🇺🇸ELECTION: NDPA “CALL TO ACTION” 🗽– HERE ARE “REAL LIFE” THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE OUR NATION THIS FALL!

ELECTION: HERE ARE “REAL LIFE” THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE OUR NATION THIS FALL!

https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F2QV4cC9&data=02%7C01%7C%7Ca37ac6a9da0b4b37201108d850a3f8e4%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637348012462505702&sdata=4hJ1XxSAXZDEItHRRI%2FYb%2BV5YRb0smSbysrHOaeIiRk%3D&reserved=0

From Gary Sampliner

Gary is a retired federal attorney who is heading up election efforts for a small DC area social action organization called JAMAAT (Jews and Muslims and Allies Acting Together).

Election 2020: Some Ways to Get Involved

Mass texting. This is a means of voter outreach that it is a lot of fun and effective in getting the message out and having conversations with many voters in a short period of time — and great for those with strong aversions to talking to strangers on the phone. Although some training is needed for this, mass texting can be learned within an hour, and anyone can pick up how it is done within a short time of starting to do the actual texts. Organizations use programs that allow volunteers to send a pre-written text message out to voters through their computers in batches of 200-1000, which can be done in no more than 2-4 minutes. On average, 10-20% will answer, some immediately and others trickling in over the next few hours. Volunteers can then engage with many of these voters, usually through a wide variety of scripted answers which mostly cover the waterfront of responses they receive, and sometimes result in more creative and substantive conversations. You can complete all of your conversations for a batch in 60-90 minutes, with occasional check-ins for a few responses that trickle in over the next 48 hours. The voters only get your first name and don’t have your phone number or further information about you. You can get going in doing mass texts that reach 1000 voters at a time and result in many substantive discussions through the People’s Action Network, which is now sending over a million texts a week to voters in key swing states, by clicking here:

Phone banking. While phone banking has its rewards and occasional frustrations, it has been found to be the most effective means of engaging voters other than door-to-door canvassing. Most campaigns now use electronic dialers, to dial quickly and allow callers to speak only to people who answer, and they also usually provide a script to use and adapt to their own words. While there can be many wrong numbers and occasional confrontations, many of the phone banks target likely friendly groups of people (e.g. Dem voters who we encourage to come out and get or submit ballots). In this year of COVID, phone bankers are finding that the proportion of lonely people who will pick up the phone and talk is increasing.

Writing post cards. A great outreach technique for the worst technophobes!    A nationally known non-partisan campaign called Reclaim Our Vote has sent over 5 million post cards, primarily to deregistered (purged from the rolls) voters of color in swing states, urging recipients to register and to vote, and provide needed contact info, and is looking to send out many more as soon as possible, before shifting its efforts to phone banking and texting. (https://actionnetwork.org/forms/reclaim-our-vote-signup). Reclaim Our Vote is also one of the few campaign-related organizations that houses of worship and other 501(c)(3) organizations can participate in, and to which people can make tax-deductible contributions, because it is non-partisan (it does not search out voters by party registration). Its parent organization, Center for Common Ground, is itself a 501(c)(3) organization. Another group called Postcards to Voters (https://postcardstovoters.org/) writes post cards to Democratic leaning voters in swing states around the country. The group has a few openings in a local chapter in the DC area where one of our JAMAAT members is active, and they get together in periodic friendly Zoom meetings to write post cards and get to know each other. Please contact us at JAMAAT if you are interested.

Writing Letters. Another great outlet for the tech-challenged. An organization called Vote Forward, https://votefwd.org, is working with groups such as Swing Left to have volunteers write 10 million letters to infrequent Democratic voters in swing states, to send shortly before the election to remind them to vote.  They have had past success with their strategy, because recipients are likely to open the handwritten, personally addressed letters that remind people to vote shortly before the election. This year, they have decided to send their letters out on October 17.

Organizing friends and family. We all know that individuals have far more influence on people they know than on strangers. The Biden campaign has come up with a training program and app called Vote Joe, available on the App Store, to help organize friends and family, which seems particularly useful for young people with infrequently voting friends or people with friends and family who need to be acquainted with basic facts on the issues. The app allows users to help figure out whom to target, by providing access to publicly available voting data to show how frequently any person has voted and (depending on the state) the party for which they registered, and provides easily accessible information on the major issues of concern to voters.   For the next of the training programs that shows how to use the app and more, see https://www.mobilize.us/2020victory/?address=20850&lat=39.0839994&lon=-77.1527813.

In addition, MoveOn has put together a Mobilize to Win program that provides a framework for how to reach friends and family effectively in the 17 key battleground states for the Presidential and Senate elections and getting them and people in their networks to vote: https://front.moveon.org/mobilize-to-win/.

Poll watching and voter assistance hotlines. With all the news about Republican efforts at voter suppression and massive disqualification of votes, Democratic groups have sprung up to resist such efforts through voter education and poll observation. You can get involved with the Biden campaign as a poll observer by clicking here, be trained on how to answer questions on the Biden campaign’s National Voter Assistance hotline by clicking here, and become involved as a nonpartisan Election Protection volunteer, supported by many of our country’s best-known non-partisan election protection organizations, by clicking here.

Giving money. You are all deluged with requests for donations that seem to come from every organization on Earth, each of which professes to be the one in greatest need of your money. This document will not endorse giving to any of the worthy organizations listed here over any others. But if you have money to donate to one or more political campaigns, and you care about particular issues, you can increase the impact of your contribution by donating through a PAC of an interest group whose positions on your issue of concern are supported by that group. One organization to consider, for anyone interested in promoting an equitable two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, is the J Street PAC, https://jstreet.org/about-us/about-jstreetpac/#.X0gfNMhKg2w.   In its 12 years that it has been in existence, this group has hired some of the savviest people on the Hill, which has helped propel J Street into becoming one of the most successful Jewish organizations in Washington. One service they offer, if you wish to donate to Senate or House campaigns but could use some guidance on which campaigns are most in need of money that can make a difference, is to consult with their resident expert on this subject, Capital/South Assistant Regional Director Mike Fox, mike@jstreet.org. You will need to become a member of J Street through its web site in order to donate through the PAC, at no financial obligation. All monies donated through the PAC will go directly to the designated candidate.

Organizations doing various types of voter outreach

2020 Victory (mobilize.us/2020victory/) is the website for the DNC, for both the Biden/Harris campaign and downballot campaigns in battleground states. Here you can get text training (required before doing any texting on their campaigns), phone banking, and different types of organizing, and then sign up for particular phone banking, texting, and get out the vote events to all manner of targeted audiences.

Moms Demand Action on Gun Sense has a very active Maryland chapter coordinating postcarding for Spanberger and Luria (the two likely close congressional races in our area) and for Reclaim Our Vote, as well as texting (currently with 2020 Victory) and phone banking. They do frequent small group Zoom parties in connection with their events, led by their experienced team heads, to give tips, conversation, and offer incentives like campaign swag for frequent participants. You can contact them through the Moms Demand Action – MD Facebook page or you can e-mail mocomomselections@gmail.com.

Seed the Vote, https://www.everydaypeoplepac.org/seedthevote/, a Bay Area-organized campaign of progressive organizations, is teaming with groups from AZ, PA, and FL to do phone-banking and texting to those critical states each day of the week. Their partner organizations feature a “deep canvassing” technique to try to understand the concerns of infrequent and swing voters, to get back to them with answers to questions they cannot handle from initial questions, and to refer people in need of resources to helping institutions.

Powered by People is a PAC started and led by Beto O’Rourke, which makes calls to Texas Democrats and people of color: see https://map.betoorourke.com/ Its phone banks feature 1 or 2 weekly 2-hour sessions that start with a Zoom conference with inspirational remarks led by Beto himself, and feature both an automatic dialer I’ve found works very well and a good supportive staff who can help with issues while calls are ongoing.

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, the progressive Jewish organization that focuses on domestic issues such as racial justice, immigration, and the environment, is running a Vote Out Fear campaign (https://www.bendthearc.us/vote_out_fear_pb), doing phone banking and text banking aimed at swing Jewish voters (initially in Florida and Georgia, now expanded to include six other key states).

Turnout 2020, https://turnout2020.org/, a program of a coalition of left-leaning groups called the Progressive Turnout Project, primarily makes calls to infrequent Democratic swing state voters to urge them to take action, normally on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They are currently calling Arizona and Pennsylvania voters to encourage that they request a vote-by-mail ballot, with talking points to help voters understand options.

JAMAAT (Jews and Muslims and Allies Acting Together) is a small grass roots organization in the DC area that focuses on fighting Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, as well as on issues like immigration, preventing gun violence, and the environment. Its members have been working with all of the groups listed here. Interested people can participate in our next virtual organizing meeting on Sunday, October 4 at 7:00 pm EDT, for which they should register at http://bit.ly/jamaat2020. Any questions should be referred to gsampliner@gmail.com.

Reclaim our Vote, https://actionnetwork.org/forms/reclaim-our-vote-signup, which will be pivoting later in September from post card writing to phone and text banking, and they have useful training courses coming up to help hesitant phone bankers, some on Mondays and some at other times.

Grassroots Democrats (https://grassrootsdems.org/) is a California-based organization that has gone national and participates in phone banking and texting campaigns in most of the battleground states. They have a well-organized website to hook interested people into phone banking and texting opportunities, as well as training, in battleground state races of their choice, and good links to other key websites to get brief summaries of the candidates; background and positions.

NextGen America (https://nextgenamerica.org/2020-plan/ or https://www.mobilize.us/nextgen/) employs text banks, phone banks, and other social media strategies to target young people (ages 18-35) less likely to vote in 11 battleground states.

o Changing the Conversation (ctctogether.org) is a group that is doing both telephone and (under a strict protocol) door-to-door canvassing, focusing on Pennsylvania. They train people extensively in “deep canvassing,” which has worked to persuade reluctant voters to vote and change the minds of least the less ardent Trump supporters, not by using facts and arguments but by story-telling, building empathy, and getting voters to tell their own stories that can cause them to convince themselves to come out to vote and vote our way.

o Environmental Voter Project (https://www.environmentalvoter.org/) is a non-partisan organization that uses big-data analytics to identify inactive environmentalists in battleground states and then through its phone banks and text banks, applies cutting-edge behavioral science to turn them into more consistent voters.

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This November, vote like your life and our nation depend open it. Becauise they do!

PWS

10-03-20

😎⚖️👍🇺🇸 GOOD GUYS WIN AGAIN! – Federal Judge Slams Regime’s Absurdist Anti-TPS Interpretation, Reverses Matter of H-G-G-!

Brittany Bakken, Kelsey Friberg, and I are thrilled to share with you that Matter of HGG has been reversed. Of course, the government will appeal. Nevertheless, a great way to end a Monday.

Best regards,

David L. Wilson, Esq.

Managing Attorney

Wilson Law Group

Fullo demission here:

HGG – reversed!

_____________________________________________________________________________

Hats off to these fierce “Warriors of The New Due Process Army” 🏆⭐️🥇

David Wilson, Esquire
Managing Attorney
Wilson Law Group, Source: wilsonlg.com

Brittany Bakken, Esquire
Senior Attorney
Wilson Law Group
Source: wilsonlg.com

Kelsey Friberg, Esquire
Associate Attorney
Wilson Law Group
Source: wilsonlg.com

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The case is Hernandez v. Barr, USDC D MN

Not only was the USCIS position a violation of the plain meaning of the statute, as found by Chief Judge Tunheim, it is totally stupid from a policy standpoint! With hundreds of thousands of law-abiding TPS recipients in the U.S., integrated into our society, and contributing to our economy, a rational, non-racist, non-xenophobic Administration would welcome and utilize ways of integrating them into our legal immigration system. Instead, the Trump kakistocracy, wastes time, squanders resources, and violates the law looking for bogus ways to “get to no.” How dumb and counterproductive can it get!

Due Process Forever! Kakistocracy never!

PWS

09-30-20

RIGHT ON CUE: Billy The Bigot’s Latest Illegal, Unethical, Absurdist Asylum Attack “Precedent” Shows Why Only A “Radical Progressive Humanitarian Judiciary” Can Save The American Justice System From Racist Fascism! — Matter of A-C-A-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 84 (A.G. 2020)

🤮☠️🏴‍☠️👎🏻🆘⚰️

The Attorney General has issued a decision in Matter of A-C-A-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 84 (A.G. 2020)

In conducting its review of an alien’s asylum claim, the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) must examine de novo whether the facts found by the immigration judge satisfy all of the statutory elements of asylum as a matter of law. See Matter of R‑A‑F‑, 27 I&N Dec. 778 (A.G. 2020).

When reviewing a grant of asylum, the Board should not accept the parties’ stipulations to, or failures to address, any of the particular elements of asylum—including, where necessary, the elements of a particular social group. Instead, unless it affirms without opinion under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(e)(4)(i), the Board should meaningfully review each element of an asylum claim before affirming such a grant, or before independently ordering a grant of asylum. See Matter of L‑E‑A‑, 27 I&N Dec. 581, 589 (A.G. 2019).

Even if an applicant is a member of a cognizable particular social group and has suffered persecution, an asylum claim should be denied if the harm inflicted or threatened by the persecutor is not “on account of” the alien’s membership in that group. That requirement is especially important to scrutinize where the asserted particular social group encompasses many millions of persons in a particular society.

An alien’s membership in a particular social group cannot be “incidental, tangential, or subordinate to the persecutor’s motivation . . . [for] why the persecutor[] sought to inflict harm.” Matter of A‑B‑, 27 I&N Dec. 316, 338 (A.G. 2018) (citations omitted). Accordingly, persecution that results from personal animus or retribution generally does not support eligibility for asylum.

__________________________________________________

Executive Office for Immigration Review

Office of Policy

Communications and Legislative Affairs Division

PAO.EOIR@usdoj.gov

703-305-0289

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To state the obvious, “personal animus” and “retribution” often are involved in cases where race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social, or political opinion is “at least one central reason” for the persecution. That’s what the “mixed motive” doctrine is all about.

Look at Nazi Germany where many of the persecutors stood to gain personally or professionally or to extract retribution from the removal of their Jewish neighbors or former colleagues from society. What do you think happened to the property, possessions, and positions of those sent off to be gassed?

Billy the Bigot’s unethical, illegal, and immoral attempt to rewrite asylum law is part and parcel of the “any reason to deny” program aimed disproportionally at women (probably the “most persecuted social group in the world“) and applicants of color. Yet, time and again, Article III Courts fail to effectively “call out” this racism and misogyny driving an illegal rewrite of asylum laws! Asylum is intended to “protect, not reject.”

Also to state the obvious, this decision makes party stipulations, a key to fairly reducing the backlog and achieving justice in an adversary system, meaningless. Applied across the board, this would basically disable the American justice system at both the Federal and State levels.

But, of course, the Bigot’s real intent is to dump on asylum seekers, who tend to be individuals of color. The same standards won’t necessarily be applied when the interests of certain privileged White folks are at stake. It’s the unconstitutional, intentionally “unequal justice system” promoted by the GOP.

It’s another example of “Dred Scottification” of minorities and the most vulnerable by the regime and the Federal Courts. Once, a better qualified Supremes required the Executive to carry out the statutory mandate of a generous asylum system that complied with international standards (INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca). Now, it’s all about the Supremes’ majority’s furthering the regime’s White Nationalist agenda!

The Supremes’ GOP majority has been too intellectually dishonest and past Dem Administrations too “willfully dense” to connect the dots. But, this type of neo-Fascist nonsense by a bigot totally unqualified for public office, let alone purporting to serve in a quasi-judicial capacity, is a gross violation of established ethical standards that ties directly into the breakdown in the fabric of our society in a crescendo of racism, bigotry, false narratives, public mistrust, and authoritarianism! Lawyers with immigration and human rights experience recognize this, even if others are blind — whether willfully or negligently.

There is no excuse for an intentionally enfeebled, intellectually dishonest, and too often anti-democracy Federal Judiciary that has failed to hold Trump, Barr, Wolf, Miller, Francisco, and other other members of the anti-democracy, Jim Crow movement that drives today’s GOP accountable for their unethical, unconstitutional conduct, overt racism, and other gross misdeeds!

Better judges for a better America! Vote the kakistocracy out this Fall and usher in the age of the “Radical Progressive Humanitarian Judiciary” before it’s too late! Equal justice applies to all persons, not just Billy the Bigot’s favored, largely White male, class.

Convicted felons get reduced sentenced and motions to dismiss charges. Corrupt public officials avoid the law and mock ethical standards. Refugees of color get banishment and death!

Due Process Forever! Billy The Bigot Never!

PWS

09-25-20

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⚖️🗽🇺🇸FORMER DEPUTY AG DON AYER, JUDGE MIMI TSANKOV AMONG “HEADLINERS” AT TIMELY UPCOMING NY CITY BAR ASSN. EVENT: “Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption” — Register Now, Right Here!

Honorable Mimi Tsankov
U.S. Immigration Judge
Eastern Region Vice President
National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)

Elizabeth Gibson, New Due Process Army Superstar & Editor Publisher Of The Renowned Weekly “Gibson Report” reports:

Hi Everyone,

I want to flag an upcoming NYCBA webinar series on Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption. Full disclosure, I’m on the taskforce organizing the event, but I highly recommend it. The speaker list is top-notch.

For immigration practitioners in particular, Session 4 will feature IJ Tsankov, representing NAIJ, and the session will discuss “deteriorations of voting rights, asylum rights and incarceration policies, the militarization of policing and the disparate treatment of minorities by police and prosecutors, and the use of libel litigation to inflict costs on individuals and media outlets who challenge or criticize officeholders.”

It’s free for NYCBA members, $15 for other lawyers, and free for the general public (including law students and fellows). Please circulate widely.

Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption
Session 1: Threats to the Rule of Law in America: A Survey

Tuesday, September 15 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Session 2: Checks, Balances and Oversight — the Distribution of Governmental Power and Information

Tuesday, September 22 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Session 3: Interference with Judicial Independence and Local Law Enforcement

Thursday, October 8 | 11:00 a.m. -2:00 p.m.
Session 4: Threats to Individual and Societal Rights

Wednesday, October 21 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Session 5: Rebuilding the Rule of Law in America: What Can and Should the Legal Profession, Individual Lawyers and Citizens Do?

Wednesday, November 18 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Eric Friedman
efriedman@nycbar.org

Eli Cohen
ecohen@nycbar.org

New York City Bar Association Announces Five-Part Forum on the Rule of Law

Fall Series to Feature Former Officials, Judges, Scholars and More

New York, August 10, 2020 – The New York City Bar Association has announced a five-part Forum on the Rule of Law, to take place this fall beginning on September 15. (Full schedule and speaker list below.)

The “Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption” will feature panels of respected experts from across the political spectrum – including former government officials, judges and scholars – who will identify current challenges and threats to the rule of law in America, discuss why they matter and propose remedies. Participants will include Nicole Austin-Hillery, Donald Ayer, Mitchell Bernard, Preet Bharara, Robert Cusumano, Hon. Mary McGowan Davis, John Feerick, Charles Fried, Daniel Goldman, Harold Hongju Koh, Errol Louis, Margaret Colgate Love, David McCraw, Barbara McQuade, Dennis Parker, Myrna Perez, Hon. Jed Rakoff; Anthony Romero, Cass Sunstein, Hon. Mimi Tsankov, Joyce Vance, and Cecilia Wang. City Bar President Sheila S. Boston will introduce the series, and Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University, author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom, will kick off the opening session with a survey of the “Threats to the Rule of Law in America.”

All sessions will be carried live on Zoom and will be open to the public free of charge ($15 for non-member lawyers):

Session 1: Threats to the Rule of Law in America: A Survey

(Sept 15, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)

Session 2: Checks, Balances and Oversight — the Distribution of Governmental Power and Information

(Sept 22, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)

Session 3: Interference with Judicial Independence and Local Law Enforcement

(October 8, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.)

Session 4: Threats to Individual and Societal Rights

(Oct 21, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)

Session 5: Rebuilding the Rule of Law in America: What Can and Should the Legal Profession, Individual Lawyers and Citizens Do?

(Nov 18, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)

“The rule of law is the foundation of our democracy,” said City Bar President Sheila S. Boston. “It’s at the core of our Constitution that sets forth the powers of our government and the rights of our people, and the supremacy of the law in our nation ensures that no one can claim to be above it. The rule of law is what provides for transparency and equity in our society, enables us to confront challenges, foreign or domestic, and protects our security and welfare so that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness exists for us all.”

The forum is produced by the City Bar’s Task Force on the Rule of Law, which, along with other relevant City Bar Committees, has issued a series of reports and statements relating to inappropriate actions by the Attorney General in a broad range of areas, Presidential dismissal of Inspectors General and interference in criminal and military trials, inappropriate action by the Secretary of State to undermine the International Criminal Court, the need for legislative reform of Presidential emergency powers, a proposal to replace Guantanamo’s military commissions with an Article III court and the improper use of federal security forces to clear peaceful demonstrators in Washington, D.C. and displace local law enforcement in Portland.

“While we hope these individual reports have been useful to our members and the public, they illustrate a broader theme – threats to the Rule of Law itself – that we believe has not received sufficient in-depth attention in either the public or the legal profession,” said Stephen L. Kass, Chair of the Task Force. “Our goal is to create an ongoing and thought-provoking discussion among the legal profession, the academic community and the public about what can and should be done to assure that America remains a nation governed by law even in a time of crisis – or especially in a time of crisis – and to identify the actions necessary for our justice system to promote the impartial, equitable and effective enforcement of those laws.”

In addition to the work of the Task Force on the Rule of Law, the City Bar has been speaking out on rule-of-law issues for decades through its committees on Federal Courts, Government Ethics, Immigration and Nationality Law, and its Task Force on National Security and Rule of Law (the predecessor of the Task Force on the Rule of Law).

Full Schedule:

Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption

Session 1: Threats to the Rule of Law in America: A Survey

Tuesday, September 15 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

This session will broadly survey recent developments that implicate, and may signal rejection of, traditional Constitutional roles and customary norms of behavior within the national government and each of its branches. Session 1 will also take an inventory of recent challenges to laws and norms involving the impartial administration of justice by law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts and the Executive, as well as threats to individual and societal rights generally and to marginalized communities in particular. Individual speakers will focus on constitutional checks and balances, politicization of the administration of justice, dramatic changes in how governmental agencies ascertain facts and make decisions, and trends in derogation of individual and societal rights, including voting rights and the promise of impartial justice for all.

Introduction: Sheila S. Boston, President, New York City Bar Association

Keynote Speaker: Timothy Snyder, Professor of History, Yale University; author, Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom

Dennis Parker, Director, National Center for Law and Economic Justice

Cass Sunstein, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Joyce Vance, Professor of Law, University of Alabama School of Law; former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama

Session 2: Checks, Balances and Oversight – the Distribution of Governmental Power and Information

Tuesday, September 22 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

This session will focus in depth on the rule of law challenges arising out of disruption of traditional “checks and balances” among the branches of the government, the ideas of “independence” and “oversight” among the agencies of government, and the ability of the Congress or Inspectors General and “whistleblowers” to perform their functions in the face of Executive secrecy, limits on Congressional subpoena power, governmental job insecurity and public statements critical of the bureaucratic levers of government.

Keynote Speaker: Donald Ayer, Partner at Jones Day; former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush; former Principal Deputy Solicitor General under Solicitor General Charles Fried.

Moderator: Errol Louis, CNN Political Analyst; Host of NY1’s “Inside City Hall”

Mitchell Bernard, Executive Director, National Resources Defense Council

Preet Bharara, former U .S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York

Daniel Goldman, Counsel to the House Intelligence Committee

Barbara McQuade, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School; former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan

Session 3: Interference with Judicial Independence and Local Law Enforcement
Thursday, October 8 | 11:00 a.m. -2:00 p.m.)

This session will explore the effects of Executive disruption of several distinct justice systems – civil and criminal courts, the immigration court system and local law enforcement. Speakers will explore the implications of Executive interference with investigations and trials, castigation of individual judges and jurors, the deployment of military and/or federal forces in connection with local law enforcement and the issuance of pardons without traditional due diligence for civilian and military crimes.

Keynote Speaker: Charles Fried, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; former U.S. Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan

Margaret Colgate Love, Executive Director, Collateral Consequences Resource Center; former U.S. Pardon Attorney

Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School; former Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State

Hon. Jed Rakoff, Senior U.S. District Court Judge, Southern District of New York

Session 4: Threats to Individual and Societal Rights

Wednesday, October 21 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

This session will survey recent trends that question the role of law and courts in the pursuit of a just and democratic society. Is adherence to the rule of law deteriorating and, if so, is that because of limitations on the ability (or inclination) of citizens and courts to prevent violations of individual rights or, more broadly, the rules governing a functioning democracy? Speakers will discuss the most salient of the deteriorations of voting rights, asylum rights and incarceration policies, the militarization of policing and the disparate treatment of minorities by police and prosecutors, and the use of libel litigation to inflict costs on individuals and media outlets who challenge or criticize officeholders.

Keynote Speaker: Anthony Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union

Nicole Austin-Hillary, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch U.S. Program

David McCraw, Senior Vice-President and Deputy General Counsel, New York Times

Myrna Perez, Director, Voting Rights and Elections Program, Brennan Center for Justice

Hon. Mimi Tsankov, Vice President, Eastern Region, National Association of Immigration Judges

Cecilia Wang, Deputy Legal Director and Director of the Center for Democracy, American Civil Liberties Union

Session 5: Rebuilding the Rule of Law in America: What Can and Should the Legal Profession, Individual Lawyers and Citizens Do?

Wednesday, November 18 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

This session will explore the role of individual lawyers, professional organizations and citizens in protecting the rule of law as a guiding principle in American public life and in restoring the norms and standards by which we may remain a society governed by transparent rules equitably applied. Speakers will discuss the history of efforts by the organized bar to support and sustain impartial justice, the scope of pro bono work by the private bar and the private sector, the ethical standards guiding government officials and the education of the public about the necessity of acting to protect a fair and equitable rule of law. Speakers will draw on their own experience to offer lessons for members of the bar on building on one’s own background and training to promote the rule of law domestically and abroad.

Keynote Speaker: John Feerick, Fordham Law Dean Emeritus and Norris Professor of Law, Fordham Law School

Robert Cusumano, founder and CEO, Legal Horizons Foundation; former Corporate General Counsel

Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School; former Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State

Hon. Mary McGowan Davis, Former New York Supreme Court Justice; Member, UN Committees of Independent Experts in International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law

Interested media please email efriedman@nycbar.org for access to this event.

About the Association

The mission of the New York City Bar Association, which was founded in 1870 and has 25,000 members, is to equip and mobilize a diverse legal profession to practice with excellence, promote reform of the law, and uphold the rule of law and access to justice in support of a fair society and the public interest in our community, our nation, and throughout the world. www.nycbar.org

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☠️⚠️‼️DISCLAIMER: Of course, the following are just my views, not the views of anyone on the All-Star cast of speakers at this upcoming event, the NYCBA, or anyone else of any importance whatsoever!

Don is my former partner at Jones Day and a long time colleague going back to our days together at a “Better DOJ.” Mimi and I have been friends and colleagues for years in the NAIJ, the FBA, and on the Immigration Court.

Elizabeth is my former student at Georgetown Law, a former intern at the Arlington Immigration Court, a former Judicial Law Clerk at the NY Immigration Court, and a “charter member” and leader of the “New Due Process Army” (“NDPA”). She’s still early in her career, but already establishing herself as one of the “best legal minds” in the business — in immigration, human rights, Constitutional Law, or any any other field. Elizabeth and others like her are indeed “the future of American law and the nation!”

In nearly five decades as a lawyer in the public, private, and academic sectors, I have never seen such a concerted attack on the rule of law and the institutional underpinnings of American democracy as that being carried our by the Trump regime.

Perhaps most shocking and disappointing to me has been the ineffective “pushback” and often outright complicity or encouragement offered to “the scofflaw destroyers” by our supposedly independent Article III Judiciary.

Let’s cut to the chase! The only real role of the Federal Judiciary is to protect our nation from tyranny and overreach from the the other two branches of Government. That’s it in a nutshell! If they can’t do that, they really have no purpose that couldn’t be fulfilled by the State and Local Courts.

In this role, the Article IIIs have failed — miserably! With a “disappearing Congress,” the Article IIIs, starting with the lousy performance of the Supremes, overall have been unwilling effectively to stand up to Trump’s corrupt, overtly racist, divisive, and illegal White Nationalist agenda. An agenda that is destroying our society and mocking the Constitutional guarantees of “equal justice for all.”

I call the regime’s strategy “Dred Scottification” or “dehumanization of the other before the law.” It targets people of color, particularly immigrants and asylum seekers.

Outrageously, rather than emphatically rejecting this clearly unconstitutional “throwback to Jim Crow,” a Supremes’ majority has embraced and furthered it: from the “Muslim Bam;” to illegally letting legitimate asylum applicants rot, be abused, and die in Mexico; to allowing a deadly irrational, racist attack on the health and public benefits of the legal immigrant community; to turning their back on refugees who are are potentially being sentenced to death without any recognizable legal process; to allowing GOP politicos to blatantly suppress Black and Hispanic voting rights for corrupt political gain, the “tone-deaf” and spineless Supremes’ majority has misused its life tenure to clearly install itself on the wrong side of history — with racists and human rights abusers of the past!

We see it playing out every day; it will continue to get worse if we don’t get “regime change.” We need a functional Congress, without Mitch McConnell’s poisonous intransigence, and better Federal Judges, at all levels. Judges who actually believe in equal justice for all under our Constitution and have the guts and intellectual integrity to stand up for it — whether the issue is voting rights, criminal justice, rights of asylum seekers, immigrants’ rights, effective Congressional oversight of the Executive, or putting an end to the “due process parody” going on daily in the “weaponized and politicized” Immigration “Courts” (that are not “courts” at all by any commonly understood meaning of the word).

For example, as American justice implodes, AG Billy Barr and several GOP Supremes have decided that the “real enemy” is “nationwide injunctions” by US District Court Judges. This is nothing short of “legal absurdism” being spouted by folks who are supposed to be functioning as “responsible public officials!”

As those who live in the “real world” of the law, peopled by actual human beings, nationwide injunctions are one of the few effective tools that defenders of our Constitution (many serving pro bono) have to stop life-threatening illegal attacks by the regime on individual rights, particularly in the field of immigration and human rights. Otherwise, the regime’s “violate the law at will and fill the courts with frivolous litigation strategy,” adopted by the DOJ and furthered by the Supremes, would simply bury and overwhelm the defenders of individual rights and the rule of law.

Without nationwide injunctions against illegal Executive actions, by the time the regime’s legal transgressions worked their way to the Supremes, most of the bodies would be dead and buried. ⚰️⚰️Indeed, we see the results of this illegal abrogation of U.S. asylum law and international protections, sans legislation or legitimate rationale, which daily returns legitimate refugees, many women and children, to harm, torture, or death, without any process whatsoever, let alone the “due process” required by the Constitution. ☠️🤮⚰️🏴‍☠️

You might ask yourself what purpose is served by a Supremes’ majority that has encouraged and facilitated this type of deadly “outlaw behavior” that will stain our nation’s soul and reputation forever in the eyes of history? It’s not “rocket science” — really just Con Law 101, common sense, and human decency, which seem to have fled the scene at our highest Court.

The complete breakdown of professional and ethical standards within the Executive, particularly the DOJ, that used to govern positions taken, arguments made, and evidence submitted to Federal Courts also is shocking to those of us who once served in the DOJ. Likewise, the overall failure of the Federal Courts to enforce even minimal standards of professionalism and the duty of “candor to a tribunal” for Government lawyers is surprising and disheartening.

Yes, Federal Judges sometimes “pan” or “wring their hands” about the bogus positions, disingenuous reasoning, and contemptuous actions of agencies and Government lawyers. But, they seldom, if ever, take meaningful corrective action. For Pete’s sake, both “Wolfman” and “Cooch Cooch” have been held by a Federal Judge to have been illegally appointed to their acting positions! Yet every day, these “illegals” continue to mete out injustice, and racist-driven policies on largely defenseless migrants . What kind of judiciary allows this kind of “in your face nonsense” to continue unabated?

This judicial fecklessness hasn’t been lost on folks like Billy Barr, Chad “Wolfman” Wolf, Stephen Miller, “Cooch Cooch,” Mark Morgan, Noel Francisco, and other Trump sycophants who continue to flood the Federal Courts with false narratives, bogus positions, and what many would characterize as “unadulterated BS” without meaningful consequences, other than to stretch the “battle lines” of the pro bono opposition to the breaking point. Indeed, as many fearless immigration and human rights litigators will confirm, it has become the burden of the private, usually pro bono or “low bono,” bar to “fact check” and disprove the false narratives and incomplete or misleading accounts submitted by the DOJ to the Federal Courts.

How does this “misplacing of the burden” further the interests of justice and encourage representation of the most vulnerable in our society? Clearly, it doesn’t, which is the entire point of the DOJ’s destructive and unprofessional “strategy!” Certainly, these are unmistakable signs of widespread systemic breakdown in our Federal justice system.

I urge everyone to attend and learn more about why the rule of law is “on the ropes” in today’s America, what efforts are being made to save and preserve it, and to ponder the consequences of what another four years of a corrupt, scofflaw, White Nationalist regime and complicit Federal Judges could mean for everyone in America and perhaps the world!

Due Process Forever! If you don’t stand up for it, you’ll find yourself living in the “world’s highest-GNP failed state,” governed by a hereditary kakistocracy enabled by feckless “judges” more interested in their life tenure than in YOUR rights under the law!🤮☠️🏴‍☠️👎

Star Chamber Justice

“Due Process of Law”

As Reenvisioned By Trump & Billy Barr

This is what “Dred Scottification” or the “end of the rule of law” as promoted by Trump, Miller, Barr and their cronies, and enabled by a tone-deaf and “insulated from the human suffering they cause” Supremes’ majority looks like:

“Floaters” — “Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

PWS

09-03-20

⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️SOURCE OF RACIAL TENSION & ENDEMIC INEQUALITY 🤮: U.S. COURTS: Nan Aron Of Alliance For Justice Speaks Out On Why We Need Progressive Judges!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-biden-supreme-court/2020/08/28/0f0a8158-e937-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html

By Seung Min Kim in the WashPost:

. . . .

But Democrats all but ignored the Supreme Court in their four-day convention earlier this month, even after the party spent Trump’s first term reckoning with the consequences of Republicans confirming two justices, including a reliably conservative justice who replaced the court’s swing vote.

The contrast worries liberal activists who see it as further evidence that the Democratic Party isn’t paying enough attention to an area where conservatives have made big inroads in recent years: control of the courts.

“The fact that Democrats spent so little to no time discussing the federal bench failed to take into account that their critically important goals for the future will be challenged in the courts,” said Nan Aron, the president of the liberal judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice.

She added: “It’s a major misstep, given the fact that these 200 judges will make it very difficult, if not impossible in many cases, for the Democrats to accomplish their worthy goals going forward.”

. . . .

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Read the full article at the link,

Thanks, Nan, for speaking out! I’ve always been astounded by the Dems’ failure to recognize the importance of getting demonstrated advocates for due process, fundamental fairness, human rights, equal justice under law, and best practices on the Federal Bench.

Heck, look at the Dems beyond disastrous and just plain incompetent approach to the Immigration Bench in the Obama Administration — an administrative court controlled entirely by the Attorney General. Can’t blame Mitch and the GOP for:

- Ridiculously convoluted and entirely unnecessary 2-year hiring process (under former Director Anthony C. Moscato, the Clinton Administration could sometimes do it in a fraction of that time with better, or at least no worse, results);
- Eschewing progressive judicial candidates, including well-qualified underrepresented groups, with scholarly credentials and practical expertise in immigration, asylum, human rights, and due process in favor of an endless stream of largely “insider only, don’t rock the boat” picks;
- Leaving numerous positions unfilled at the end of the Administration for White Nationalist xenophobe Jeff Sessions to fill;
- Ignoring obvious, achievable management reforms like e-filing!

The Trump Administration is teeming with malicious incompetents, particularly in the Immigration-related agencies. Notwithstanding that, they immediately figured out how to expedite Immigration Judge hiring and to load the bench with some of the worst, most unqualified, and biased so-called “judges” in modern American legal history!

In other words, Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr shamelessly and rapidly weaponized the Immigration Courts and made them subservient shills and zealots for DHS enforcement and Stephen Miller’s White Supremacist agenda. And feckless Article III Courts, now also stuffed with Trump judges, have, with a few notable exceptions, looked the other way as the slaughter of Constitutional due process and vulnerable humans (including kids) unfolds. You couldn’t write a worse script for the rule of law and future of humanity!

Democrats pretended that the Immigration Courts existed merely to “go along to get along with the policy flavor of the day.” They did not reinforce due process, fundamental fairness, or view the Immigration Bench as a source of expertise, creativity, progressive legal thinking, or creative legal problem solving. The backlogs grew, morale slid (although admittedly not at the breakneck pace under the Trump regime), and the bodies of those who should have been saved but weren’t started to pile up. Simple reforms — try e-filing, for example — were left unaccomplished!

It wasn’t “malicious incompetence” — just good old fashioned “administrative incompetence.” But the latter paved the way for the former to “go on steroids” during the Trump regime. This isn’t just political malpractice and academic debate! Real people have lost their lives, families, or futures because of the Dems’ diddling approach to justice — including America’s largest and perhaps most significant court system over which they had total control!

It’s actually pretty simple: Better judges (from the Supremes to the Immigration Courts) for a better America! And, time for the immigration/human rights community to wake up, join the NDPA, and demand that the Dems do better next time around!

Due Process Forever! Repeating past mistakes, never!

PWS

08-30-20

🇺🇸🗽⚖️😎👏🏽👍🏼NDPA IN ACTION: CARECEN, CLINIC & OTHER NGOs SUE “ILLEGAL” COOCH COOCH ON INSANELY STUPID & UNLAWFUL ANTI-TPS POLICY! — CARECEN v. Cuccinelli (a/k/a “The Illegal”)

NDPA Superstar ⭐️ Michelle Mendez 🎖 reports for CLINIC 🏆:

New Legal Challenge: CARECEN v. Cuccinelli

Greetings,

Representing the CARECEN and seven people with Temporary Protected Status, CLINIC, Democracy Forward, Montagut & Sobral PC and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP sued the Trump administration to block a policy issued by an unauthorized federal executive, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli. The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to stop the Trump administration from denying access to lawful permanent residency to people with TPS who legally qualify for green cards thanks to their U.S. citizen spouse or child. Cuccinelli’s action, couched as a mere “update” to the agency’s policy manual, eliminates the ability for TPS beneficiaries with prior removal orders to apply to adjust status with USCIS even though they departed the United States and returned with USCIS permission. The suit challenges the policy change as unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution’s Due Process Clause, and because its author, Ken Cuccinelli, was not legally appointed to direct USCIS.

Here is our press release.

Here is the complaint.

Here is a CNN story on this challenge.

When the Trump Administration attacks families, we will hold it accountable, be it for the next few months or the next 4 years.

Michelle N. Mendez (she/her/ella/elle)

Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations Program

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)

Mailing Address: 8757 Georgia Avenue, Suite 850, Silver Spring, MD 20910

Physical Address: University of Baltimore School of Law, 1401 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201

Website: www.cliniclegal.org

Embracing the Gospel value of welcoming the stranger, CLINIC promotes the dignity and protects the rights of immigrants in partnership with a dedicated network of Catholic and community legal immigration programs.

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Remember, folks, no human being is illegal. But, Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli is an “illegal” serving in a rogue regime!

Many thanks to all of our NDPA fighters who brought this much needed suit!

And, think of the grotesque stupidity, not to mention cruelty and illegality, behind this USCIS “policy.” Those in TPS are part of our community. Many have been here for years, even decades, working, paying taxes, and raising families (including many US citizens). Many are now fully qualified to adjust to “green card” status under existing law, thereby regularizing their status and getting out of “limbo.”

With LPR status, and eventually US citizenship, they can reach their full potential as humans and as members of our society. That’s a “win-win” that helps us move forward and prosper as a nation.

Yet, “Cooch Cooch” and the rest of the maliciously incompetent kakistocracy at DHS stay up nights thinking of ways to “stiff” our friends and neighbors in the TPS community and to keep them from regularizing their status and achieving their full human and economic potential, not to mention traumatizing US citizen family members. Talk about fraud, waste, and abuse in Government!

Incidentally, current TPS holders would all be entitled to full Immigration Court hearings if the regime attempted to expel them by force after ending TPS. Most have strong claims to relief, from cancellation of removal to asylum and other forms of protection.

Many could apply for adjustment of status in Immigration Court and individually litigate no matter what the USCIS “policy.” With a known backlog of approximately 1.5 million cases and perhaps another 500,000 to 1 million “lost in the docket dysfunction at EOIR,” their Immigration Court dates could easily be a decade, or “2.5 Administrations” from now. So, the Cuccinelli policy is basically a way of inflicting some cruelty and racist harassment on TPS’ers eligible to immigrate, without any realistic chance of “enforced removal.” Wow, talk about using a system already FUBAR’ed, to a major extent by this regime, as an illegal “weapon against humanity!”

Where, or where, have the Article IIIs been in taking a strong, unified stand against racism and stupidity (legal term “unreasonable behavior”) by the Trump immigration regime? Cooch Cooch was determined by a Federal Court to be illegally serving at USCIS! Yet, he contemptuously remains in office inflicting illegal harm and suffering on migrants, chewing up legal resources, and insultingly wasting the time of the Federal Courts.

I sort of understand the feckless performance of the Immigration Courts, wholly owned by “Billy the Bigot.” But, what’s the purpose of an independent Article III Judiciary that performs like it’s the “King’s Court” — unwilling or unable to defend our Constitution, humanity, or even their own prerogatives against the tyranny of a dangerous scofflaw moron like Trump?

What’s their excuse for drawing their salaries? The overall systemic failure of the Article III Judiciary, starting with a tone-deaf, racially insensitive, and often eagerly complicit Supreme’s majority, in the face of Trump’s White Nationalist authoritarianism, demands serious national re-examination of the role, qualities, and character we should expect from our Article III Judiciary, assuming that our nation survives the current legal and moral debacle led by Trump and enabled by judges who failed to do their duties!

“When the Trump Administration attacks families, we will hold it accountable, be it for the next few months or the next 4 years.”

That’s the key! With far too many public officials in all three branches spinelessly “tanking” on their constitutional duties to protect our rights and defend humanity from tyranny, the soldiers of the NDPA are among the courageous defenders of democracy and leaders of the long and challenging climb to equal justice and national decency. Support them by throwing the GOP — the anti-American party of bias, hate, lies, racism, institutionalized stupidity, and chaos — out at every level of government!

We’ll never get to equal justice for all with politicos, legislators, judges, and bureaucrats who don’t believe in it! Folks who quote and “honor” MLK, Jr., one day of the year and spend the rest of it trampling on his dreams and trashing his values!

Thanks to my good friend, colleague, and “NDPA General” Michelle and others for standing up to “Cooch the Illegal” and his toxic anti-American, scofflaw efforts to destroy our nation!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-27-20

LIFESAVING 101 FOR THE NDPA BEGINS WITH PRO BONO! – Never Has The Need Been Greater – Pro Bono’s Finest Hour In America’s Time Of Darkness, Cruelty, & Inhumanity! – From “The Asylumist” Jason Dzubow!

Here’s the link:

https://www.asylumist.com/2020/08/11/asylum-seekers-need-pro-bono-lawyers-now-more-than-ever/

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Yes, never has pro bono been more important than it is now!

This is a regime of White Nationalist cowards. Part of their strategy for “Dred Scottification” and dehumanization of “the other” is to pick on asylum seekers and immigrants first, because they are the “easy marks” often stuck in a system they have no realistic chance of navigating with no representation. Then extend the “dehumanization” and abrogation of due process and equal protection to other categories of “the other:” Hispanics, Blacks, LGBTQ, women, Muslims, Asians, etc. until basically only GOP White Christian straight males and their “female fellow travelers” have any individual rights that will be protected by the Federal Courts.

Think we’re not moving in that direction? Check out Roberts’s “head in the sand” claim that picking on Dreamers had nothing to do with racism directed at Hispanics. Or the Supremes’ majority’s totally dishonest approach to voting rights of people of color: “Yes, we see the GOP ‘fix is on’ to disenfranchise you. But, we’re only the Supremes, so we aren’t going to do anything to protect your Constitutional right to vote. You’ll have to solve it politically at the same time you are being disenfranchised by a minority of white GOP politicos and GOP voters with our help. We help the ‘perps in power,’ not their ‘victims of color.’”

So totally emboldened is Trump by the Supremes’ complicity in racism that he is hatching plans to bar U.S. citizens and LPRs from entering over the Southern Border if they are “suspected of having COVID” while he lets COVID run wild in the U.S. and actively undermines science and rational attempts to control the pandemic. Want to bet on how many of those USCs and LPRs barred at the border will be White and how many will be Hispanic Americans? But, Roberts will “just say OK” because “lots of Hispanic Americans come over the Southern Border.”

Roberts once got all huffy and self-righteous when dissenting colleagues correctly accused him of reviving discredited precedents that supported internment of Japanese Americans. He even went through the motions of supposedly overruling that leading case. But, then he basically followed its racist and invidious doctrines by essentially substituting Muslims, Hispanics, asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants for Japanese Americans. Dehumanization is alive and well at the Supremes today. The targets might change; but the ugliness and unlawfulness doesn’t.

One great way to fight back against these racist attacks by Trump is by insuring that unrepresented or underrepresented migrants are no longer the “low hanging fruit” of racist intimidation and unequal treatment before the law. Fill the Federal Courts with litigation and force complicit Federal Judges, from Immigration Judges all the way up to and including the Supremes, to look at the face at their own ugly racist enabling and human rights denying misfeasance in office every day. Make a public record to insure that their kids, grandkids, and all future generations know just how spinelessly their ancestors performed when confronted with clear, grotesque, and deadly violations of human rights and human dignity. How when the “chips were down” for democracy and human decency, they were MIA!

Right now, we’re in the long overdue process of tearing down the statutes of past racists like Chief Justice Roger Taney of “Dred Scott infamy.” But, we must insure that the statutes of the Federal Judges and other public officials who are enabling and promoting modern-day “Dred Scottification” never get built in the first place.

Remember my “Five Cs” – Constantly Confront Complicit Courts for Change!

Due Process Forever! And, of course, thanks every day to the legions of pro bono fighters among the ranks of our “New Due Process Army” who courageously champion the cause of the most vulnerable among us, thereby protecting all of our individual rights, at a time of great and disturbing national cowardice and unparalleled corruption and incompetence among the GOP “governing” class and their enablers and apologists.

PWS

08-11-20

🛡⚔️⚖️🗽 ROUND TABLE ASSISTS FIGHT AGAINST “AMERICA’S STAR CHAMBERS” — Here’s Our Amicus Brief In Las Americas v. Trump! — With Thanks To Our Pro Bono Friends STOLL STOLL BERNE LOKTING & SHLACHTER P.C. in Portland, OR!

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

Excerpt:

The immigration court system lacks independence. An agency within the Department of Justice, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) houses the immigration court system, which consists of trial-level immigration courts and a single appellate tribunal known as the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Immigration judges, including appellate immigration judges, are viewed by EOIR “management” not as judges, but as Department of Justice attorneys who serve at the pleasure and direction of the Nation’s prosecutor-in-chief, the Attorney General.

As former immigration judges, we offer the Court our experience and urge that corrective action is necessary to ensure that immigration judges are permitted to function as impartial adjudicators, as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The INA and its implementing regulations set forth procedures for the “timely, impartial, and consistent” resolution of immigration proceedings. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1103, 1230; 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(1) (charging the Board with appellate review authority to “resolve the questions before it in a manner that is timely, impartial, and consistent with the [INA] and regulations”) (emphasis added); 8 C.F.R. § 1003.10(b) (similarly requiring “immigration judges . . . to resolve the questions before them in a timely and impartial manner”) (emphasis added).

Although housed inside an enforcement agency and led by the Nation’s chief prosecutor, immigration judges must act neutrally to protect and adjudicate the important rights at stake in immigration cases and check executive overreach in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Applying a detached and learned interpretation of those laws, judges must correct overzealous bureaucrats and policy makers when they overstep the bounds of reasonable interpretation and the requirements of due process.

Here’s the full brief:

Las Americas Amicus (full case)

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As I often say, it’s an honor to be a part of this group with so many of my wonderful colleagues. It’s also an honor to be able to assist so many wonderful “divisions and brigades” of the New Due Process Army, like the SPLC and Immigration Law Lab.

Here’s another thought I often express: What if all of this talent, creativity, teamwork, expertise, and energy were devoted to fixing our broken Immigration Court System rather than constantly fighting to end gross abuses that should not be happening? There is a “systemic cost” to “maliciously incompetent” administration and the White Nationalist agenda promoted by the Trump kakistocracy!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-04-20

🛡⚔️👍🗽⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️FIGHTING THE STAR CHAMBER! — US District Judge Holds That Constitutional Challenge To Weaponized Immigration “Courts” Can Proceed! — “Both policies change the way immigration judges run their dockets and their courtrooms. Accordingly, Plaintiffs have at least sufficiently alleged that such docket management has practical consequence for parties or their attorneys.”

Melissa Crow
Senior Supervising Attorney
Southern Poverty Law Center

Tess Hellgren, Staff Attorney and Justice Catalyst Legal Fellow

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 3, 2020

Contact:

Marion Steinfels, marionsteinfels@gmail.com / 202-557-0430
Ramon Valdez, ramon@innovationlawlab.org / 971-238-1804

Federal Court Denies Government’s Motion to Dismiss in Immigration Court Case
Advocates’ challenge to immigration courts as “deportation machines”
moves forward; constitutionality of immigration court system at issue

PORTLAND, OR – Immigrant rights advocates challenging the weaponization of the U.S. immigration courts applaud Friday’s late-afternoon ruling by the U.S. District Court of Oregon that their lawsuit, Las Americas v Trump, will move forward. The legal services providers, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Innovation Law Lab, and Santa Fe Dreamers Project (SFDP), working with Perkins Coie LLP for pro bono support, allege that the Administration has failed to establish an impartial immigration court as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Take Care Clause of the U.S. Constitution – weaponizing them into deportation machines against asylum seekers and other noncitizens – and asks the court to end the unlawful use of the courts to effectuate mass deportations instead of fair decisions.

In Friday’s order, the Honorable Karin Immergut denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case. The district court rejected the government’s arguments, holding that all of the organizations’ claims could proceed, including their claim that the Attorney General has grossly mismanaged the immigration court system and weaponized the system against asylum seekers.

“This is a clear victory for everyone who has sought a fair hearing in immigration court, only to face a system plagued by rampant dysfunction and policies designed to subvert justice,” said Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “For asylum seekers and those who represent them, the current process is like playing Russian roulette. Despite the life-or-death stakes in these cases, there is little rhyme or reason to the court’s workings apart from prioritizing deportation at all costs.”

“Friday’s decision is an important milestone in our fight for a truly fair, transparent, and independent immigration court,” said Tess Hellgren, staff attorney with Innovation Law Lab. “Whether an asylum seeker wins or loses should not depend on the political whims of the President or Attorney General. ”

Not only does the Court’s decision confirm that the gross mismanagement of the immigration court system is subject to judicial review, it also recognizes that there may be important constitutional checks and balances on the power of presidential administrations to manipulate the immigration courts to achieve mass deportation.

“This win is incredibly validating. We often operate under the guise that the work we are doing is impossible,” said Linda Corchado, Managing Attorney of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. “We feel uplifted as we can take the giant step forward to tackle the system now, with everything we’ve got.”

“ASAP works with families across the United States and at the border who fled persecution and now face countless obstacles to seeking asylum in the U.S. immigration court system,” said Conchita Cruz, Co-Executive Director of ASAP. “This decision gets us one step closer to showing that the injustices of the U.S. immigration court system are not only wrong, but illegal. We stand with asylum seekers and immigrants’ rights advocates in bringing these abuses to light and demanding better from our government.”

The lawsuit, which was filed in December 2019, alleges President Trump, Attorney General Barr, and other members of the executive branch have failed to establish a fair immigration court system in which the plaintiff organizations can provide meaningful legal assistance to their asylum-seeking clients. The complaint outlines pervasive dysfunction and bias within the immigration court system, including:

The Enforcement Metrics Policy, , which requires immigration judges to decide cases quickly, at the expense of a fair process, in exchange for favorable performance reviews.

The “family unit” court docket, which stigmatizes the cases of recently arrived families and rushes their court dates, often giving families inadequate time to find an attorney and prepare for their hearings.

Areas that have become known as “asylum-free zones,” where virtually no asylum claims have been granted for the past several years.

The nationwide backlog of pending immigration cases, which has now surpassed 1 million — meaning that thousands of asylum seekers must wait three or four years for a court date.

In June 2019, Innovation Law Lab and SPLC also released a report, based on over two years of research and focus group interviews with attorneys and former immigration judges from around the country, documenting the failure of the immigration court system to fulfill the constitutional and statutory promise of fair and impartial case-by-case adjudication. The report can be accessed here: The Attorney General’s Judges: How the U.S. Immigration Courts Became a Deportation Tool.

The court’s opinion is HERE.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, see www.splcenter.org and follow us on social media: Southern Poverty Law Center on Facebook and @splcenter on Twitter.

Innovation Law Lab, based in Portland, Oregon with projects around the country and in Mexico, is a nonprofit organization that harnesses technology, lawyers, and activists to advance immigrant justice. For more information, visit www.innovationlawlab.org.

The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) provides community support and emergency legal aid to asylum seekers, regardless of where they are located. ASAP’s model has three components: online community support, emergency legal aid, and nationwide systemic reform. For more information, see www.asylumadvocacy.org and follow us on social media at @asylumadvocacy on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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

So, finally, the clear unconstitutionality of “Star Chambers” run by a biased prosecutor who basically views himself as the personal lawyer for a racist xenophobic President is going to get some scrutiny, along with the beyond grotesque mismanagement of EOIR that has created a “backlog” that in all likelihood now exceeds 2 million cases. But, of course we don’t know, and may never know, the exact extent of the backlog because of 1) the notoriously defective record keeping at EOIR; and 2) the manipulation of and sometimes outright misrepresentation of data by the Trump Administration.

Thanks to SPLC and Innovation Law Lab for undertaking this long-overdue effort. And, special appreciation to my friends and New Due Process Army superstars Melissa and Tess.

Due Process Forever!🗽⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️

PWS

08-03-20

😎🗽⚖️👍🏼MORE GOOD NEWS FOR THE GOOD GUYS! — Ira J. Kurzban 🏅 To Receive Leonard J. Theberge Award 🏆 for Private International Law From ABA Section of International Law!🍾🥂🍻

Ira Kurzban ESQUIRE
Legendary American Immigration Lawyer

Peggy Taylor reports for the Section:

I am writing to let you know that the ABA Section of International Law will be awarding Ira the distinguished Leonard J. Theberge Award for Private International Law. The award is in memory of Section Chair Theberge (1979-1980). The Section established the award to honor persons who have made distinguished, long-standing contributions to the development of private international law.

Obviously, Ira more than deserves this award. Anyone practicing immigration law for more than two minutes knows about Ira — not only about his invaluable Sourcebook but also his cutting edge litigation, his contributions to immigration law scholarship, and his genuine support of the immigrant community.

The Section will honor Ira in a virtual ceremony on Friday, 7.31.2020 at 12:00 pm ET. I hope you can attend the ceremony. I am pasting a registration link at the end of this email. Also, I am copying the current and incoming Section Chairs on this email.

Please join me in congratulating Ira! It has been my honor to work with Ira and each of you on the Crystal Ball Panel. Be well and safe. Best. Peggy

Dear All – Writing with schedule information I received about Ira’s award. The award ceremony is part of a Section Council Meeting. While the meeting starts at 12:00 pm, the awards ceremony part of the meeting will probably not start until around 2:30 pm. Best. Peggy

Register here.

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

Thanks, Peggy!

Here are a few of the tributes from our fellow “panel members:”

Congratulations, Ira! Well deserved. I am actually old enough to remember when Ira was listed among the 40 lawyers under 40 to watch! Seems like yesterday!

__________________________

Paul W. Virtue

Mayer Brown LLP

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

A giant in the field — and an indispensable part of every immigration lawyer’s professional journey.

Hon. Mimi Tsankov

U.S. Immigration Judge

V.P. Eastern Region NAIJ

(Personal Capacity Only)

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

Many, many congrats to our friend and colleague Ira for his lifetime commitment to human rights and furthering legal excellence!

Paul Wickham Schmidt

U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)

immigrationcourtside.com

Congratulations again, Ira, on behalf of all your many admirers in the New Due Process Army (NDPA) in which you are a Five Star General 🎖🎖🎖🎖🎖!👍🏼😎

PWS

07-19-20

🎓🗽⚖️👍🏼ATTENTION NDPA: POSITIONS AVAILABLE FOR PRACTICE-ORIENTED IMMIGRATION EXPERTS & PROSPECTIVE IMMIGRATION TEACHERS — Professor Michele Pistone @ Villanova Is Recruiting Paid Adjuncts For Her Amazing VIISTA Program!

Hi Judge Schmidt,

Can you share the below with your networks:

This fall, I am launching a new online certificate program at Villanova University to train immigrant advocates. The program is aimed at people who are passionate about immigrant justice but are not interested in pursuing a law degree at the moment, such as recent college grads, people seeking an encore career, retirees, and the many who currently work with migrants and want to understand more about the immigration laws that impact them. It is also attractive to students seeking to take a gap year or two between college and law school or high school and college.

The program is offered entirely online and is asynchronous, allowing students to work at their own pace and at times that are most convenient for them. I piloted the curriculum during last academic year and the students loved it. It launches full time in August, and will subsequently be offered each semester, so students can start in August, January, and May.

I reach out to you because I am now seeking adjunct professors to help teach the course. Adjunct Professors will work with me to teach cohorts of students as they move through the 3-Module curriculum. Module 1 focuses on how to work effectively with immigrants. Module 2 is designed to teach the immigration law and policy needed for graduates to apply to become partially accredited representatives. Module 3 has more law, and a lot of trial advocacy for those who want to apply for full DOJ accreditation. Each Module is comprised of 2×7-week sessions and students report that they have worked between 10-15 hours/week on the course materials. As an adjunct professor, you will provide feedback weekly on student work product, conduct live office hours with students and work to build engagement and community among the students in your cohort. Tuition for each Module is $1270, it is $3810 for the entire 3-Module certificate program.

Here is a link to the job posting:

https://jobs.villanova.edu/postings/18505

For more information on VIISTA, here is a link, immigrantadvocate.villanova.edu

Please reach out if you have any questions.

Also, please note that scholarships are being offered through the Augustinian Defenders of the Rights of the Poor to select students who are sponsored to take VIISTA by DOJ recognized organizations. For more information on the scholarships, visit this page, https://www.rightsofthepoor.org/viista-scholarship-program

My best,

Michele Pistone

Michele

Michele R. Pistone

Professor of Law

Villanova University, Charles Widger School of Law

Director, Clinic for Asylum, Refugee & Emigrant Services (CARES)

Founder, VIISTA Villanova Interdisciplinary Immigration Studies Training for Advocates

Co-Managing Editor, Journal on Migration and Human Security

Adjunct Fellow, Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation

610-519-5286

@profpistone

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

What an fantastic opportunity to get teaching experience, work on a “cutting edge” program with my good friend and colleague Michele, one of the best legal minds in America, and to make a difference by improving the delivery of justice in America, while being paid a stipend!

A “perfect fit” for members of the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”).

Due Process Forever!🗽👍🏼⚖️

PWS

07-10-20

🇺🇸😎⚖️🗽👍🏼LAW YOU CAN USE: Michelle Mendez and CLINIC Publish A New Practice Advisory on Opening & Closing Statements in Immigration Court

https://cliniclegal.org/resources/litigation/practice-advisory-opening-statements-and-closing-arguments-immigration-court

Practice Advisory: Opening Statements and Closing Arguments in Immigration Court

Last UpdatedJuly 2, 2020

Topics Litigation Removal Proceedings Appeals

Opening statements and closing arguments can win cases for clients, if the practitioner is able to deliver a performance that is both concise and compelling. This practice advisory offers guidance and tips that will help practitioners deliver concise and compelling opening statements and closing arguments in immigration court.

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

Read more and download this wonderful resource at the link.

Michelle and her team @ CLINIC promise more “great stuff” next week.

Going in Opposite Directions: Ironically, as the Trump DOJ has worked overtime to “dumb down” EOIR, Michelle and many others in the Immigration & Human Rights communities, particularly AILA, other NGOs, Clinical Professors, and pro bono counsel at “Big Law,” have been working even harder to promote “best immigration and legal practices” before all tribunals. And, despite the Supreme’s “willful blindness” to the Constitution, the rule of law, and human dignity as it applies to asylum seekers and migrants, the results are showing elsewhere in the justice system.

It also points to the obvious unconscionably overlooked untapped source for better Federal Judges in the future, from the Supremes to the Immigration Courts: the pro bono and clinical immigration and human rights bars — actually the main fount of courageous opposition to the regime’s concerted attack on our Constitution, our justice system, and our humanity.

If these folks and others like them were on the Supremes, American justice wouldn’t be in shambles and equal justice justice for all under our Constitution would actually be enforced, rather than degraded or intentionally skirted with legal gobbledygook. The lack of both legal and moral leadership from our highest Court in the face of a clearly out of control and unqualified White Nationalist Executive and his toadies is simply astounding, not to mention discouraging.

It’s little wonder that the tensions caused in no small measure by the Court’s systemic failure to stand up for voting rights, civil rights, the rights of other persons of color in the U.S., and to hold abusers at all levels accountable, is now overflowing into the streets. No, an occasional vote for a correct result from Roberts or another member of “The Five” is not going to solve the problem of Constitutional, racial, and moral dereliction of duty by our highest Court.

Almost every day, “real” Article III Lower Courts “out” some aspect of the outrageously biased and unprofessional performance of EOIR and the rest of Trump’s immigration kakistocracy before the courts. Even some GOP and Trump appointed Article III Judges have “had enough” and don’t want their professional reputations and consciences sullied by association with the regime’s unlawful White Nationalist agenda.

Unfortunately, however, the Federal Courts generally have failed to follow through by sanctioning the often unethical and dishonest performance of the regime in court and by shutting down EOIR’s unconstitutional “kangaroo courts,” DHS’s equally unconstitutional “New American Gulag,” and the fraudulent operation of bogus “Safe Third County Agreements,” “Remain in Mexico,” and patiently disingenuous ridiculously overbroad COVID-19 “immigration bars” (which are actually thin cover for Stephen Miller’s preconceived White Nationalist nativist agenda). Moreover, lower Federal Court Judges who courageously stand up against the regime’s unconstitutional agenda and program of “dehumanization” are too often improperly undermined by the Supremes (sometimes without explanations or “short circuiting” the system), thereby “greenlighting” further “crimes against humanity” by an unscrupulous and unethical Executive.

We’re making a permanent record of both the “crimes against humanity” committed by the regime and those public officials, be they so-called “public servants,” feckless legislators, or life-tenured judges who have actively aided, abetted, been complicit, or “gone along to get along” with Trump’s countless lies and abuses. Later judicial “corrections” by a better Court or legislative “fixes” by a real Congress will not reclaim the lives of those shot on the streets by police, infected with COVID-19 in the Gulag, kidnapped and abused by gangs in Mexico while waiting for fake hearings, or “rocketed” back to persecution and torture in the Northern Triangle and elsewhere in violation of U.S. and international laws without any meaningful process at all. Nor will they wipe out the abuses by governments at all levels elected without the full participation of American citizens of color and in poverty whose votes were purposely suppressed or political authority diminished by corrupt GOP pols and their Supreme enablers.

As we can see by the long-overdue historical reckoning coming to Confederates and other racists who actively worked to undermine our Constitution, block equal justice for all, and dehumanize other humans in America, there will be an eventual historical reckoning here, and justice ultimately will be served, even if not in our lifetimes. That’s bad news for Roberts, his right-wing colleagues, and a host of others who have willfully enabled the worst, most abusive, and most clearly lawless presidency in U.S. History, as well as the most overtly racist regime since Woodrow Wilson.

Due Process Forever!

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

JOIN THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY (“NDPA”) & BE PART OF THE SOLUTION TO UNEQUAL JUSTICE IN AMERICA!

PWS

07-03-20

⚖️🗽👍🏼⚔️NDPA NEWS: LAW YOU CAN USE: “Immigrants’ Access to Federal District Court: The Narrowing of § 1252(b)(9) Post-Jennings” — By Adam Garnick @ Penn Law

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3623142

Immigrants’ Access to Federal District Court: The Narrowing of § 1252(b)(9) Post-Jennings

University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Forthcoming

62 Pages Posted:

Adam Garnick

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: May 15, 2020

Abstract

Congress has long sought to limit immigrants’ access to federal district court. This was most evident in the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA), which channeled any judicial review of a final order of removal away from federal district courts and into courts of appeals through a petition for review (PFR). But IIRAIRA channeled more than just review of final orders into courts of appeals. With the addition of 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9), all claims “arising from” the immigration process would likewise be consolidated into a PFR in the court of appeals. Seemingly a wide range of claims—including many urgent challenges to potentially unconstitutional government action—would be swallowed by § 1252(b)(9) and thus precluded from immediate review in federal district court. However, when the Supreme Court first construed the provision, it did so narrowly. Indeed, in circuits that adopted the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the provision, immigrants were able to evade the strictures of § 1252(b)(9) and bring immigration-related claims directly to federal district court. But not all lower courts adhered to the Court’s reading of the provision. The First Circuit—and eventually the Ninth Circuit—adopted a far broader view of § 1252(b)(9), describing it as “breathtaking in scope” and finding it to channel an extensive set of claims. Against this backdrop, the Court, nearly two decades after its first in-depth discussion of the provision, revisited § 1252(b)(9). Though the result was a fractured opinion that explicitly failed to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the provision, the decision offered several important clues on the proper scope of § 1252(b)(9). First, it undercut the expansive interpretation of the provision offered by the First Circuit and adopted by the Ninth Circuit. Second, and relatedly, it altered several of the considerations lowers courts use when determining whether § 1252(b)(9) swallows an immigrant’s claims, which has led to a substantive narrowing of the provision’s scope. As such, the lower courts that previously adopted the broad view of § 1252(b)(9) should revisit and narrow the scope of the provision in accordance with Court precedent. This will ensure that immigrants who bring urgent claims challenging government action with potentially grave consequences are not categorically barred from immediate access to federal district court.

Keywords: 1252(b)(9), Jennings, jurisdiction, immigration, INA, district court

Suggested Citation:

Garnick, Adam, Immigrants’ Access to Federal District Court: The Narrowing of § 1252(b)(9) Post-Jennings (May 15, 2020). University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=

Download This Paper

Open PDF in Browser

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

You can download Adam’s complete article from SSRN, with much helpful research and many helpful strategic suggestions, at the link in the above abstract.

Thanks for being such an important part of the “New Due Process Army” (NDPA), Adam!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-11-20

FORBES PROFILES DUE PROCESS WARRIOR STEPHEN MANNING OF INNOVATION LAW LAB!

Stephen Manning ESQUIRE
Founder, Innovation Law Lab
Portland, OR

https://apple.news/ADjIgsd5vTR6lN15QEpey1w

Over the last several years, America has been rocked by evidence of the mistreatment of migrants in detention centers. While the nation makes its political judgments about the future of immigration policy, Stephen Manning has assembled a team of lawyers, organizers, and tech innovators working to squeeze more humanity out of the current system while imagining its replacement. We talked to Stephen about how he pursues justice and reform.

How did you get involved in immigration law in the first place?

I was volunteer teaching at an elementary school, helping immigrant children from Central America with homework. I asked, “Why don’t you do your homework?” and I found their answer hard to believe: “We’re going to be deported.” No one deports second-graders, I thought. It must be an administrative matter. Naively, I took the whole family to Immigration, unprepared for the experience. I discovered a system based on the otherization and exclusion of human beings, as core principles. I could have gotten the whole family deported but luckily everyone was ok, and are still ok—I’ve since presided over two of their weddings.

What is so dehumanizing about immigration?

In fact, immigration could be a deeply humanizing experience—it could be the ultimate humanizing concept, actually. Instead, though, today it is the opposite. Its purpose is to categorize persons and judge their desirability. Racism and other biases have corrupted these functions. For example, on April 22nd, President Trump issued a proclamation to end family-based immigration. The next day his advisor explained that they want to “re-white” the country. The Remain in Mexico program does the same thing. Take a person seeking asylum: they are treated based not on their individual lives and circumstances, but on their assignment to a less desirable macro category—the asylum-seeker. They lose their individuality and simply become members of an undesired group. That classification has nothing to do with their hopes, fears, dreams or their contributions to our collective prosperity.

The same sense of power affects the whole system and shows up in myriad small ways. For example, I remember being at a detention center filled with families, working on a very compelling claim by a mother and her children. I’m working on my laptop surrounded by small children playing. We had sent a letter to the officer showing cause for their release. He showed up armed, in aviator glasses, ignored the children, and crumpled up and threw away the letter right in front of everyone. That’s dehumanization on a micro scale.

What surprises people when they learn about the realities of the U.S. immigration system?

People expect law to reflect some kind of morality. We expect the power of the law to be used justly. When law and power seem to align against common sense—that’s a tough lesson, even for lawyers. The immigration legal system is a world unto itself, and even for experienced lawyers, nothing prepares them for it.

You started and lead Innovation Law Lab, one of the largest pro bono projects in the country, to push for reforms. How do you recruit lawyers to volunteer?

Innovation Law Lab is equal parts lawyers, organizers, and coders. Our core team is about 20 people. For volunteers, actually, we don’t have any formal recruitment mechanisms. The work itself is demanding—you’re volunteering, giving up family time, spending your own money to participate. What we offer is a chance to use the law for justice and to join a team of like-minded people. And we’ve also structured it so that it can scale. We ask, Can you come for a day, a week, three weeks? Big law does not have to worry—there’s no mass exodus coming, but there is a small trend towards movement-based lawyering. The last time I looked, our numbers at Innovation Law Lab were in the tens of thousands of volunteers. And about 30% are repeat volunteers; they participate in multiple projects.

. . . .

Stephen Manning is an Ashoka Fellow. You can read more about him and his work here.

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

You can read the rest of the profile at the link.

Innovation Law Lab is doing some spectacular work in defending the Constitution, the rule of law, and humanity against the Trump regime’s relentless onslaught.

PWS

05-22-20

CHILD ABUSE BY COWARDLY REGIME OFFICIALS RAMPS UP AS COURTS TANK IN FACE OF LATEST ASSAULT ON RULE OF LAW & HUMANITY ☠️ — “This incredibly callous treatment of young migrants as well as their families is part of the Trump administration’s attempt to erase any vestige of due process at the border with Mexico.“

https://apple.news/AfPeFLsDGQTyTuvEeyuQsIg

Esther Wang writes in Jezebel:

Another day, another extreme cruelty: according to a report in the New York Times, the Trump administration has deported almost 1,000 migrant children and teens during the past two months of the covid-19 pandemic, sending them out of the United States alone and at times putting them on a flight without even telling their family members. Stephen Miller, who is unfortunately still alive, must be thrilled.

Trump’s latest tactic in the service of slashing immigration is, as the New York Times points out, a complete 180 from past policy:

The deportations represent an extraordinary shift in policy that has been unfolding in recent weeks on the southwestern border, under which safeguards that have for decades been granted to migrant children by both Democratic and Republican administrations appear to have been abandoned.

Historically, young migrants who showed up at the border without adult guardians were provided with shelter, education, medical care and a lengthy administrative process that allowed them to make a case for staying in the United States. Those who were eventually deported were sent home only after arrangements had been made to assure they had a safe place to return to.

But now, not even children who are already in the United States with pending asylum cases are safe from deportation. As the Times reported, in addition to the more than 900 children and teens who were deported in March and April shortly after arriving at the border, 60 young people who were already being held in government shelters were also abruptly sent out of the United States, at times “rousted from their beds in the middle of the night.”

According to the Times, even young children have been put on flights by themselves. Take the case of Sandra Rodríguez and her 10-year-old son Gerson, whom she sent across the southern border with the expectation that once Gerson arrived in the United States, he would be able to eventually live with Rodríguez’s brother in Houston. But instead, shortly after entering the U.S., Gerson was sent to Honduras alone.

This incredibly callous treatment of young migrants as well as their families is part of the Trump administration’s attempt to erase any vestige of due process at the border with Mexico. Citing the pandemic, immigration officials have used provisions in the 1944 Public Health Act as justification to essentially close the United States to all asylum seekers who cross the border. The impact has been severe: In an almost two-month period from mid-March to May, only two people seeking protection on humanitarian grounds at the border were allowed to stay within the United States.

“What is happening at the border right now is a tragedy. We are abandoning our legal commitment to provide asylum to people whose lives are in danger in other countries,” Kari Hong, an immigration attorney and Boston College law school professor, told the Washington Post. “By invoking these emergency orders, the Trump administration is simply doing what it’s wanted to do all along, which is to end asylum law in its entirety,” she said.

While Trump administration officials have justified their likely illegal use of emergency orders in the name of public health, the fact that officials have also deported children and teens who were already in the care of the federal government sure indicates that something else is going on here. I wonder what that could be.

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

Who would have thought that America would become a nation of child abusers and that Federal Courts would be so feckless and complicit in the face of such clear abuses? Three years of concerted failure, led by John Roberts and the Supremes, to give meaning to Due Process and Equal Protection in the face of the “New Jim Crow” have emboldened the regime’s White Nationalist, anti-American abusers while kneecapping democratic and constitutional institutions.

Then, there’s the extreme, wanton cruelty and dehumanization inflicted on the mostly vulnerable among us that has come to symbolize our nation in the Age of Trump. Like all the other abuses by the regime, it’s been “normalized” by feckless legislators and judges: “Another day, another extreme cruelty!” ☠️⚰️🤮🏴‍☠️

Somewhere down there in the fires of the underworld, Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the infamous “Dred Scott Decision” must be feeling totally vindicated by Roberts and his gang!

Is this really how we want to be remembered by future generations? If not, vote ‘em out this November!

PWS

05-21-20

This November, vote like your life and our nation depend open it. Becauise they do!

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☠️⚠️‼️DISCLAIMER: Of course, the following are just my views, not the views of anyone on the All-Star cast of speakers at this upcoming event, the NYCBA, or anyone else of any importance whatsoever!

This is what “Dred Scottification” or the “end of the rule of law” as promoted by Trump, Miller, Barr and their cronies, and enabled by a tone-deaf and “insulated from the human suffering they cause” Supremes’ majority looks like:

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Due Process Forever! Repeating past mistakes, never!

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NDPA Superstar ⭐️ Michelle Mendez 🎖 reports for CLINIC 🏆:

Due Process Forever!

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Due Process Forever!🗽⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️

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Congratulations again, Ira, on behalf of all your many admirers in the New Due Process Army (NDPA) in which you are a Five Star General 🎖🎖🎖🎖🎖!👍🏼😎

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Due Process Forever!🗽👍🏼⚖️

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

JOIN THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY (“NDPA”) & BE PART OF THE SOLUTION TO UNEQUAL JUSTICE IN AMERICA!

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