly politicized Executive Department like the DOJ. (If you ever wondered whether the DOJ was politicized, recent events should make it clear that it is.)
And, Jeff, these are judges, not troops; and the individuals are not an “invading army,” just mostly ordinary folks seeking refuge, due process, and fair treatment under our laws and the Constitution. Remember, it’s not an immigration crisis; it’s a crisis involving the steady degradation of due process within the U.S. Immigration Court system.
PWS
06-21-17
Laura Meckler reports in the WSJ:
“WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s travel ban remains on hold due to court rulings, but his administration is resuming a global review of nations that may lead to far more sweeping travel restrictions.
The travel ban aims to stop people from six Muslim-majority countries from coming to the U.S., based on what the White House says are security concerns. The global review will examine every other country to determine whether any should be added to the list. The goal is to compel nations to cooperate more fully with U.S. efforts to vet their citizens, officials say.
The global review was ordered along with the travel ban, and for months, both had been kept on hold by a federal judge in Hawaii. But last week, an appeals court said the administration should be allowed to resume the study, and on Monday night, the court put its ruling into effect.
Now the Department of Homeland Security says it is moving forward.
“The ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finally allows DHS to resume the important work of reviewing the information provided by all countries on their citizens who desire to travel to the United States, to ensure the applicant doesn’t present a security or public safety threat to the U.S.,” said DHS spokesman Dave Lapan. “DHS will undertake a full review of the vetting requirements worldwide in the expectation of raising the global security bar to better protect our nation.”
******************************************
Read the complete article at the link.
Thanks to Nolan Rappaport for bringing this to my attention.
PWS
06-21-17
Upset, schmupset, the four consecutive House races that Dems have lost in the “Trump” era are exactly the types of elections they are going to have to consistently win to retake power. Yes, it’s an improvement for our system when there are more competitive races, and it’s good for Dems that they are actually taking races in “GOP Territory” seriously.
But, in Georgia, the Democratic Candidate John Ossoff actually ran behind Hillary Clinton who narrowly lost the District to Trump. There was no GOP incumbent, and now-Rep. Karen Handel actually beat Ossoff by a very comfortable margin of almost 4 points.
I keep saying it. The strategy of counting on Trump to self-destruct, the inability of the GOP to govern, and criticism of the GOP’s “help the rich, stiff everyone else” agenda isn’t working any better in the post-election era than it did for Hillary. The Dems are leaderless, programless, and all too often clueless. Until that changes, the reign of Trump and one-party government in America is likely to continue, notwithstanding the polls and the media.
And, speaking of polls and the media, remember their performance in predicting the mood of America and the results of the 2016 election. Not much has changed.
PWS
06-21-17
In a Washington Post op-ed, Gerson writes:
“Nearly 150 days into the Trump era, no non-delusional conservative can be happy with the direction of events or pleased with the options going forward.
President Trump is remarkably unpopular, particularly with the young (among whom his approval is underwater by a remarkable 48 percentage points in one poll). And the reasons have little to do with elitism or media bias.
Trump has been ruled by compulsions, obsessions and vindictiveness, expressed nearly daily on Twitter. He has demonstrated an egotism that borders on solipsism. His political skills as president have been close to nonexistent. His White House is divided, incompetent and chaotic, and key administration jobs remain unfilled. His legislative agenda has gone nowhere. He has told constant, childish, refuted, uncorrected lies, and demanded and habituated deception among his underlings. He has humiliated and undercut his staff while requiring and rewarding flattery. He has promoted self-serving conspiracy theories. He has displayed pathetic, even frightening, ignorance on policy matters foreign and domestic. He has inflicted his ethically challenged associates on the nation. He is dead to the poetry of language and to the nobility of the political enterprise, viewing politics as conquest rather than as service.
Trump has made consistent appeals to prejudice based on religion and ethnicity, and associated the Republican Party with bias. He has stoked tribal hostilities. He has carelessly fractured our national unity. He has attempted to undermine respect for any institution that opposes or limits him — be it the responsible press, the courts or the intelligence community. He has invited criminal investigation through his secrecy and carelessness. He has publicly attempted to intimidate law enforcement. He has systematically alarmed our allies and given comfort to authoritarians. He promised to emancipate the world from American moral leadership — and has kept that pledge.
For many Republicans and conservatives, there is apparently no last straw, with offenses mounting bale by bale. The argument goes: Trump is still superior to Democratic rule — which would deliver apocalyptic harm — and thus anything that hurts Trump is bad for the republic. He is the general, so shut up and salute. What, after all, is the conservative endgame other than Trump’s success?
This is the recommendation of sycophancy based on hysteria. At some point, hope for a new and improved Trump deteriorates into unreason. The idea that an alliance with Trump will end anywhere but disaster is a delusion. Both individuals and parties have long-term interests that are served by integrity, honor and sanity. Both individuals and the Republican Party are being corrupted and stained by their embrace of Trump. The endgame of accommodation is to be morally and politically discredited. Those committed to this approach warn of national decline — and are practically assisting it. They warn of decadence — and provide refreshments at the orgy.
So what is the proper objective for Republicans and conservatives? It is the defeat of Trumpism, preferably without the destruction of the GOP itself. And how does that happen?”
*******************************************************
Other than that, Trump’s done a really fine job.
I highly recommend reading the conclusion to Gerson’s column by clicking the above link.
PWS
06-20-17