⚖️ WINOGRAD WHOMPS 🥊 GARLAND’S EOIR AGAIN, THIS TIME ON “PARTICULARLY SERIOUS CRIME” (“PSC”)! — Annor v. Garland — Following Precedents, Analyzing Correct Statute Proves Elusive For Garland’s Dysfunctional Courts! 🏴‍☠️ — “Because the BIA analyzed the wrong statute 🤯 at the first step of its analysis, and omitted the most important factor 🤯🤯 at the second, we vacate the BIA’s decision and remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

CAIR Coalition
IMAGE: CAIR Coalitiin

From the CAIR Coalition on Linkedin:

Today, we’re celebrating the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Annor v. Garland. The court ruled that immigration judges must follow proper analytical steps in determining whether noncitizens have been convicted of a particularly serious crime (PSC).

 

This is an important decision because anyone convicted of a PSC is ineligible for asylum and withholding of removal, so PSC determinations have life-or-death consequences for immigrants facing persecution if they are deported to their home countries.

 

“Today, the Fourth Circuit spoke clearly: the immigration court system must treat PSC determinations with the care they deserve,” stated Immigration Impact Lab Senior Attorney Peter Alfredson, who worked on the amicus brief alongside Lab Deputy Program Director Samantha Hsieh.

 

CAIR Coalition submitted an amicus brief, also signed by RAICES, in support of Mr. Annor, who was represented by Ben Winograd of the Immigrant & Refugee Appellate Center, LLC.

Here’s the decision (PANEL: HEYTENS and BENJAMIN, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge): https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/231281.P.pdf

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Come on, man! How is this a competent adjudication by the BIA? It isn’t! So, why is it happening time and again under Garland?

[T]he immigration court system must treat PSC determinations with the care they deserve!” Absolutely! But, it’s not happening in Garland’s “any reason to deny/defend garbage” DOJ! At least it’s not happening systemically under Garland! 

Rather than correcting IJ errors and insisting that the legal rights of migrants be respected and protected, the BIA too often has been a big part of the problem! Sloppiness, lack of expertise, “any reason to deny,” “reject don’t protect” have all become hallmarks of Garland’s dysfunctional system!

Alfred E. Neumann
Has Alfred E. Neumann been “reborn” as Judge Merrick Garland? “Not my friends or relatives whose lives as being destroyed by my ‘Kangaroo Courts.’ Just ‘the others’ and their immigration lawyers, so who cares, why worry about professionalism, ethics, and due process in Immigration Court?”
PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons

Contrary to GOP White Nationalist restrictionist blather, accepted by many spineless Dem politicos and the media, and enabled by Garland, this system should be identifying, screening, facilitating representation, expediting protection (not rejection), and arranging reception and resettlement, NOT engaging in more mindless “deterrence” and “uber enforcement.” 

Garland’s abject failure to insist on due process and stand up for the legal and human rights of asylum seekers and other migrants has undermined our democracy! There is a huge “over-denial“ problem in our asylum adjudication system that skews the entire “debate!”

Our nation, our politicos, and our media are simply too gutless and morally vapid to admit that there are many, many more individuals arriving at our borders who should qualify for some sort of legal protection under a fair and legitimate screening and adjudication system! 

Best comment, from Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis: “Something is seriously wrong at DOJ when a seasoned IJ and BIA member make these kinds of mistakes, and when OIL attorneys defend such errors in court.  Crimmigration should not be so hard that it takes a team of litigation superstars to achieve a just result!”

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC) — “He ‘gets’ it! So why don’t Garland and Dem leaders? Is Dan THAT much smarter than they are?  Sure looks like it!”

You betcha, Dan! “Something is seriously wrong at DOJ” is an understatement! Dan, Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase, and I are among the many who have been saying that since the Obama Administration. It’s painfully obvious that Garland isn’t the answer (nor is Mayorkas), and that NDPA superstars like Ben and others should be in charge of the human rights legal and adjudication bureaucracies at DOJ and DHS in a Dem Administration! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-18-24

☹️GARLAND’S BIA TRIPS ON PRECEDENTS, AGAIN!  — 9th Orders Another “Do-Over” For Wayward Tribunal’s Bogus “Presumption of a Particularly Serious Crime!”👎🏽

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

CA9 on Particularly Serious Crime: Mendoza-Garcia v. Garland

Mendoza-Garcia v. Garland

“The BIA reviews de novo the IJ’s determination of “questions of law, discretion, and judgment,” 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(d)(3)(ii), including whether an alien’s prior offense is a “particularly serious crime.” It is unclear whether the BIA undertook that de novo review here, because it applied a “presumption” that Petitioner’s conviction was a particularly serious crime and required him to “rebut” this presumption. But for those offenses that are not defined by the statute itself as “per se a particularly serious crime,” the BIA’s precedent establishes “a multi-factor test to determine on a case-by-case basis whether a crime is particularly serious.” Bare, 975 F.3d at 961. Moreover, we have rejected the view that there is any subset of such cases that is exempt from this multi-factor analysis “based solely on the elements of the offense.” Blandino-Medina, 712 F.3d at 1348. The BIA’s application of a rebuttable presumption is difficult to square with these precedents, and the Government concedes in its brief that the BIA’s application of such a presumption “appears erroneous.” The BIA committed an error of law, and abused its discretion, in failing to apply the correct legal standards in assessing whether Petitioner’s offense was a “particularly serious crime.” We therefore remand to the BIA to consider Petitioner’s application for withholding of removal under the correct standards.”

[Hats off to Nancy Alexander, Kari E. Hong, Boston College Law School, Newton, Massachusetts; Elisa Steglich, Attorney; Simon Lu and Jill Applegate, Supervised Law Student; University of Texas School of Law, Austin, Texas; for Amicus Curiae American Immigration Lawyers Association!]

Nancy Alexander
Nancy Alexander ESQUIRE

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Congrats to Nancy, Kari, and the rest of their team!

Even OIL couldn’t defend the BIA’s shoddy work here!

Know what builds unnecessary backlog fast?

  • “Over-denial”
  • Lack of positive guidance
  • Sloppy work
  • Assembly line justice
  • Remands
  • Lack of practical expertise and “big picture” perspective.

So, why hasn’t Garland replaced his “Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight” at the BIA with real “practical expert judges” — NDPA all-stars 🌟 like Kari Hong and Nancy Alexander! Judges like Kari and Nancy would “get ‘em right” in the first place and insure that Immigration Judges do the same!

Why is his system struggling and failing when the top-flight judicial talent to fix it is out there in the “real world?” 

With human lives and the future of our democracy at stake, why is inferior work product and poor judging acceptable in Garland’s Immigration Court system?

How is “make it up as you go along justice” Due Process in Garland’s Courts?

Why isn’t Garland being held accountable for the “parody of justice” that plays out every day in his dysfunctional “courts?” 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-12-22