"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Welcome back, friends. To celebrate the end of the week and the start of the weekend, I am sending you my personal list of Five Things You Might Have Missed. For this issue, I draw from my bucket of many (many) things that I read or saw during the week and share them with you.
Justice Department Silences Immigration Judges
Biden Refers to Immigrants as “Illegals”
How Does Asylum Work Right Now?
The Migrant’s Journey by Adam Isacson
Talking About Immigration in an Election Year
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Thanks, my friend! 🙏 Read Austin’s complete rundown at the above link!
My favorite quote is from John Washington’s article, #3 on Austin’s list:
In fiscal year 2023, 99.5 percent of all people whose asylum cases were decided by immigration judges showed up to court for their hearings, according to data compiled by Human Rights First. Unlike citizens, people seeking asylum are not entitled to attorneys at government expense. That means that people either pay out of pocket, find willing attorneys to help them pro-bono, or represent themselves in court. According to a January report, only 30% of people in removal proceedings — which means the government is trying to deport them — are represented by attorneys. A 2023 study from Migration Policy Institute shows that having representation improves efficiency, lowers the costs of public resources expended and, for the migrants in court, decreases their chances of being deported.
“The immigration system has been pretty broken— backlogged and needing reform — for 20 years,” [Yael] Schacher [Director of Americas and Europe for Refugees International] said.
Though there are major delays, the overwhelming majority of asylum-seekers follow the system as it is currently functioning, Schacher said.
Yael Schacher Historian Director of Americas & Europe for Refugees International
Not only does this cogently refute the restrictionist myth of asylum seekers “gaming” the system, peddled by politicos of both parties yet primarily a GOP talking point, but it points to what should be the real target of reform! Obviously, what’s actually needed here is professionalization, quality control, innovation, increased staffing, and, perhaps most of all, dynamic, expert, due-process focused leadership in the USG’s asylum adjudication and resettlement programs, with a focus on dramatically increasing representation and orientation resources!
Instead, politicos and pundits focus on eliminating the system, rather than fixing it! It’s basically a cowardly attempt to “destroy evidence” of USG misfeasance and incompetence! At the same time, it would unfairly punish the victims of our Government’s systemic failures.
The political response by both parties is totally irresponsible (not to mention immoral) as well as demonstrably unworkable. Yet, so-called “mainstream media” figures are so ill-informed and disinterested in the human trauma and realities of asylum, migration, and the border, that they present the one-sided, nativist nonsense spouted by both parties as a “debate.” It isn’t! Neither party is interested in actually fixing the problems at the border — just in finger-pointing, posturing, and shifting blame for perceived political gain!
When we entered the garden, Tomás’s face relaxed. We were at the Casa de la Misericordia de Todas las Naciones in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, where he had resided for six months with his wife, Cristina, and three children. Before we entered the garden, Cristina and Tomás told me that a criminal group had abducted their 20-year-old son, Carlos, in the small rural community where they lived in the mountains of the Mexican state of Guerrero. Carlos returned to the family, but they knew he was under threat, that the whole family was in danger. As we spoke under the shade of a large tree, children raced around and played on a swing set in front of a yellow building that housed primarily mothers with young children. About 120 people, including entire families, were staying at this shelter, which was designed for people seeking asylum. Cristina did most of the talking, but at the end Tomás asked me if I wanted to see the garden. Cristina had to return to the kitchen, which was her responsibility this week. For his part, Tomás had been the encargado of the garden, in charge of it, he told me, since they arrived.
He showed me the radishes, the calabazas, the zanahoria. He showed me what remained of the tomatoes and chiles that got blasted by the cold. He showed me the lombrices, earthworms burrowing in the composting soil topped with banana peels. As he showed me all the plants, Tomás talked about how much he loved farming, how much he loved planting seeds, how much he liked caring for these plants and watching them grow. In Guerrero he had tended his milpa (small parcel of land) of squash, beans, and corn every day. As he spoke, I tried to envision his rural mountain community; over the years I have met many campesinos, small farmers, across southern Mexico, in his state of Guerrero, in Oaxaca, in Chiapas. Having knelt in the soil of the milpas before, I understood how this small garden in Nogales was like a sanctuary, especially in the face of a scary situation, as Cristina and Tomás had told me, away from home, away from your roots, your child’s life in danger, wondering if you would get asylum. When they arrived six months earlier, they applied for asylum on the glitchy, confusing, and difficult-to-use CBP One app with the help of staff at the Casa, a service they offer to all people staying in the shelter. Tomás told me that when things got stressful, “I come here to the garden. And the stress goes away.” He made a motion with his hand. His hand then touched the soil, searching for the plants. He looked up, and his face was serene.
From where we talked in the garden, we had a sweeping view of Nogales. The Casa is perched on a hill above a working-class neighborhood called Bella Vista, where the bustle often starts in the early morning as maquila workers head to the factories. For line workers making Samsonite suitcases, General Electric lightbulbs, or Masterlocks, the wages are a pittance—giving Nogales a feel of a city in constant strain and struggle.
Also, from the Casa you can look north toward the border with Arizona. Last Thursday, President Joe Biden and Donald Trump came to the border in “dueling visits,” but in faraway Brownsville and Eagle Pass, Texas. People like Tomás and Cristina and family were in the news again, not as their full human selves but as flat numbers and statistics. The “narrative of overwhelm,” as Erika Pinheiro put to The Border Chronicle in an audio interview, was full steam ahead. Alarmist rhetoric filled the airwaves, including the omnipresent “record numbers” of people crossing in every report. In Brownsville, in a proposal that might have seemed like fiction if we went back in time to the 2020 campaign, Biden challenged Trump to “show a little spine” and help him tighten the border by supporting the enforcement-heavy border bill shot down by the Senate in early February. For Trump’s part, he referred to people crossing the border as the “Joe Biden invasion”and as a “vicious violation to our country.” At this point in a heating-up U.S. presidential campaign, the age-old depiction of migrants as either dangerous or a mass of faceless numbers arriving to the benevolent U.S. doorstep was in full effect. More enforcement, both sides were clearly stating, was the solution.
Tomás knelt down to the soil. He showed me the garlic and onions he had planted as an experiment. “Do you want to try a radish?” he asked me in Spanish. “Yes,” I said, “please.” He plucked a radish out of the soil. I wiped off the soil and took a bite. I don’t know if it was because I was hungry (I was), or if it was the force of the stories Tomás and Cristina had shared (probably that too), or just watching Tomás work the soil, tenderly touch the plants, his face soft and concentrated, the perils of asylum-seeker limbo temporarily forgotten, that I knew that this type of care would render something delicious. The radish was so succulent that I finished it too quickly, but I was too bashful to ask for another, even though I wanted one. We could still hear the voices of playing kids coming up from below; there were people from all over Mexico, from Central America, from Peru, Colombia, and from across the world like China, Iran, and Senegal. Before talking with Tomás and Cristina, I visited the tortillería, where three young men worked making tortillas. I visited a workshop where people made weavings and other art projects.
I visited a gigantic bread oven—where people from different countries baked bread in their own traditions, and I visited the kitchen and dining room where banners celebrating the Chinese New Year hung from the walls. One new year celebratory sign read in English, “Be patient, Be light, Be love, Be you!” Another read in Spanish, “La amabilidad es la llave de todas las fortunas” (Friendliness is the key to all fortune).
The shelter is run by its director, Alma Angélica Macías, but the effort was a community one, and a binational one. I was there with a small group of people from the Good Shepherd UCC church in Arizona who bring food to the Casa every Thursday. And given that the shelter allows people to stay as long as the asylum process takes, the Casa had a feel of a multinational hub where people of different nationalities had formed deep bonds, and as I stood there with Tomás, I was moved by this beautiful, alternative view of the border that rarely sees the light of day in the media.
Right as I was about to leave the garden, Tomás’s 20-year-old son came to ask him a question. Tomás introduced me to Carlos, and as I looked into his young face, I remembered the threats to his life that had led them there. As I stood waiting, they talked among themselves, and I thought again about the presidential race, the constant push for more border enforcement, the rightward drift of that debate, the talk that the U.S. government was going to clamp down even harder on asylum seekers—all while watching the father and son talk in calm, sweet tones in that lovely garden. When they were finished, there was a pause. One last moment to take in the garden and the sweeping view around us. I used the pause to thank Tomás for showing me the garden, for showing me his gift with the land. I didn’t know what to say except that I thought it was beautiful and that I felt inspired. And then—after a quick, tender, and vulnerable look to young Carlos, who was still by his side—Tomás told me, as if he didn’t want to have to say it, “I hope they give us asylum.”
*For the story, I altered the names of the family from Guerrero at the request of the shelter.
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Click the above link for the original article with Todd’s wonderful border photography!
As I often say, we can diminish ourselves as a nation, (as both Trump and Biden are doing with their “misleading dehumanizing rhetoric” and spineless “scapegoating”), but it won’t stop human migration. Dehumanization and victimization in the end highlight the humanity of the victims while diminishing the dehumanizers.
Notably, this family has spent months trying “to do things the right way” by scheduling an appointment through the woefully inadequate “CBP One App” and appointment system. Yet, it appears that they have not even been given the interview to which they are entitled by law, nor have they been given a date for the fair merits adjudication they deserve!
The immense backlogs that everyone complains about (and which actually hurt legitimate asylum seekers like Tomás and his family) are largely self-created by years of USG over-investment in ridiculously expensive and ultimately ineffective enforcement accompanied by grotesque “under-investment” in timely, professional, and humane screening and adjudication of claims.
Both Biden and Trump know or should know that “the app” and the system it engenders are hopelessly defective. Yet, rather than moving to fix it (Biden) or urging supporters to invest in fixing it (Trump), both candidates shamelessly dump on the victims of their joint misfeasance and urge “further punishment” of those victims, apparently to “CTAs” for their own legal and moral failures.
Such is the “bogus border debate” — actually not a “debate” but rather a “one-sided nationalistic lie-fest” highlighted by obscene finger-pointing and journalistic malpractice on a catastrophic scale. All this happens with human lives and the very future of our democratic republic hanging in the balance!
Eventually, the judgement history on this disingenuous “bipartisan exercise in neofascism” will fall on the shameless politicos, the complicit media, and those who fail to call them out for their lies and misdeeds. Whether that judgement will come in time to save Tomás, Cristina, Carlos, and others like them seeking only justice and humanity from our nation is a different question. Like Tomás, one can only hope!
Catherine Rampell Opinion Columnist Washington Post PHOTO: Linkedin
Catherine writes:
. . . .
Perhaps most distressing for Democrats, when survey respondents are asked to rate Biden against the likely GOP presidential nominee, Biden fares poorly.
They remember the economy under Trump as being much better than the economy is today, CBS polling found. The last year of Trump’s presidency, when unemployment reached its highest level since the Great Depression, apparently doesn’t count, or has been forgotten.
Voters are also more than twice as likely to say that Trump’s policies helped them personally as they are about Biden’s work, the New York Times-Siena poll found.
And when asked whether a second term from either candidate would lead prices to go up or down, voters are more than twice as likely to believe Trump would push prices down as they are for Biden, per the CBS poll.
This is astounding. Leaving aside the faulty premise of that question — the overall price level almost never goes down; it merely rises more slowly — Trump’s policy agenda would likely worsen inflation. Why? Consider his main economic proposals:
• An additional 10 percent tax on all global imports, plus 60 percent on Chinese goods. As I’ve cited before, four separate studies found that the costs of Trump’s prior tariffs were borne mostly or entirely by Americans via higher prices.
• A reduction in the labor supply by slashing levels of both illegal and legal immigration. For instance, Trump would not only deport much of the agricultural workforce that’s undocumented; he also plans to dismantle the visa program that allows seasonal agricultural workers to come here legally. Wait until you see what that does to produce prices.
• Expansions of the federal deficit through more unfunded cuts to corporate and capital gains taxes (both of which disproportionately affect higher earners). Federal spending would likely rise, too, based on Trump’s (pre-pandemic) record.
• Kneecapping the Federal Reserve, the politically independent agency tasked with maintaining price stability.
Whatever you think of Biden’s record on inflation — and I have some grumbles, mostly related to Biden’s refusal to reverse his predecessor’s policies — each of Trump’s proposed measures would make inflation worse on the margin.
Don’t take my word for it. Analysts at Evercore ISI, an investment banking firm, recently analyzed the first three items above and forecast that another Trump term (relative to another Biden term) would likely require higher interest rates to counteract inflationary pressures. Likewise, Goldman Sachs Economic Research recently wrote a note to clients warning that the potential politicization of the Fed under another Trump administration would raise inflation risks.
Trump has claimed that economic and financial improvements thus far (including record-high stock markets under Biden) are because of his influence, or at least anticipation of his return. This is ludicrous, yet a large portion of the public seems receptive to this message — amnesiac about how he ended his presidency and blissfully unaware of what he’d do if granted another term.
This should be a wake-up call for journalists, who must do a better job of explaining the policy choices Americans face. It’s also a warning for voters, who must think through those choices more critically.
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Read Catherine’s full column at the link.
It appears that many of those polled don’t WANT to understand the realities of the economy. They prefer to regurgitate fictional “sound bites” fed to them by MAGA and the media!☹️
That Biden is head and shoulders above Trump on the economy should be little surprise despite “popular myths” and “false narratives” of GOP economic success. Historically, “By virtually every objective measure, Democrats do better. It’s not even close. So why doesn’t America know it?”https://newrepublic.com/article/166274/economy-record-republicans-vs-democrats.
Piper French reports for Intelligencer via Apple News:
Nilu Chadwick recognizes some of the children’s names right away. Chadwick, a lawyer for Kids in Need of Defense, has spent the past five years poring over lists of families separated under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy whose cases have yet to be resolved. Some of the children’s names stand out because she crossed paths with them back in 2018, when she represented them at their immigration hearings after they were torn from their parents’ side at the southern border. Those names always remind her of what she witnessed that year. The eerie silence of the children’s shelters. The kids so young that they couldn’t even explain who they were or where they came from. The hearing she had to pause in order to soothe a client with a nursery rhyme. Then there are the names that have simply grown familiar through repetition: the children whose cases appeared on the lists years ago and remain open.
The process of reunifying families separated under “zero tolerance” began in June 2018, two months after the policy was officially implemented. The ACLU had filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of separated families, Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and during the litigation, a federal judge halted Trump’s policy and ordered its victims reunified within 30 days. Some of these reunifications were relatively straightforward. The government had records of around 2,800 separated families, and most of those parents and children were still in the U.S. — maybe they’d been sent to separate ICE facilities or the parents were in detention while their children had been placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. But for about 470 families, the parents had already been deported. When the Trump administration declined to track them down, Lee Gelernt, the head lawyer for the plaintiffs, stood up in court and said the ACLU would do it. A steering committee was put together comprising a team from the New York law firm Paul, Weiss and representatives from three NGOs, including Kids in Need of Defense and the organization Justice in Motion. “Little did I know what we were taking responsibility for,” Gelernt told me.
The first hurdle the committee faced was the total disorganization with which “zero tolerance” had been implemented. “There was no intention of reuniting families, and so they didn’t design the system to be able to keep track,” Nan Schivone, Justice in Motion’s legal director, told me. The agencies involved — Customs and Border Protection, which took families into custody; ICE, which oversaw their detainment; the ORR, which was responsible for the separated children — didn’t have a comprehensive system to share data with one another, nor did they always keep records linking parents with their children. If children were released from ORR custody into the care of family or friends, the government did limited follow-up. “We give you a luggage tag for your luggage,” said Gisela Voss, a former board member of Together & Free, which supports families seeking asylum. “We separated parents from their kids and didn’t give them, like, a number.”
It took two months, until August 2018, for the administration to provide the steering committee with the phone numbers of the deported parents; a quarter of the numbers were missing. The committee began its search, making calls and performing social-media investigations. Then, in January 2019, the HHS Office of Inspector General revealed that more families had been separated than the Trump administration had previously disclosed. Nine months later, the Justice Department finally produced those names. There were 1,500 of them, and the vast majority of the parents had been deported.
. . . .
But the more that people who have dedicated their lives to this task continue to search, the more it becomes apparent that there will never be a clean resolution. There will always be another family. They know, too, that reunification solves only one problem. Families may be together again, but whether they will ever be whole is another question entirely.
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Read the complete article at the link.
No accountability whatsoever for Trump, Miller, Sessions and the other “human rights criminals” responsible for this. As is all too common in immigration and human rights “fails” by our immigration bureaucracy, the private, pro bono and NGO sectors are left to pick up the pieces after having to fight to uphold the rule of law.
The real story here is the blatant failure of our Government to uphold the rule of law for those seeking legal refugee and the irreparable effects of that failure. Somehow we have allowed politicos and the media to reverse that story line!
Major flying rainbow Unicorn starfish today. We actually got a client pulled off a deportation flight while the plane was on the tarmac in Louisiana. We have been emailing ICE since last week when we first heard that he had been moved from Stewart to Louisiana and was going to be deported, despite the fact that he has a hearing pending in the immigration court here. This of course would be entirely illegal, but since when does ICE care about the law?
It wasn’t until today that we finally got ICE to admit that they were wrong!!! The poor kid is only 18 and doesn’t speak any English!!! I doubt they had an interpreter who speaks his language. He must have been scared to death!I am sure he had no idea why he was on the plane, but I trust he was relieved when they pulled him off!Only about a dozen emails later.
To their credit ICE actually apologized! Sort of. They said that the asylum office had his name spelled wrong. Pffffft!!!!
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Way to go, Marty! Thanks for all you do for American justice!
This is what really happens when politicos and bureaucrats push for restrictions on asylum and tout summary removals. More innocent, vulnerable humans who seek only to have the U.S live up to its legal and moral obligations will die or be tortured without due process. THAT’S what “bipartisan consensus” really means.
The system is already dysfunctional. Speeding things up and eliminating legal rights will only make things worse. Why aren’t politicos discussing ways to fix the broken system, rather than penalizing asylum seekers by eliminating it? This also shows the need for life-saving representation to achieve due process!
This month, in case you missed it, there were several news headlines that once again proved that immigration is not just good for the U.S. economy, but freaking amazing. I’m not exaggerating – just take a look at the glorious reports revealed in February:
A Congressional Budget Office report found that, “The labor force in 2033 is larger by 5.2 million people, mostly because of higher net immigration. As a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise.”
The most powerful economic rebound post-pandemic in the world is thanks to immigration in the U.S. The Washington Post reported, “About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data.” Impressively, the surge in hires of immigrant workers filled “unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.”
Even The New York Times piled on: “A resumption in visa processing in 2021 and 2022 jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some holes in the labor force that persisted across industries and locations after the pandemic shutdowns. Immigrants also address a longer-term need: replenishing the work force, a key to meeting labor demands as birthrates decline and older people retire.” The report also features a City Council president and member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters union in Indiana who says he would welcome migrants with open arms as his union is in desperate need of members.
Despite so many economists, industry and business leaders, and fellow Americans clamoring for immigrants to come to America and live and work in a small town in the middle of nowhere or somewhere, our politicians are stuck in the quicksand of deterrence, slowly sinking into policy and politics that muddle speeches and don’t make anyone want to save them.
Don’t get me wrong– I do want to save President Biden but, buddy, we need to work on those talking points. While I agree border communities and immigration officials are in dire need of resources and should be provided the proper funding and manpower, President Biden’s continual push for the Senate bipartisan bill was half futile. I get the political jab; use it, in fact, as it works against Republicans. But for the love of God stop trying to push the bill forward. It’s dead. Start planting the messaging seeds for better, more galvanizing solutions that address the border, resource welcoming communities, and deliver legal pathways. And above all center the economic and cultural contributions of Dreamers and immigrant families that Trump is eager to deport.
Humanizing the narrative is always a winning strategy. Recognizing the rewards of immigration and the hard work of immigrants, both in policies and messaging, speaks to those persuadable voters that Biden and Democrats must win over.
Where have you gone, John Fetterman? I roll my lonely eyes at you.
Now here’s someone who’s actually sinking. Yesterday, Senator John Fetterman (PA), on an apparent quest to prove he’s a tough border security hawk, said he would support H.R. 2 except for its aim to terminate DACA. He claims to have analyzed the bill, and if he did, then I am stupid for having ever thought he was a decent guy who understood the importance of immigration in America.
As a reminder, H.R. 2 is basically a Stephen Miller wet dream (I apologize for the imagery): it would (1) end legal representation for unaccompanied children and deport them faster, (2) shut down the asylum system, (3) give any DHS secretary the authority to deny every single migrant the right to seek asylum (in other words, permanent Title 42), (4) jail and detain immigrant families, (5) eliminate humanitarian parole, (6) punish and defund faith-based organizations and NGOs for supporting newly-arrived migrants, and (7) jail and penalize immigrants who overstay their visa. (Imagine if that last one were in place when Fetterman’s wife and mother-in-law had arrived in the U.S.)
Neither H.R. 2 nor the Senate bipartisan bill are “grand bargains” unless it’s a deal scored by a used car salesman hiding the 20% annual interest rate. When immigration is decidedly incredible for the economy, when immigrants are proudly working and thriving alongside their fellow American, when those seeking freedom and opportunity are willing to risk their lives for a leg up to work – work! – when businesses and communities are desperate for immigrants to fuel their future, our leaders should be grand-standing with a 21st century plan that embraces immigration and immigrants for all that they can do for America.
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Thanks for speaking truth to power, Beatriz!
While Trump and Biden trade barbs and disgracefully try to ”one up” each other as to who can be the most cruel, cowardly, and dumb on “bogus border security,” the real humanitarian and asylum processing crises go unaddressed; the most vulnerable continue to suffer at the hands of a country they want to help while saving their own lives. This is a potential “win-win” that our politicians refuse to embrace!
Texas will appeal to the too-often-lawless Fifth Circuit, so this saga is only beginning. But, at least this time the “good guys” struck first and won the opening round.
“The IJ’s conclusion that Gao failed to meet her burden of proof is based on the lack of sufficient corroborating evidence. As mentioned above, where, as here, the petitioner’s testimony is deemed credible, but the IJ finds that additional corroborating evidence is necessary to satisfy the burden of proof, the IJ is required to “(1) point to specific pieces of missing evidence and show that it was reasonably available, (2) give the [petitioner] an opportunity to explain the omission, and (3) assess any explanation given.” Wei Sun, 883 F.3d at 31; see also Pinel-Gomez, 52 F.4th at 529. Because the IJ failed to comply with these requirements here, we remand for the agency to reconsider Gao’s claim that she will be singled out for persecution if she returns to China.”
“Berhe asserted that the Eritrean military detained and beat him because he complained about conditions during his mandatory military service and because of his perceived anti-government political opinion. The agency’s adverse credibility determination is not supported by substantial evidence. … Respondent’s motion to transfer venue is DENIED, the petition for review is GRANTED, the BIA’s decision is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this order.”
“Based on the statutory language, structure, and context of § 1252, we conclude that a reinstated order of removal is not final for purposes of judicial review until the agency has completed withholding proceedings. Only when those proceedings conclude, if the noncitizen is eligible for that review, has the agency finalized all mandatory review and “fully determined” the noncitizen’s fate. Arostegui-Maldonado, 75 F.4th at 1140 (quoting Luna-Garcia, 777 F.3d at 1185). A contrary conclusion would contravene the express intent of Congress. Our own circuit’s precedent is consistent with this interpretation, having long treated reinstated orders of removal as final once withholding proceedings are complete. We see no reason to upset that precedent. Because F.J.A.P. filed his petition within 30 days of the completion of his CAT proceedings, we have jurisdiction to hear his petition and proceed to the merits. … Here, the Board did not just declare an absence of evidence; it actively ignored the evidence relied upon by the immigration judge. … The Board reweighed and discounted evidence in F.J.A.P.’s case instead of properly disputing that evidence with contrary facts from the record. … The Board did not explain how the immigration judge’s conclusion that F.J.A.P. would likely be tortured for having “the audacity to file a police report” is illogical, implausible, or lacks support. The Board did not explain why, in a country where gangs control much of the government—an assertion which was supported in the record by the State Department’s country report—an individual complaint about the gang made to the gang-controlled police would not put a target on someone’s back. … For these reasons, we find that the Board erred by failing to apply the required clear error standard of review. Because the Board failed to apply the correct standard of review, we need not reach whether substantial evidence supported its conclusion. In light of this error, we grant F.J.A.P.’s petition and remand to the Board of Immigration Appeals for reconsideration of the immigration judge’s decision under the correct standard of review consistent with this opinion.”
Harry S. Graver, Esquire Jones Day D.C.Chuck Roth, Esquire NIJC
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Great, if disturbing, examples of the “culture of any reason to deny” that flourishes in too many places in Garland’s EOIR and the poor leadership from the BIA! All these respondents were “garlanded,” and only saved by their outstanding lawyers and the Circuits!
Congrats to the attorneys involved in all these cases. Gerald Karikari appeared before me at the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court. Ben Winograd is a superstar appellate litigator. Harry S. Graver is an attorney in the DC Office of Jones Day, where I was a partner in the 1990s. Chuck Roth is a “superlitigator” for the NIJC!
The season’s outlook for justice in Manager Merrick Garland’s EOIR:
Gloomy 😪😢
In the often other-worldly, fact-free, one-sided “debate” about immigration and asylum, we must remember that severe over-denial, abuse of in absentia orders, “courts in prison,” and lack of positive precedents in Garland’s EOIR badly distort the success rate for asylum seekers that the Government often throws around. Because of Garland’s failure to legitimize EOIR asylum adjudications by cleaning house, replacing unqualified leadership, and insisting on judges with demonstrated asylum expertise and reputations for fairness, we actually have little idea how asylum seekers would fare in a fair and functional system where due process and decisional excellence were required.
Suffice it to say that significantly more asylum cases would be granted in a more timely manner. We just don’t know how many more!
This is the “reward” that both parties have in mind for migrants who have helped our economy thrive through difficult times. Doesn’t seem right, smart, or rational! PHOTO: Public Realm
Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country’s economicrebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world.
That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Immigrant workers also recovered much faster than native-born workers from the pandemic’s disruptions, and many saw some of the largest wage gains in industries eager to hire. Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.
“Immigration has not slowed. It has just been absolutely astronomical,” said Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “And that’s been instrumental. You can’t grow like this with just the native workforce. It’s not possible.”
Yet immigration remains an intensely polarizing issue in American politics. Fresh survey data from Gallup showed Americans now cite immigration as the country’s top problem, surpassing inflation, the economy and issues with government. A record number of migrants have crossed the southern border since President Biden took office, with apprehensions topping 2 million for the second straight year in fiscal 2023, among the highest in U.S. history. Cities like New York, Chicago and Denver have struggled to keep up with busloads of immigrants sent from Texas who are overwhelming local shelters.
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
There are also lots of practical ideas out here for fixing the asylum processing system and other helpful, humane border initiatives that don’t invest exclusively in expensive, cruel, and proven to ultimately fail “uber-enforcement only!” See, e.g.,https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/solutions-humane-border-policy.
Still, politicos of both parties and most media are on a completely different page, unhappily!
William Samuel is an accomplished citizen writer publishing with a specific focus on current affairs and military history.
De Spretter writes on Linkedin:
When asked in 1922 what his priorities would be if elected chancellor of Germany, then up-and-coming National Socialist leader, Adolf Hitler, answered candidly:
“Once I’m really in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.”
Proclaiming with vitriolic zeal, they’d be “hanged indiscriminately… until all of Germany has been completely cleansed of Jewry”, German Jews, understandably, had no desire to remain when he assumed the chancellorship in 1933…
In desperate hopes of securing safe passage to their ancestral homeland – Eretz Israel – tens of thousands flocked to the British embassy; only to be told on arrival there, “strict limits” had been imposed on the quota of Jews who’d be granted entry.
Although, sadly, the fate of most was thus sealed, countless more would have suffered the same had it not been for the defiant courage of Britain’s Vice-Consul, then-Captain Francis “Frank” Foley.
As a man who, in reality, was using his position as a cover for his long-serving role as an MI6 spymaster, Frank’s intelligence gathering had long confirmed that Hitler’s threats against the Jewish people were far from “empty rhetoric”.
For that reason, Frank was “quite unwilling to toe the line with London…”
Instead, he didn’t just “tear up the rulebook” that dictated whom he could issue lifesaving visas to but, when the “Kristallnacht” pogrom of 1938 was unleashed, he even transformed his place of residence into a safe haven for Jewish families.
From the “Night of Broken Glass” onwards, the number of Jews filing for immigration visas increased dramatically; but still, Frank’s superiors refused to ease the stringent requirements that prevented him from granting them.
Once again, therefore, he not only decided to “bend the rules” by easing them himself but, when he then received an official reprimand for his brave “contravention”, Frank doubled down on his rescue efforts by forging passports for Germany’s beleaguered Jewish citizens.
Despite being fully aware that no level of diplomatic immunity would protect him if the Gestapo had uncovered his clandestine activities, Frank persevered regardless, with no fear or concern for his personal safety.
In so doing, he enabled no fewer than 10,000 Jews to flee Hitler’s Reich; and yet, humble man that he was, Frank never spoke of his selfless deeds during his lifetime…
Incredibly, it was only after his passing, in May 1958, that his heroic exploits were revealed by his beloved wife, Katherine; and, it wasn’t until over four decades later, on this day in 1999, that he was deservedly recognized for having saved so many Jewish lives.
Honored as a posthumous Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, the latter paid tribute to Frank – “the British Schindler” – by describing him as “a man of great faith and conviction…”
Indeed, “as a deeply devout Christian, Frank did nothing more than act upon his sense of justice and compassion.”
#WeRemember
Captain Francis “Frank” Foley SOURCE: Linkedin
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Inspiring and timely piece of history. Thanks to Samuel for posting this on LinkedIn!
What if 600 bureaucrats had each made it their business to save 10,000 lives? The course of history would have been changed.
This is worth keeping in mind as our leaders of both parties and the immigration bureaucracy make “bullying the most vulnerable” and dehumanizing asylum seekers their daily mission. And, they brag about their cruelty and intention to violate laws in even more deadly ways! What if the same amount of effort were devoted to addressing humanitarian crises and saving lives?
Hon. Kuyomars “Q” Golparvar U.S. Immigration Judge Baltimore, MD Adjunct Professor of Law GW Law PHOTO: GW Law
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to Judge/Professor “Q” Golparvar’s class on “Legal Drafting for Future Judicial Law Clerks” at GW Law. Here’s my list of tips that’s I discussed with that class:
NOTES FOR JLC CLASS
1) “Make me look smart” (please)
2)Know and respect the difference between Judge & JLC
3)Learn your Judge’s style and persona, likes, and “pet peeves”
4)Know and write for your audience
5) Use outlines if possible
6) Write clearly, succinctly, to the point
7) Use “active voice” — if your Judge is OK with it
8) Avoid boilerplate, legalisms, and “string citations”
9) Read the cases you cite
10) Be meticulously accurate — know where every “fact” in the fact-finding section came from and double check it
11)Be respectful to parties, counsel, witnesses, and especially court clerks and other support personnel
12) Avoid stereotypical references
13) Follow “Bluebook” or whatever modified citation system your court uses
14) Don’t be afraid to ask
15) Know and follow applicable precedent
16) Yell before your Judge walks off a cliff
17) Accept criticism with grace, goodwill, and appreciation
18) Be a student and a teacher
19) Never miss a deadline without giving advance notice and asking permission
20) Write “from the issue”
21) Incorporate helpful material and arguments from the parties that the Judge agrees with
22) Proofread, proofread, proofread, and then proofread again
23) Respect confidentiality and ethics
24) Be a good “sounding board”
25) Why I love JLCs, how they changed my court experience for the better, and why they enhance due process!
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This was a great class. It reminded me of all the great JLCs and interns who worked at the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration and my former students at Georgetown Law, many of whom have gone on to leadership positions working for social justice, including some who are now Immigration Judges.
While there has been progress in some courts, others remain far below the optimal 1:1 ratio of IJs to JLCs, some far below, as ridiculous as 8:1! Garland has failed to “harvest this low hanging fruit” in improving the quality of justice in his courts!
Congress and the Administration spend billions on cruel and ineffective immigration enforcement. Yet, they fail to invest the much more modest amounts that would improve the quality of justice for immigrants! It’s a national disgrace that somehow “flies below the radar screen” of the media and political pundits!
Thanks again to Judge/Professor Q for inviting me, for teaching the next generation, and for your career in “applied scholarship!”
“I went through dozens of reports, scores of articles, on the discussion of this migration bill, and the reporters talked to zero migrants and zero migrant rights groups.”
In recent weeks, longtime media analyst Adam Johnson has been looking through scores of articles and analyzing Democrats’ rhetoric to see how the border was being framed. One of the texts he looked at was the emergency national security supplemental bill that emerged for a vote on the Senate floor. This bipartisan border bill had been at the negotiation table for months, and it included provisions for military aid for Ukraine and Israel. The bill was ultimately voted down, after Donald Trump rejected it and the Republican Party followed suit. In our conversation, Johnson talks about his deep dive into the coverage surrounding the deal, and he speculates on what that means in this election year: that Democrats have entered new political terrain around the border and immigration enforcement. This interview is based on articles Johnson wrote for The Real News (“Media ‘Border Deal’ Coverage Erases Actual Human Stakes”) and The Nation (“The Democrats’ Hard-Right Turn on Immigration Is a Disaster In Every Way”), both places that he contributes to regularly. He also wrote “Top 10 Media Euphemisms for Violent Bipartisan Anti-immigrant Policies,” at his Substack, The Column. Johnson cohosts the popular podcast Citations Needed, where they discussed the border on their February 21 edition. Johnson’s media analysis spans back nearly a decade, much of it for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
Adam Johnson
Let’s start with the “border deal.” In The Real News you write that it dehumanizes migrants. Can you tell us a little bit about what the border deal is, and some key points about the coverage?
It’s a Republican border deal by framing and admission. Senators Chris Murphy, Tina Smith, and Mark Warner have framed it as a Republican border deal. Almost entirely. It is a 90 to 95 percent Republican deal in nature. They’ve repeatedly said that Republicans demanded XYZ and they gave them XYZ. This is how they’re framing it, because otherwise the hypocrisy gotcha doesn’t really work.
Can you clarify what you mean by “hypocrisy gotcha”?
If it’s not an overwhelming Republican bill, then the idea that they’re abandoning their won bill in service of Trump—which has been their primary gotcha—doesn’t make sense.
But let’s look at the substance of what the bill is.
Among other things, it has $8 billion in emergency funding for ICE, which more than doubles ICE’s enforcement budget. Do you remember “abolish ICE,” back five years ago or so?
It includes $3 billion in increased detention, a mechanism to shut down the border, and $7 billion to Customs and Border Protection, including the continuation of Trump’s wall. And so this is both objectively and how the Democrats describe a far-right Republican bill. That’s the appeal of it.
And the clever idea behind this is that a typical triangulation, that is, if you take a right-wing policy and adopt it as your own, you therefore take away that issue a little quicker come election time. It is for those who view politics as merely a game to be won rather than a moral terrain to advance the greatest good of all people. If you were to take this logic to its extreme, Democrats could also support an abortion ban or decertify the 2020 election. I mean, where does it end? President Biden could get that face-off surgery and become Trump himself.
. . . .
All this is laundered through euphemism, which I wrote about on my Substack and in The Real News, where I talk about the various ways in which the human costs are obscured. According to the International Organization for Migration, the U.S.-Mexico border is the deadliest land crossing in the world. And so if you double the enforcement, and triple the broader security apparatus, bring in more surveillance drones, more weapons, invariably more people will die. There is a real human cost to this type of militarization.
. . . .
Keep in mind, too, that Biden in 2020 mobilized a lot of the immigration activists who opposed Trump’s policies. He rode that wave to pick up a lot of young votes, a lot of progressive voters, a lot of people who are sympathetic to or adjacent to immigrant communities. And this cruel policy shift has really moved them to the right. In the days after Democrats embrace this hard-right bill, Trump began to double down on things like internment camps, shipping off immigrants, because he has to differentiate himself from the Democrats, at least rhetorically.
We’re gonna have this fortress America mentality. No one wants to deal with any of the underlying issues. And we have to deal with global inequality. No one wants to deal with climate change. That’s too egg heady and academic and difficult. We’re just going to do what we always do, which is cops and cages. And cops and cages are the solution to every social ill, whether it’s homelessness, crime, or whatever. That’s the order of the day. The bipartisan consensus. Democrats and Republicans both want it. The worst place for a vulnerable group to be is on the business end of a bipartisan consensus.
. . . .
Many Border Chronicle readers are interested in shifting the narrative. But how do you shift the narrative? Is it just too entrenched?
Some members of Congress have pushed back on this. But I think they’ve been pretty quiet. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushed back in an interview, but I don’t think she’s really tweeted about it. Once you have this “we have to defeat Trump in 2024 above all else,” then everybody shuts up and goes along with it.
And I think that’s absolutely wrong. I think now is the time to stand up to this demagoguery. Adopting a Republican bill is not the solution. And, hopefully, if enough people stand up to this, then it can become politically costly for Democrats to continue doing this.
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Read the full report at the link.
The worst place for a vulnerable group to be is on the business end of a bipartisan consensus.
These days, on immigration issues the term “bipartisan consensus” is actually a euphemism for “Dem giveaway of others’ rights to GOP nativists.” And, of course, even after the giveaway, the GOP shows absolutely no interest is such one-sided “bipartisanship” because Der Fuhrer tells them they must vote it down.
Yet, the disingenuous media and pundits keep misusing the term “bipartisanship” as if it had real meaning! And, although holding power in two of the three political branches, while the GOP struggles mightily to cling to its narrow margin in one, Biden and the Dems “wimp out” time after time on immigration, human rights, and racial justice.
The GOP proudly advertises that it has no values beyond whatever Trump wants on any particular day.
By contrast, Dems claim to have values. But a campaign being run against those professed values and their own core voters suggests that they too have become a “transactional party of no enduring values.”
Does America really need two political parties that stand for nothing beyond gratuitous cruelty to others and getting elected?
“Go along to get along.” Unhappily, that’s what today’s Dems appear to stand for.
Frankly, that has been at the heart of many of the problems at EOIR, particularly in Dem Administrations that were afraid of taking the bold and sometimes controversial actions necessary to change culture, institutionalize due process, fundamental fairness, and best practices. Current AG Merrick Garland is a classic example of this failed Dem model. As a result, EOIR is a dramatically dysfunctional and unjust agency.
Will the Democratic Party keep mindlessly following in EOIR’s footsteps? What’s it going to take for the next generation of Democrats to halt the slide into moral vapidity and political irrelevance?
“The Dems’ wrong-headed “Miller Lite” approach to immigration and the border would leave Casey scratching his head. With “major league talent” available, they have put an “amateur night at the Bijou” team on the field for what is perhaps the most important season in modern American history! PHOTO: Rudi Reit Creative Commons
As a former president of the United States excoriates immigrants for “poisoning the blood” of our country, as the governors of Texas and my current home state of Florida bus and fly migrants to points north — including my hometown, Chicago — my thoughts turn to baseball.
. . . .
While that inhospitable bunch has been villainizing migrants and refugees as a strain on U.S. resources, I have been marveling at how much foreign-born players have enlivened (and enriched) baseball in recent decades. Far from being poisoned, the sport has been rejuvenated by infusions of immigrants from Ohtani to Soto to Ronald Acuña Jr., Yordan Álvarez, Ha-Seong Kim, the Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki and so many others.
As these non-White non-Americans wow — and earn — millions with their transcendent talents, in a sport still emerging from its startlingly racist past, bigoted fictions about the “blood of our country” are being exposed. It’s true that baseball is still struggling with exploitative international recruiting practices, decreasing numbers of U.S.-born Black players and a lack of diversity among its executive ranks. Yet the increasing number of foreign-born major leaguers now counted among the best in the game’s long history dispels the self-aggrandizing myth that the United States possesses any monopoly on excellence.
The Republican presidential front-runner might argue that undocumented migrants and refugees aren’t elite athletes and are instead “animals” arriving from “s—hole countries.” But such dehumanizing insults are not only guilty of offensive fixation on national origin, ethnicity and race. They also mistake a person’s predicament for a person’s potential.
This is made plain by the origin stories of some of baseball’s biggest stars. Those same players who fashioned makeshift mitts out of milk cartons and cardboard, who rose to the game’s highest levels through arduous, harrowing and near-tragic journeys, might have languished on the other side of a barbed and militarized wall if this country’s right wing had its way.
The politicians who would build those walls, who attack immigrants for supposedly burdening our national resources, need only consider baseball’s explosive growth into a $10 billion industry and the financial value of Ohtani alone to the Dodgers — some estimate the team could make more than $1 billion off his deal over the course of a decade — to see that industries and economies thrive by inclusion, not exclusion.
Even so, ideologues seek to end inclusive practices in private industry and public education. They guarantee endless winning and new revolutions by promising to slash resources and wall off our country — all while whiffing on the most rudimentary of winning principles understood by most every baseball fan in America:
Great teams are made great by deep, diversified rosters. They are built on investment in both homegrown and international talent. And there are no curses except those that are self-inflicted by cheap, regressive thinking.
As the Republican presidential primary churns toward that party’s national convention, coincidingthis July with baseball’s annual All-Star Game, all of this will be evident to anyone ready to take a break from the campaign, take a seat in the bleachers and take in the world’s greatest ballplayers thriving at America’s game.
Jaswinder Bolina is a poet and essayist. His latest book is “English as a Second Language and Other Poems.”
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Read the full op-ed at the above link!
“Mistaking a person’s predicament for a person’s potential!” That’s exactly what Biden’s new-found attacks on asylum seekers and their advocates (his 2020 supporters!) are doing!
It’s painful to watch the errors pile up and the game slipping away from the Dems! 😣 Meanwhile, rather than being out there helping unify and re-elect Biden and Harris, advocates are marshaling their resources and considerable energy to fight tooth and nail in courts against the Administration’s apparent bone-headed intention to violate asylum law and human rights with illegal asylum bars! Energizing former core supporters to fight against your inane and immoral actions during an election year: A “strategy” that only inept, tone-deaf Dem politicos could love!
Beatriz Lopez Deputy Director Immigration Hub PHOTO: Immigration Hub
From The Narrative Intervention on Substack:
Last week, I listened to Ezra Klein ruffle feathers with his provocative, “strategic” advice to Democrats to choose a different presidential nominee that isn’t President Biden. I found his reasoning to be redundant and just another taunt in the vein of what Jon Stewart and other pundits are saying about Biden. What did perk my ears was his short crescendo into the qualities of Vice President Kamala Harris before he lazily landed on his novel advice:
She’s enormously magnetic and compelling. Her challenge will be translating that into her public persona, which is, let’s be blunt about this. A hard thing to do when you’ve grown up in a world that has always been quick to find your faults. A world that is afraid of women being angry of black people being angry. A world where for most of your life it was demanded of you that you be cautious and careful and measured and never make a mistake. And then you get on the public stage and people say, oh, you’re too cautious and too careful and too measured. It’s a very, very, very hard bind to get out of. But maybe she can do it still. It is a party’s job to organize victory.
Klein ends this wonderful reflection with a careless – and let’s be frank – a typical white man move, “If Harris cannot convince delegates that she’s the best shot at victory, she should not and probably would not be chosen.” He later continues his monologue by mentioning a series of other Democrats with résumés that pale in comparison to the VP’s long list of career achievements and experiences.
Oh Ezra. What could’ve been. Progressive white man allyship is like puppy love – it ends when they become dogs.
It’s nothing new for us women of color to deal with men who think they know better and who often fail to recognize the merits and the knowledge that comes from years of diligently doing the work, putting triple the effort, ensuring near perfection, meeting goals, and delivering beyond the standard metrics. It’s a frustration I know all too well.
And look, I’m not saying all white men fall into the Ezra Klein category. There are a few good men – those that stick out their neck for you, who vouch for you and take a step back, who are true friends in the battle. To them, I’m grateful.
But for the most part, we have to deal with the Ezras. Today, I want to focus on three grievances so that I may elevate three women who are telling Democrats how we can win in 2024.
1. Vice President Harris. This spectacular woman who has probably the most thankless job in the country has persevered despite the sexist and racist punditry. She took on the most difficult portfolio of dealing with forced migration and investing in the region. And let me tell you, as a Nicaraguan-American, Central and South American politics is ridiculously complicated, tough and heartbreaking, and still the VP has managed to get millions upon millions of dollars in philanthropy and big business to invest in the region. She spearheaded all kinds of programs in the region to elevate women in business and young people in service. But you don’t hear any of that – or what she’s done and meant to Dreamers, youth, and the LBGTQI+ and Black communities.
While white Democratic operatives warn about losing the Black and Latino men vote, the VP has been working on actually addressing the matter. Not until this Sunday did you probably hear about the VP’s “quiet” meetings with a diverse set of electeds and experts. With her seasoned and smart campaign staff (including Sergio Gonzales) and Julie Rodriguez Chavez, she’s doing the work, strategizing and devising solutions.
This is what women of color do best – ignore the naysayers and get shit done. Every Democratic operative should be lifting the VP and her efforts up, instilling confidence in Democrats and pundits that the VP is strengthening the campaign and showing the public that our VP is the best veep we’ve had in over a century.
It’s with the VP we all rise.
2. Julie Chávez Rodriguez. I have long admired Julie from afar and up close. She embodies the characteristics of the few Latinas in Washington politics – smart, hard-working, strategic, persistent and authentic. She’s not defined by her grandfather’s legacy; she’s defined her own present and future with a committed love to our country and civil service. And yet, you get the sense through beltway rumors, leaks and hot takes that a class of establishment operatives and government officials from yesteryears are either gunning for her failure or humoring the token Latina. Unacceptable.
This mountain-mover has a long history of hustling and delivering on promises. From leading campaigns to working in two administrations, Julie has ensured Democrats invest in the Latino vote and immigrant communities when no one was willing, while strategizing and organizing to advance progressive measures empowering American working families. As Biden’s campaign manager, she has raised more funds than Trump and any candidate in any race.
Despite the comms person in me wanting her to lean into the spotlight, Julie doesn’t seek the James Carville limelight or approach this job as a lucrative ticket to cable punditry or podcasting. She’s doing the job because she believes in civic duty and good governance, she knows what it takes, and she has a strategy to win.
In Julie I trust, and so should you.
3. This last spot is a bit uncomfortable, but – screw it – I’m going to talk about me. Yes, me! For the past seven years, I’ve been telling Democrats that they can’t ignore immigration as a political galvanizer. I’ve led polling, focus groups, message and ad testing, and advertising campaigns in battleground states, and I’m not talking about one and done – nope, I’ve run all of the aforementioned countless times.
And because of my research and what I’ve learned from other partner organizations’ findings, I developed a messaging formula: acknowledge the system is broken, socialize a balanced approach to fixing it (i.e. don’t go Trump-lite; stress humane and orderly border security + pathway to citizenship), relate to voters with shared American values and center the economic contributions of immigrants, and counterattack Republicans, highlighting their extreme rhetoric and record.
Sound familiar? Does it sound like something Senator Chris Murphy may have recently written about or Tom Suozzi may have employed in his campaign? Yup. I guess, I should be glad that white men have validated my strategy to win.
But like I often tell my team – deep breaths and keep your eyes on the prize. Here’s the thing, the most important aspect of my messaging formula is saturation. Going on offense means repeating and delivering the message wherever a persuadable may roam. They need to see Trump and Republicans as foils to Biden and Democrats, and that means employing immigration to make the contrast that Democrats have advanced and pushed for popular solutions that don’t separate families and instead restore order and create opportunities for hard-working immigrants to stay and work in the country they proudly call home.
See? It’s not hard to implement the formula or write such an ad. If most Democratic campaigns targeted immigration ads to persuadable voters with as much gusto as they do on economy-focused ads, I’d bet money they’d see a shift in the polls. I know, I’ve done it before (even written numerous memos on how it can work).
To win in 2024, President Biden and Democrats have to start listening to women of color.
And on this critical issue of immigration, I’m telling you that neither the VP, Julie or I would ever ignore the power of the American dream. So yes, do what Congress failed to do: take action to manage migration at the border with grit and radical empathy AND widen the path to citizenship through administrative action so that Dreamers and other immigrants can continue to thrive without the fear of deportation or Trump. Then, deliver the message to Americans – on repeat.
In case you’re still here… check out how I explain the messaging strategy to win on immigration:
I highly encourage you to hit the “share button” above and listen to Beatriz’s inspiring and “spot on” 3-minute video in which she succinctly and cogently sets forth her “4-S messaging strategy” on immigration in 2024: Sequence, Sooth, Saturate, and Sway! Needless to say, Beatriz packs more useful information and values-inspired messaging into 3 minutes that most politicos do in a 30-minute “speech.” That’s one of many problems in today’s often-dehumanizing and intentionally off-point political “debate.”
Dems must pay attention to what Beatriz is saying! You can’t “run away” from immigration in a nation of immigrants, nor should you!
You also can’t just point fingers at Trump and the GOP. You need realistic, humane, practical solutions (the delusional Miller Lite “close the border tomorrow” is not one of them). Folks will embrace immigration and asylum seekers, but they also want to see “order at the border” and in the resettlement process. To date, sadly, the Biden Administration has failed to lay out concrete, realistic plans for doing that — other than bombastic promises to to “out-Trump Trump” with a “Miller Lite” agenda of unrealistic promises and soft-pedaled cruelty!
You can subscribe to Beatriz’s The Narrative Intervention on Substack.
Also, Beatriz is the Chief Political and Communications Officer of TheImmigration Hub.
If you are inspired by her message and commitment, they are looking for a Manager of Federal Advocacy to join their stellar Leg/Policy Team.Sounds like a great NDPA opportunity with a great team that “walks the walk” when it comes to due process and equal justice for all persons in America!
Here’s the application information:
The Immigration Hub is seeking a stellar candidate to join our Leg/Policy team as the Manager of Federal Advocacy. We’re a smart and strategic organization that loves to empower young leaders who see themselves working in the halls of Congress or driving change in our movement. If you or someone you know is interested, please apply via https://lnkd.in/ezcaFrdZ.
The Immigration Hub Team
Become part of the solution, rather than just hand-wringing about the problem and blaming and threatening the victims! It’s NOT asylum seekers who have failed over decades to invest in and establish a robust, expert, timely, due-process-compliant, fundamentally fair process for adjudicating asylum claims and resettling asylees in an orderly and helpful manner!
This paper examines the staffing needs of the US Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), as it seeks to eliminate an immigration court backlog, which approached 2.5 million pending cases at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2023. A previous study by the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) attributed the backlog to systemic, long-neglected problems in the broader US immigration system. This paper provides updated estimates of the number of immigration judges (IJs) and “judge teams” (IJ teams) needed to eliminate the backlog over ten and five years based on different case receipt and completion scenarios. It also introduces a data tool that will permit policymakers, administrators and researchers to make their own estimates of IJ team hiring needs based on changing case receipt and completion data. Finally, the paper outlines the pressing need for reform of the US immigration system, including a well-resourced, robust, and independent court system, particularly in light of record “encounters” of migrants at US borders in FY 2022 and 2023.
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Wow! This is beyond amazing! Kudos and thanks to Don and Brendan for this incredibly helpful and informative analytical tool. Get the full report and access to all the charts and interactive features at the above link!
Just yesterday, my friend, Arizona “practical humanitarian” Robb Victor, was asking about how legislators and policy makers could do better planning for hiring Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers to reduce the backlog and address processing problems at the border. This is for you, Robb!
As Don and Brendan cogently point out, hiring alone can’t solve the problem! America needs positive, due-process-oriented, reforms to our legal immigration system embracing the reality and the economic power of robust orderly refugee and asylum acceptance and increases in legal immigration of all types.
The longer we ignore the need for these positive changes, and embrace the dangerous and defective myth that we can or should continue the failed program of attempting to enforce our way out of the migration realities and opportunities of the 21st century, the longer the disorder and grotesque waste of human lives and fiscal resources by our nation will continue.
Merrick Garland doesn’t worry about injustice in his courts! But, YOU should PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons
THIS WEEK IN “GARLANDING” — True Tales From The “Twilight Zone” Of American Justice!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
February17, 2024
garland ( gar’ land) v.t. [garlanded, garlanding] [dv. USAG Merrick Garland via Prof. Laurence Tribe] m. inflict injustice by one in charge, often through inattention, inaction, or dithering. (Ex 1. I pray the judge won’t garland my case. Ex 2. My client was garlanded and deported to death. Ex 3. They will be garlanding asylum applicants at the U.S. border.)
By all accounts, President Biden and his White House were outraged this week when they were garlanded by the “Hur report.” Ironically, three years of complaining by some of Biden’s core supporters who helped elect him in 2020 about being systematically “garlanded” at EOIR brought not so much as a raised eyebrow from the WH. Indeed, they might now be viewed as just a preview of Biden’s “Miller Lite” dissing of his supporters and human lives at the border with his inanely enthusiastic support of an attempted human rights “fire sale” by Senate Dems! Obviously, it’s quite a different story when things come full circle and the “chickens finally come home to roost.”
You might think that’s hard to top! But, you would be wrong! Let’s get started on this week’s trip around “the land where due process and fundamental fairness fear to tread!”
The project focused on pretrial hearings that can encompass pleadings, scheduling and other technical matters. The average observed hearing ran under four minutes, a rapid-fire pace to cover all of a hearing’s required steps.
Judges advised people of their rights in only 18% of the observed hearings. Most often, this involved reading rights to everyone in a group instead of individually.
Immigration courts are required to provide interpretation in the preferred language of the individual appearing at a hearing at no cost to the individual. The court frequently failed to provide Central American Indigenous language interpretation. This impacted roughly four out of five individuals who preferred to speak in a Central American Indigenous language.
In about one in five observed hearings, the individual was not represented by an attorney.
Of course, one might wonder why it is the responsibility of the ACLU to ferret out things that Garland should have discovered and corrected himself. But, no matter. Those poor souls whose lives and future are in the hands of the Omaha Immigration Court can expect to be garlanded.
2) Shenanigans in Chicago
Dan Kowalski reports:
IJs hide the ball; find the secret list or lose your case
Friends,
Immigration court practitioners in many cities now face a new hurdle: find, and adhere to, a secret list of IJ procedural preferences (requirements, actually)…posted, in one case, in the “pro bono room” of one court. NOT online anywhere. Oh, and it changes frequently, and without warning. See the attached sample from Chicago.
Practitioners have complained to EOIR, so let’s see what happens.
I have a funny feeling that PWS may have a thing or two to say about all this.
Indeed I do, my friend, indeed I do. This one hits “close to home.”
Back in 2006 my friend and Round Table colleague Judge John Gossart of Baltimore headed a group of IJs who took on the monumental task of writing the first Immigration Court Practice Manual (“ICPM”). Based on Judge Gossart’s own “local court rules and best judicial practices” developed over decades, the ICPM built on the success of the award- winning BIA Practice Manual, created and issued during my tenure as BIA Chair.
One of the key features of the ICPM is thatIt superseded and erased all then-existing “local rules.”
Those few of us IJs who did public education events — under the watchful eye of our HQ “handlers” — were encouraged to tout and promote the ICPM as the “definitive guide” to successful practice before the courts, which, of course I dutifully did as reflected in my speeches from those days. I believe we even had “Q&A” sessions with the local immigration bar to promote and explain the ICPM.
Now, after years of gross mismanagement under Trump and Biden, things have come full circle. The oft-conflicting, idiosyncratic, and frequently inaccessible or counterintuitive “local rules” that the ICPM was created to eliminate evidently have returned with a vengeance.
Meanwhile, the very substantial amount of time, resources, credibility, and effort that went into creating, distributing, and implementing the ICPM has been a colossal waste of taxpayer resources because the last two Administrations have failed in their duty to competently and professionally administer EOIR!
And let’s not leave out Congress! If ever there were a need for a new, independent, professional, expert Article I Court System it’s EOIR. Yet, although Dems have introduced bills, the GOP has expressed no interest in Article I, nor has it been a priority for Congressional leadership and the Administration. It wasn’t even “on the radar screen” during the failed Senate “debate” on the immigration system.
Both Chicago Immigration Court practitioners and those IJs, current and past, who devoted their professional time and energy to the ICPM have been garlanded.
3) ADR On Steroids In Virginia
A long-time DMV immigration lawyer told the “Courtside I-Team” this week:
I routinely have MCHs listed as “in person” that are actually by Webex (I had one today). I also have an Individual on Thursday listed as Webex, but I received an email at 4:00 PM today stating that this was an error, and it was actually in person. I replied that I could not attend in person, as I have too many other cases and family issues to rearrange my schedule at the last minute. We’ll see what happens, but all this is typical of an agency that could care less about applicants, practitioners or due process of law. Take care.
For decades, practitioners and experts had been begging DOJ and EOIR to enter the 21st century with automation. Dishearteningly, now that automation has belatedly arrived at EOIR, it’s being used to severely diminish customer service rather than improve it!
It seems that every whim, irrationality, inefficiency, and inconvenience that developed at EOIR over years has now been “automated” to maximize the trauma and stress inflicted on those appearing before these broken courts. As this example points out, that has led to “Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) on steroids!”
And here’s why automated ADR is such a powerful tool! Some practitioners have told me that it allows EOIR to unilaterally schedule them to be in three or four different courts at the same time, with almost no notice. Then, it’s up to the lawyer to file individual“motions to reschedule” to clean up EOIR’s mess.
Sometimes they are granted, sometimes denied without any rationale. All of this leads to more work and case shuffling but, importantly, without ever getting to the merits of any case!
Meanwhile, the backlog grows exponentially and the stress levels on the private bar and the staff ratchet up.
There might be surer ways to destroy a court system, but none come immediately to mind. This is garlanding at its best!
4) Another “F” In “Immigration Law 101” From The 3rd Circuit
“[W]e conclude that the BIA, in deciding his CAT claim, failed to consider evidence favorable to Herrow. For that reason, we will remand his petition as it applies to that claim. … Herrow claims that the BIA and IJ erred in denying his CAT claim and in finding that (1) he is unlikely to face torture and (2) the Somali government would not acquiesce in such torture. Because the BIA and IJ ignored evidence favorable to Herrow, we will grant his petition in part and remand for a more comprehensive review of the evidence. … To establish a likelihood of future torture, the record must demonstrate an aggregate risk of torture to the noncitizen that exceeds fifty percent. In making this determination, the IJ must address what is likely to happen to the petitioner if removed, and whether “what is likely to happen amount[s] to the legal definition of torture.” In answering these questions here, the BIA and IJ found that Herrow did not demonstrate a likelihood of torture. We conclude, however, that this determination could not have been made if all the evidence presented by Herrow had been properly considered.”
Being wrongfully denied CAT is no small matter, particularly if the USG is threatening to send you to Somalia. Lets get a glimpse of what happens in Somalia, courtesy of the latest report from our State Department:
Government security forces, including NISA and the Puntland Intelligence Agency (PIA), detained boys and adult men in the same facility and threatened, beat, and forced them to confess to crimes, according to Human Rights Watch. There were reports of rape and sexual abuse by government agents, primarily members of the security forces. The Human Rights Center, a local nongovernmental organization (NGO), reported two Somaliland police officers, area commissioner Hassan Ismail and Mustafe Yusuf Dheere, raped Nimo Jama Hassan on June 4 in Caynabo (see sections 1.g. and 6).
Al-Shabaab imposed harsh treatment and punishment on persons in areas under its control (see section 1.g.).
Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment at the hands of clan militias, some of which were government-affiliated, remained frequent. A strong and widespread culture of impunity continued, due mainly to clan protection of perpetrators and weak government capacity to hold the guilty to account.
You might think that would lead Garland and his subordinates to take extra care to get these cases right. But, you would be wrong. Dead wrong in many cases. “Good enough for government work” is the touchstone of garlanding.
By all accounts, Garland was a stellar student during his Harvard Law days. But, not so much some of his EOIR judges at the trial and appellate levels, particularly some of the “Sessions/Barr holdovers” who appear to have been appointed to the bench primarily because they were viewed as likely to deny protection without regard to law or facts. (I’ll concede that Barr and Sessions were wrong about some of their appointments who turned out, perhaps againstthe odds, to be fair judges.)
Far too many EOIR judges receive “Fs” from the Courts of Appeals on the basics of immigration and asylum law, even though most mistakes never get to the Article III Courts or manage to otherwise wend their way through the system, thereby endangering lives.
Mr. Herrow was garlanded, but survived (at least for now) thanks to the work of his lawyers and the Third Circuit.
Well, folks, that’s this week’s wrap from Gar-Land, “the land that justice forgot!” But, stay tuned to Courtside for future updates on garlanding and its victims!
What’s on the horizon: In March, a final report expected from AILA Ohio on systemic racism at EOIR! Should be a great read!
