🏴‍☠️ 🤯 ABSURDIST SCOFFLAW TEX “GOV” ABBOTT BLOWN AWAY IN ROUND I OF “BUOY BATTLE!” — Texas Federal Judge Rejects Ludicrous “Invasion Defense!”

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

Priscilla Alvarez reports for CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/politics/texas-mexico-border-water-barriers-migrants/index.html

CNN  —

A federal judge ordered Texas to remove floating barriers in the Rio Grande and barred the state from building new or placing additional buoys in the river, according to a Wednesday court filing, marking a victory for the Biden administration.

Judge David Alan Ezra ordered Texas to take down the barriers by September 15 at its own expense.

The border buoys have been a hot button immigration issue since they were deployed in the Rio Grande as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative known as Operation Lone Star. The Justice Department had sued the state of Texas in July claiming that the buoys were installed unlawfully and asking the judge to force the state to remove them.

In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in the Western District of Texas, the Justice Department alleged that Texas and Abbott violated the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act by building a structure in US water without permission from United States Army Corps of Engineers and sought an injunction to bar Texas from building additional barriers in the river. The Republican governor, meanwhile, has argued the buoys are intended to deter migrants from crossing into the state from Mexico.

Texas swiftly appealed the judge’s order.

. . . .

Ezra also found Texas’ self-defense argument – that the barriers have been placed in the face of invasion – “unconvincing.”

. . . .

Ezra also found Texas’ self-defense argument – that the barriers have been placed in the face of invasion – “unconvincing.”

. . . .

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Read the rest of Priscilla’s report at the link.

Who knows how this will play out in the 5th Circuit and the Supremes, given the composition of those courts. But, at least for a day, Judge Ezra has brought some common sense and the rule of law to bear on out of control grandstanding Texas “Governor” Greg Abbott. 

In addition to being cruel and illegal, Abbott’s $140 million buoy boondoggle is predictably a failure from a deterrence standpoint. See, e.g., https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi-5saEvpiBAxUXpIkEHU1VBwoQFnoECBoQAQ&url=https://www.livemint.com/news/texas-floating-border-wall-fails-to-deter-migrants-11693942981798.html&usg=AOvVaw0TX6bBkO0Fv0MezJLQPJkk&opi=89978449. (Although Abbott and his White Nationalist supporters falsely claim otherwise.) But, as my friends Dan Kowalski and Judge “Sir Jeffrey” Chase often say, effective deterrence isn’t the point — the cruelty and dehumanization is!

We should also remember that the vast majority of those whom Abbott and the nativists bogusly call “invaders” seek only to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities so they can exercise their clear legal rights to apply for asylum — rights that attach regardless of status or manner of entering the U.S. (Rights that also have improperly been diminished and impeded by the Biden Administration’s ill-advised asylum regulations, currently under legal challenge).  

If successful (under a legal system intentionally rigged against them), these so-called “invaders” will use their skills and work ethic to expand our economy and help Americans prosper while saving their lives and those of their families. To anybody other than Abbott and other White Nationalists, that sounds like a potential “win-win” that could and should be “leveraged” for everyone’s benefit!

Judge Ezra’s opinion in the aptly-named U.S. v. Abbott can be found here:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172749163/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172749163.50.0.pdf?ftag=YHF4eb9d17

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-07-23

👩🏻‍⚖️ 🇺🇸⚖️🗽 — Judge Elise Manuel — One of The “Good Folks” @ EOIR — Retires From Bench — A Consistent, Courageous Voice For Scholarship, Due Process, & Excellence During An Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Asylum Era @ EOIR Actively Promoted & Instituted During The Trump Era!

 

Most recently, Judge Manuel served at the Annandale and “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Courts. Here’s her bio:

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch appointed Judge Elise M. Manuel to begin hearing cases in March 2016. Judge Manuel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983 from Northwestern University and a Juris Doctor in 1987 from Georgetown University Law Center. From 1991 to February 2016, Judge Manuel served in various capacities on the Board of Immigration Appeals, Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Department of Justice, including: as a temporary board member from 2012 to 2016; as an attorney-advisor from 2008 through 2012, from 1998 through 2005, and 1991 through 1995; as a team leader from 2005 through 2008; and as a senior panel attorney from 1995 through 1998. From 1987 through 1991, she was a staff attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. Judge Manuel is a member of the Illinois State Bar.

There will be a Farewell Event for Judge Manuel at the Fairview Ballroom in Falls Church, VA, 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm on Thursday, September 7 (tomorrow). You can register at this link: https://ailadc.org/meet-reg1.php?mi=1265383&id=327

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Congratulations to Judge Manuel on a stellar career embodying “guaranteeing fairness and due process for all,” the one-time “EOIR Vision!” Judge Manuel was among the first group of managers I appointed to newly created supervisory positions during my time as BIA Chair. 

I trust that Judge Manuel will soon join us on the Round Table of Retired Immigration Judges & BIA Judges 🛡️⚔️ (contact my colleague Judge “Sir Jeffrey” Chase). There is “life after EOIR!”

Thanks for your service, Judge Manuel, and Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-06-23

🤯DOUBLE FAULT (NOT @ THE U.S. OPEN): BIA Screws Up Credibility (2d) & CIMT (9th)

Double Fault
Double faults are the bane of tennis pros, but all in a day’s work for the “semi pros” at the BIA.
PHOTO: YouTube

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

CA2 on Credibility: Pomavilla-Zaruma v. Garland

https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/79e67d72-5394-48f3-a31d-354db6bb388e/1/doc/20-3230_opn.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca2-on-credibility-pomavilla-zaruma-v-garland

“Petitioner applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. An immigration judge found Petitioner not credible and denied her application, relying in part on inconsistencies between Petitioner’s statements during a border interview and later testimony regarding her fear of persecution. However, the immigration judge failed to consider various factors that may have affected the reliability of the border interview record. Petitioner claims that she was frightened during the interview because a border patrol officer hit her and yelled at her upon her arrival to the United States. Petitioner may also have been reluctant to reveal information about persecution because authorities in her home country were allegedly unwilling to help her due to her indigenous status. Moreover, the questions asked during Petitioner’s border interview generally were not designed to elicit the details of an asylum claim. In Ramsameachire v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d 169 (2d Cir. 2004), we cautioned immigration judges to consider these factors and others before relying on a border interview to find an asylum applicant not credible. Consistent with Ramsameachire and subsequent precedent, we hold that immigration judges are required to take such precautions, provided the record indicates that the Ramsameachire factors may be implicated. Accordingly, we GRANT the petition for review in part, VACATE the BIA’s decision, and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Reuben S. Kerben!]

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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CA9 (2-1) on CIMT, J-G-P-: Flores-Vasquez v. Garland

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/08/31/20-73447.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca9-2-1-on-cimt-j-g-p–flores-vasquez-v-garland

“Jose Luis Flores-Vasquez (“Flores-Vasquez”), a native and citizen of Mexico, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing his appeal. He argues that the BIA erred in finding that his prior menacing conviction under Oregon Revised Statute § 163.190 constitutes a crime involving moral turpitude (“CIMT”), rendering him ineligible for cancellation of removal. We agree and grant this portion of the petition. … Here, … Matter of J-G-P- does not purport to reassess longstanding BIA and Ninth Circuit precedent concerning simple assault offenses, and because it misapplied that precedent, its conclusion is unreasonable. See id. PETITION FOR REVIEW GRANTED; REMANDED.”

[Hats off to Jonathan C. Gonzales!]

 

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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The problems continue for a “court” system lacking the necessary leadership, expertise, and due process focus!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-05-23

🇺🇸🗽💪🏾COURTSIDE LABOR DAY SPECIALS:  1)  Heather Cox Richardson on The History of Labor Day; 2) Robert Reich on Resisting Bullies!

From today’s Substack:

Heather Cox Richardson
Heather Cox Richardson
Historian
Professor, Boston College

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/september-3-2023?r=330z7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

September 3, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

SEP 4, 2023

Almost one hundred and forty-one years ago, on September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade. The parade almost didn’t happen: there was no band, and no one wanted to start marching without music. Once the Jewelers Union of Newark Two showed up with musicians, the rest of the marchers, eventually numbering between 10,000 and 20,000 men and women, fell in behind them to parade through lower Manhattan. At noon, when they reached the end of the route, the march broke up and the participants listened to speeches, drank beer, and had picnics. Other workers joined them.

Their goal was to emphasize the importance of workers in the industrializing economy and to warn politicians that they could not be ignored. Less than 20 years before, northern men had fought a war to defend a society based on free labor and had, they thought, put in place a government that would support the ability of all hardworking men to rise to prosperity.

By 1882, though, factories and the fortunes they created had swung the government toward men of capital, and workingmen worried they would lose their rights if they didn’t work together. A decade before, the Republican Party, which had formed to protect free labor, had thrown its weight behind Wall Street. By the 1880s, even the staunchly Republican Chicago Tribune complained about the links between business and government: “Behind every one of half of the portly and well-dressed members of the Senate can be seen the outlines of some corporation interested in getting or preventing legislation,” it wrote. The Senate, Harper’s Weekly noted, was “a club of rich men.”

The workers marching in New York City carried banners saying: “Labor Built This Republic and Labor Shall Rule it,” “Labor Creates All Wealth,” “No Land Monopoly,” “No Money Monopoly,” “Labor Pays All Taxes,” “The Laborer Must Receive and Enjoy the Full Fruit of His Labor,” ‘Eight Hours for a Legal Day’s Work,” and “The True Remedy is Organization and the Ballot.”

The New York Times denied that workers were any special class in the United States, saying that “[e]very one who works with his brain, who applies accumulated capital to industry, who directs or facilitates the operations of industry and the exchange of its products, is just as truly a laboring man as he who toils with his hands…and each contributes to the creation of wealth and the payment of taxes and is entitled to a share in the fruits of labor in proportion to the value of his service in the production of net results.”

In other words, the growing inequality in the country was a function of the greater value of bosses than their workers, and the government could not possibly adjust that equation. The New York Daily Tribune scolded the workers for holding a political—even a “demagogical” —event. “It is one thing to organize a large force of…workingmen…when they are led to believe that the demonstration is purely non-partisan; but quite another thing to lead them into a political organization….”

Two years later, workers helped to elect Democrat Grover Cleveland to the White House. A number of Republicans crossed over to support the reformer, afraid that, as he said, “The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor…. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”

In 1888, Cleveland won the popular vote by about 100,000 votes, but his Republican opponent, Benjamin Harrison, won in the Electoral College. Harrison promised that his would be “A BUSINESS MAN’S ADMINISTRATION” and said that “before the close of the present Administration business men will be thoroughly well content with it….”

Businessmen mostly were, but the rest of the country wasn’t. In November 1892 a Democratic landslide put Cleveland back in office, along with the first Democratic Congress since before the Civil War. As soon as the results of the election became apparent, the Republicans declared that the economy would collapse. Harrison’s administration had been “beyond question the best business administration the country has ever seen,” one businessmen’s club insisted, so losing it could only be a calamity. “The Republicans will be passive spectators,” the Chicago Tribune noted. “It will not be their funeral.” People would be thrown out of work, but “[p]erhaps the working classes of the country need such a lesson….”

As investors rushed to take their money out of the U.S. stock market, the economy collapsed a few days before Cleveland took office in early March 1893. Trying to stabilize the economy by enacting the proposals capitalists wanted, Cleveland and the Democratic Congress had to abandon many of the pro-worker policies they had promised, and the Supreme Court struck down the rest (including the income tax).

They could, however, support Labor Day and its indication of workers’ political power. On June 28, 1894, Cleveland signed Congress’s bill making Labor Day a legal holiday.

In Chicago the chair of the House Labor Committee, Lawrence McGann (D-IL), told the crowd gathered for the first official observance: “Let us each Labor day, hold a congress and formulate propositions for the amelioration of the people. Send them to your Representatives with your earnest, intelligent indorsement [sic], and the laws will be changed.”

Notes:

https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history-daze

New York Times, September 6, 1882, p. 8.

New York Times, September 6, 1882, p. 4.

New York Daily Tribune, September 7, 1882, p. 4.

https://blogs.loc.gov/law/files/2011/09/S-730.pdf

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/The-first-Labor-Day/

Share

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Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Former US Secretary of Labor
Professor of Public Policy
CAL Berkeley
Creative Commons License

https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/personal-history-my-father-and-joe?r=330z7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

My father and the SOBs

Ed Reich hated bullies.

ROBERT REICH

SEP 4, 2023

Friends,

I thought today, Labor Day, might be a good one to introduce my father, Ed Reich, and tell you a little about him and the values he passed along to me. Labor Day makes me think of him, because on Labor Day, he kicked the bigots out of our house.

Ed called himself a liberal Republican in the days when such creatures still roamed the earth. He voted for Thomas Dewey in 1948 (canceling my mother’s vote for Harry Truman) and then for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 (canceling my mother’s votes for Adlai Stevenson), and he thought highly of New York’s Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller, and its Republican senator, Jacob Javits — neither of whom would last a nanosecond in today’s GOP.

But Ed Reich could not abide political bullies. He gave up on the Republican Party when Nixon became president. He would have detested Trump. (My father died in 2016, two weeks before his 102nd birthday, and nine months before Trump was elected.)

Ed thought anyone who had to bully someone else to feel good about himself was despicable. If they did their bullying through politics, they were doubly despicable. In his mind, political bullying had led to the Holocaust.

***

In 1947, Ed moved us from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a small town some 60 miles north of New York City called South Salem, to be within driving distance of his two women’s clothing stores, in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Peekskill, New York.

On Labor Day, soon after we moved in, a delegation of older men came by our house. When they knocked on the door, my mother thought they were a welcoming committee and opened it with a big “hello!” But when she saw the expressions on their faces, she became alarmed.

She invited them into the living room and asked if they’d like coffee. They declined.

My father greeted them stiffly, suggesting they sit down. They did not.

“What’s this about?” he asked. “What’s happened? Is there a problem?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Reich,” one of them spoke gravely, “we’ve come to inform you that South Salem is a Christian community.”

There was a long pause. I could see my father redden.

“So, we’re not welcome here?” His voice was tight.

“Legally, you have a right to be here, of course,” the speaker said. (New York state had just enacted a law prohibiting homeowners from including “restrictive covenants” in their deeds that barred sales to “Negroes or Hebrews.”) “But we don’t think you and your family will be happy here.”

“Thank you for coming by,” my father said flatly, opening the front door for them. Then he exploded: “Now get the hell out of my house!”

That was the day Ed Reich decided we’d stay put in South Salem forever. “I showed those sons of bitches,” he said some years later.

“Son of a bitch” was the worst epithet Ed could hurl at someone. It burst out of him like a volcanic eruption. For many years, I didn’t know it contained separate English words, including a term many would find offensive today. To my young ears it was one word — sonofaBITCH — that might have been Russian or Yiddish, but whatever language it was, it was huge and frightening.

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WISCONSIN SENATOR JOE McCARTHY HAD A SPECIAL PLACE in Ed Reich’s pantheon of horrible people. McCarthy didn’t just bully those he claimed were members of the Communist Party. He attacked them with malice. McCarthy ridiculed the “pitiful squealing” of “those egg-sucking phony liberals” who “would hold sacrosanct those Communists and queers.”

Every time McCarthy’s image came across the six-inch screen of the Magnavox television in our living room, my father would shout “son-of-a-BITCH” so loudly it made me shudder.

McCarthyism was the byproduct of the Republican Party’s postwar effort to eradicate the New Deal by linking it to communism. The GOP had portrayed the midterm election of 1946 as a “battle between Republicanism and communism.” The Republican National Committee chairman claimed that the federal bureaucracy was filled with “pink puppets.”

Southern segregationist Democrats joined in the red baiting. Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo, a Klansman who had filibustered to block anti-lynching legislation, described multiracial labor unions’ advocacy for civil rights as the work of “northern communists.” Representative John Elliott Rankin, a racist and antisemitic Mississippi Democrat who helped establish the House Un-American Activities Committee, called the CIO’s southern organizing campaign “a communist plot” and charged it would give more voting rights to Black people. “We’re asleep at the switch,” he warned. “They’re taking over this country; we’ve got to stop them if we want this country.”

The tactic was temporarily successful. In the 1946 midterms, Democrats lost control of both the Senate and the House. Wisconsin ended its era of progressive Republican La Follettes and sent Joe McCarthy to the Senate. California replaced New Dealer Jerry Voorhis with a young Republican lawyer who had already figured out how to use red baiting as a political tool. His name was Richard Nixon.

In December 1946, at the founding convention of the Progressive Citizens of America, FDR’s former vice president Henry Wallace called the red scare a tool used by the most powerful economic forces in America and warned America not to give in to it. “We shall … repel all the attacks of the plutocrats and monopolists who will brand us as Reds,” he said, adding:

“If it is traitorous to believe in peace — we are traitors. If it is communistic to believe in prosperity for all — we are communists. If it is unAmerican to believe in freedom from monopolistic dictation — we are unAmerican. We are more American than the neo-fascists who attack us. The more we are attacked the more likely we are to succeed, provided we are ready and willing to counterattack.”

But there was no counterattack. The red baiting escalated, encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI.

President Truman succumbed to the mounting hysteria. On March 21, 1947, he signed Executive Order 9835, the “Loyalty Order.” It ushered in loyalty oaths and background checks and created the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations.

As the 1950 election approached, a Times headline announced that the “Left is Silent in Campaign.” Even the American Civil Liberties Union, whose roots lay in the Red Scare of the World War I era, was reluctant to take the lead in opposing the threat to civil liberties in the second Red Scare of the 1950s.

California Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas — dubbed the “Pink Lady” for her supposed communist sympathies — tried for the Senate in 1950. She survived a bitter primary battle only to be beaten in November by red-baiter Richard Nixon.

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ON JUNE 9, 1954, I SAT AT MY FATHER’S SIDE ON OUR LIVING ROOM COUCH, watching the Army-McCarthy hearings. McCarthy had accused the U.S. Army of having poor security at a top-secret facility.

Joseph Welch, a private attorney, was representing the Army. McCarthy charged that one of Welch’s young staff attorneys was a communist. Such a charge was likely to end the young man’s career.

“Son-of-a-BITCH,” my father shouted. I hid my head.

As McCarthy continued his attack on Welch’s staff attorney, Welch broke in. “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”

I was only eight years old, but I was spellbound.

McCarthy didn’t stop. “Son-of-a-BITCH!” Ed Reich shouted even more loudly. The earth seemed to shake.

At this point, Welch demanded that McCarthy listen to him. “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator,” he said. “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

Almost overnight, McCarthy imploded. His national popularity evaporated. Three years later, censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, McCarthy drank himself to death, a broken man at the age of 48.

***

During the Army-McCarthy hearings, McCarthy’s chief counsel was Roy Cohn. Cohn became one of America’s most notorious bullies.

Cohn had gained prominence as the Department of Justice attorney who successfully prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage, leading to their execution in 1953. (Evidence made public decades after the execution confirmed that Julius was a spy, but that Ethel, while aware of her husband’s activities, was not.)

In public, Cohn was homophobic. Privately, he was gay at a time when being gay was a crime. A character in Tony Kushner’s epic Angels in America describes him as “the polestar of human evil. The worst human being who ever lived … the most evil, twisted, vicious bastard ever to snort coke at Studio 54.” His bullying was particularly vicious, I think, because he was filled with self-loathing.

The Rosenberg trial brought the 24-year-old Cohn to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, who convinced Joe McCarthy to hire Cohn as chief counsel for McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Cohn became known for his aggressive questioning of suspected communists.

My father thought Roy Cohn almost as despicable as Joe McCarthy. “Son-of-a BITCH!” my father shouted whenever Cohn’s name was in the news.

After McCarthy’s downfall, it was assumed that Cohn’s career was also over. Yet Cohn reinvented himself as a power broker in New York. Despite scandals and indictments, along with accusations of tax evasion, bribery, and theft, Cohn survived.

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COHN PROVED HIMSELF USEFUL TO A YOUNG REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER NAMED DONALD TRUMP. Fred Trump had started his son’s career by bringing him into the family business of renting apartments in Brooklyn and Queens.

Cohn established Donald in Manhattan by introducing him to New York’s social and political elite. Donald was undertaking several large construction projects in Manhattan and needed both a fixer and mentor. Cohn filled both roles, and along the way bequeathed to Trump a penchant for ruthless bullying, profane braggadocio, and opportunistic bigotry.

Like Trump, Cohn was utterly without principle. Like Trump, his priority was personal power that could be leveraged for wealth, influence, and celebrity.

In 1973, the Justice Department accused Trump Management Inc., its 27-year-old president, Donald, and chairman, Fred, of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 in 39 of his properties — alleging that the company quoted different rental terms and conditions to prospective tenants based on their race and made false “no vacancy” statements to Black people seeking to rent.

Trump employees had secretly marked the applications of Black people with codes, such as “C” for “colored,” according to accounts filed in federal court. The employees allegedly directed Black people away from buildings with mostly white tenants, steering them toward properties that had many Black tenants.

Representing the Trumps, Roy Cohn filed a countersuit against the government for $100 million, asserting that the charges were “irresponsible and baseless.” Although the countersuit was unsuccessful, Trump settled the charges out of court in 1975, asserting he was satisfied that the agreement did not “compel the Trump organization to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other tenant.”

Three years later, when the Trump Organization was again in court for violating terms of the 1975 settlement, Cohn called the charges “nothing more than a rehash of complaints by a couple of planted malcontents.” Donald Trump denied the charges.

Cohn was also involved in the construction of Trump Tower, helping secure concrete during a citywide Teamster strike via a union leader linked to a mob boss.

At about this time, Cohn introduced Trump to another of Cohn’s clients, Rupert Murdoch.

During Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, Cohn helped another young man named Roger Stone.

As Stone later recounted, Cohn gave him a suitcase filled with money that Stone dropped off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles. “I paid his law firm. Legal fees. I don’t know what he did for the money.” In fact, the money was used to get New York’s Liberal Party to nominate Illinois Congressman John Anderson — thereby splitting New York’s opposition to Reagan. It worked. Reagan carried the state with 46 percent of the vote. (Ed Reich voted for Jimmy Carter.)

In 1986, Cohn was disbarred by the New York State Bar for unethical conduct after attempting to defraud a dying client by forcing the client to sign a will amendment leaving Cohn his fortune. (Cohn died five weeks later from AIDS-related complications.)

In his first and best-known book, The Art of the Deal, Trump drew a distinction between integrity and loyalty. He preferred the latter.

For Trump, Roy Cohn exemplified loyalty. Trump compared Cohn to “all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys who make careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty … What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite.”

Ed Reich would vehemently disagree.

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Happy Labor Day 2023 to all!😎

It’s a time to remember and appreciate all the workers, regardless of status, whose labors make America great!

"Reflections"
“Reflections”
Linekin Bay, ME
Labor Day 2023

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-04-23

STUART ANDERSON @ FORBES WITH SOME COMMON SENSE ADVICE: “Let ‘Em Work!” — “There are labor shortages in many U.S. industries, where employers are prepared to offer training and jobs to individuals who are authorized to work in the United States.”💡

Stuart Anderson
Stuart Anderson
Executive Director
National Foundation for American Policy
PHOTO:Linkedin

Parole programs and other legal pathways reduce illegal entry and are more humane. “Latin American experts say it is wrong to assume immigration enforcement policies can override the human instinct to leave untenable circumstances and seek a better life.” #immigration #asylum #asylumseekers

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7103429953483849728?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_updateV2%3A%28urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7103429953483849728%2CFEED_DETAIL%2CEMPTY%2CDEFAULT%2Cfalse%29&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_myitems_savedposts%3Bb2bYzbhpTP2VzgwEtxkzqQ%3D%3D

 

New York City business leaders have asked the Biden administration to provide more federal aid and expedite work permits for asylum seekers. If asylum seekers could work, they would likely find their own housing, which would ease the burden on New York and other city governments. Businesses around the country seek more workers to fill positions. Advocates recommend policies that would provide a more comprehensive solution amid an historic refugee crisis that analysts consider unlikely to be addressed through enforcement-only policies.

A Plea From Businesses

“The New York business community is deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from the continued flow of asylum seekers into our country,” according to an August 28, 2023, letter from the Partnership for New York City to President Biden and Congressional leaders. “We write to support the request made by New York Governor Hochul for federal funding for educational, housing, security and health care services to offset the costs that local and state governments are incurring with limited federal aid.

“In addition, there is a compelling need for expedited processing of asylum applications and work permits for those who meet federal eligibility standards. Immigration policies and control of our country’s border are clearly a federal responsibility; state and local governments have no standing in this matter. There are labor shortages in many U.S. industries, where employers are prepared to offer training and jobs to individuals who are authorized to work in the United States.”

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

For each of my classes in Immigration Law & Policy @ Georgetown Law, the students were required to find and report on an item relating or illustrating the topic for the class. Stuart Anderson was one of the “most reported on” sources! I think it’s because his writing is so clear, understandable, and sensible to all audiences!

Immigration affects everything and is a key to a better future for all. That’s why it’s a shame Dems aren’t willing to tout it, instead basically ceding the issue to GOP restrictionists. Big mistake, in my view!

🇺🇸  Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-03-23

🇺🇸🗽👩🏾‍🎓 INVESTING IN AMERICA’S FUTURE: MAINE MAKES EFFORT, WELCOMES NEW STUDENTS FROM ASYLUM-SEEKING FAMILIES!  — “School leaders say the work can be challenging and puts a significant strain on resources, but it’s also a privilege to welcome new students into the community.”

 

Gillian Graham
Gillian Graham
Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/08/28/schools-make-last-minute-push-to-prepare-for-new-students-from-asylum-seeking-families/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daily+Headlines%3A+Hundreds+celebrate+return+of+Gray-New+Gloucester%2FRaymond+Little+League+team&utm_campaign=PH+Daily+Headlines+ND+-+NO+SECTIONS&auth0Authentication=true

Local schools make last-minute push to prepare for new students from asylum-seeking families

In Freeport and Sanford, schools have hired English instructors and made other adjustments needed to welcome dozens of new students.

BY GILLIAN GRAHAM STAFF WRITER

Maine welcomes students
Maine welcomes students

 

Children catch bubbles Aug. 17 at a free barbecue organized by the Lewiston School Department to mark the end of its summer outreach program that provided numerous services for students and families. It also gave the School Department the opportunity to connect with students and parents, hand out schedules, sign students up and make connections before the start of school. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

With just a week to go before the first day of school, staff from Freeport schools headed to a local hotel to meet their newest students.

The 67 students, all from asylum-seeking families, had just moved to the Casco Bay Inn from the Portland Expo, where nearly 200 people had been staying in the temporary shelter before it closed. The families all decided to send their kids to Freeport schools instead of busing them to Portland to attend classes, said Jean Skorapa, superintendent of Regional School Unit 5 in Freeport.

“Our first goal is to get them enrolled and in a class,” she said. “That piece is done. Now we look at how to best serve their needs.”

The scramble to welcome new students and connect them with the services they need is becoming a familiar challenge in Freeport and other Maine communities where the families are settling.

For the past several years, school districts in southern Maine have had to make quick adjustments as they enroll dozens of students from asylum-seeking families, many of whom come from African countries and speak little or no English when they arrive. To meet their needs, they’ve had to hire more teachers for English learners, add social workers and support staff, and make sure translation services are in place to communicate with parents.

“For us, this is a new experience,” said Steve Bussiere, assistant superintendent in Sanford, where 38 students enrolled in May when their families arrived in the city. There will be 55 students from asylum-seeking families in Sanford schools this year, he said.

School leaders say the work can be challenging and puts a significant strain on resources, but it’s also a privilege to welcome new students into the community.

“We’ve had new Mainers with us over the past year and a half. They’ve made us a more well-rounded, diverse district,” Skorapa said. “They’re a wonderful addition to our school community and we welcome them with open arms and are thrilled to have them with us.”

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

Congrats to educational and political leaders in Maine for making the system work as it should! Immigrants becoming Mainers and settling down there is making a positive difference! Seems like the Feds, not to mention other states and localities, could use some of this same positive approach and enlightened, courageous leadership.

The Portland’s Press Herald’s Editorial Board echoed this view in an editorial published yesterday:

Our View: To invest in immigrant pupils is to invest in the future

A big effort by Maine schools to accommodate English language learners will have a big return for their communities.

A new experience.

That’s how Steve Bussiere, assistant superintendent in Sanford, described Sanford schools’ addressing the needs of 55 new students from asylum-seeking families this coming school year.

It’s a new experience for the kids, too, and thanks to thoughtful, time-intensive efforts by Bussiere’s colleagues and other schools around Maine – hiring additional teachers to teach English to English language learners, hiring more social workers and more support staff and refining translation services so that school staff and administrators can communicate with new pupils’ parents – it can be a good experience.

The focus on multilingual learners requires a serious effort and will make a serious difference to our state.

Thankfully, the Maine Legislature expressed its understanding of that fact in July, including $3.5 million for the support of English language learners – via the English Language Learner Hardship Fund – in the special supplemental budget.

This valuable funding becomes available to schools at the end of October. Portland’s public schools will receive more than $784,000; Lewiston, $631,000; South Portland, $302,000; Biddeford, $192,000, Brunswick, $150,000; Saco, $110,000; Freeport, $109,000, and Westbrook, $93,000.

In Freeport, arrangements have been made for 67 new students who recently moved with their families from the temporary shelter at the Portland Expo to the Casco Bay Inn. Jean Skorapa, superintendent of Regional School Unit 5 in Freeport, struck a crystal-clear and exceedingly warm note earlier this week – sounding like many other Maine educators on the same subject in recent years.

“We’ve had new Mainers with us over the past year and a half. They’ve made us a more well-rounded, diverse district,” Skorapa said. “They’re a wonderful addition to our school community and we welcome them with open arms and are thrilled to have them with us.”

In other school districts, efforts such as these have been up and running for a while. According to our reporting Monday, Lewiston schools work with students who speak a total of 38 languages. The school district there has a multilingual center that works with families and offers vital help with paperwork and orientation. Portland has been supporting new students from asylum-seeking families for years; in July, we reported that one-third of the district’s roughly 6,500 students were multilingual.

The numbers make it clear as day: The downside risk of underfunding English language learning is now way too steep for these parts of Maine to run. Yes, there’s a moral imperative here; it is also a legal requirement of our public schools. We trust that, on the strength of existing work in this realm, the practice of funding multilingual learning education becomes just that – a practice. Rep. Michael Brennan, D-Portland, House chair of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, expressed his commitment to continue funding the program “in the coming years.”

Appropriate investment in these students fosters a sense of belonging, reduces the risk of pernicious, hard-to-close learning gaps and, as students find themselves better and better equipped to support their families locally, has wide-reaching benefits. To say nothing of what it means for school graduates of the future. On top of that, successive studies have shown that the teaching techniques that assist English language learners assist all students.

That’s not to say there won’t be hurdles to overcome. In recent days, tense and ugly anti-immigrant rallies in Manhattan, Staten Island and Woburn, Massachusetts, laid bare the style of racist, isolationist thinking that continues to oppose even the most commonsense steps towards integration and inclusion.

Our schools need more support, and they need it to be specific. The calls for increased attention to the new members of the student body need to be sustained in their volume and their clarity. It makes sense, at every level, to seize this opportunity to enrich our classrooms and our communities.

Kids are our future. It’s definitely worth the effort!

Helping Hand
A Helping Hand.jpg
Image depicts a child coming to the aid of another in need. Once we have climbed it is essential for the sake of humanity that we help others do the same. It is knowing that we all could use, and have used, a helping hand.
Safiyyah Scoggins – PVisions1111
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
White Nationalist Xenophobes like Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, & Ducey have abandoned Traditional Judeo-Christian values in favor of neo-fascism. But, the rest of us should hold true to our “better angels.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-31-23

☠️🤯 CAL. PRISONS ILLEGALLY REFERRING U.S. CITIZENS FOR REMOVAL, REPORTS ACLU, LA TIMES!

Andrea Castillo
Andrea Castillo
Immigration Reporter
LA Times
Source: LA Times website

Andrea Castillo reports for the LA times:

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-08-29/californa-prisons-ice-records-us-citizens

WASHINGTON —  On Aug. 18, 2022, a records department employee at the California Correctional Center emailed federal immigration authorities a list of people they believed could be subject to deportation. The list noted that most of those named were born outside the U.S. or had an unknown birthplace. But 12 people were listed as having been born in this country.

That email was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and shared with The Times. The advocacy group says California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation staff routinely assume people in their custody are deportable immigrants — even when their own records indicate they are U.S. citizens or immigrants who should not be deported — and report those individuals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while denying them rehabilitation opportunities.

The records stem from a public records request filed last year by the ACLU NorCal, which sought communications between the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR, and ICE. The ACLU and other advocacy groups said they analyzed about 2,500 uniquerecords from August and September 2022, during which the agency transferred more than 200 people from CDCR facilities to immigration custody.

The groups detailed the results in a report to be published Tuesday that they say describes the practices employed by the CDCR in cooperation with ICE and provides examples of alleged actions by department staff that are discriminatory, including against immigrants.

“In their zeal to collude with ICE, CDCR is not only targeting people who have served their time and are set to return home for detention and deportation but is also sweeping up U.S. citizens and Green Card holders, relying on racist assumptions and ignoring their own records,” the report states.

. . . .

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Read the rest of Andrea’s report at the link.

Totally outrageous!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-30-23

🇺🇸⚖️ ON THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF DR KING’S “DREAM SPEECH,” NDPA SUPERSTAR BREANNE J. PALMER RELEASES PART III OF HER “BLACK IMMIGRATION PRIMER:” MAGA America Seeks To Turn Back The Clock On Progress: “45 and his minions’ embrace of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia produced two Travel Bans that harmed hundreds of people.”

 

Breanne Justine Palmer, Esquire
Breanne Justine Palmer, Esquire
Senior Legal Policy Advisor
Senior Legal Policy Advisor
Democracy Forward
PHOTO: Linkedin

Breanne Justine Palmer, Esq.

Breanne Justine Palmer, Esq.

(She/Her) • 1st

(She/Her) • 1st

Advocate and Attorney Making Progressive Policy Accessible and Irresistible

Advocate and Attorney Making Progressive Policy Accessible and Irresistible

1d •

1d •

The following post is the final part of my 2017 Black Immigration Primer! I delve into the impact of former President Donald Trump’s early executive orders on Black immigrants, the consequences of which are still being felt today.

It seems like ages since 45 (the former President of the U.S.) issued a volley of executive orders affecting various areas of our lives. Here, I want to talk about the two versions of the Travel Ban (a.k.a. the #MuslimBan) and how they target Black immigrants, Muslim immigrants, and Black Muslim immigrants. The travel bans live at the intersection of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia.

First, some terms and their definitions. Anti-Blackness (also known as anti-Black racism) is what it sounds like: systems, policies, beliefs, and behaviors that are “resistant or antagonistic to Black people or their values or objectives.” We often see anti-Blackness in other communities of color. Some argue that assimilation into American culture is predicated on embracing anti-Blackness (in order to succeed in America, one must separate oneself from Black people and violently oppose Black people’s success). Islamophobia is a “dislike or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.” It’s important that anti-Blackness and Islamophobia are not merely individual beliefs; they encompass power of the systemic kind. Anti-Blackness and Islamophobia result in harmful, deadly policies and wars.

It’s safe to say that 45 and his administration are a number of things (misogynistic, racist, unethical, evil, and so forth) but they are also distinctly anti-Black and Islamophobic. 45 and his minions’ embrace of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia produced two Travel Bans that harmed hundreds of people. Let’s discuss them in turn. Read more on my blog!

#blackimmigrants #muslimban #africanban #45 #xenophobia #islamaphobia #antiblackness

http://www.breannejpalmer.com/blog/black-immigration-primer-part-iii

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Thanks Breanne!

Most recently, Black Americans in Jacksonville have reacted to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s promotion of racism, guns, and White Nationalist myths. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjo1euz_IGBAxWBFVkFHXvnCdIQFnoECBYQAQ&url=https://www.npr.org/2023/08/28/1196305761/desantis-jacksonville-vigil-booed&usg=AOvVaw0S6ZRq1nLipLNzpK2reN_T&opi=89978449

It’s going to take more than $1 million in “security assistance” to a HBUC and $100k to victims’ families to cover up the far right GOP’s responsibility for promoting racism and hate crimes in America. And, the war on immigrants of color is a key part of the racism, Islamophobia, and misogyny that has found a home in the far right of today’s GOP! 

Indeed, as I have pointed out on many occasions, MAGA’s hate-fueled campaign to eliminate individual rights in America started with Trump’s lies and distortions targeting migrants of color from Mexico and elsewhere! That’s why Dems’ overall failure to engage with the GOP on immigration, and to vigorously and proudly defend migrants’ rights, has such tragic implications for American democracy!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-2-23

⚖️🗽👩🏽‍⚖️👩🏽‍🏫 WITH HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS @ ROPES & GRAY, IMMIGRATION PROFESSORS & ROUND TABLE 🛡️ FILE AMICUS ON WITHHOLDING/NEXUS STANDARD OF PROOF IN 1ST CIR. — Paye v. Garland

Read the full brief here:

Paye [2023.8.25] Amici Brief (Law Profs & IJs & BIA members)

Here’s the “Statement of Interest:”

INTEREST OF THE AMICI CURIAE1

This brief represents the views of two groups of amici curiae. See Corporate

Disclosure Statement for names of amici curiae. The first group is comprised of thirty-two immigration law scholars and clinical professors. These amici teach immigration law and/or provide clinical instruction in law school clinics that provide representation to asylum seekers and noncitizens seeking relief under 8 U.S.C. § 1231 and 8 U.S.C § 1158. As such, amici are knowledgeable of the particular legal requirements of 8 U.S.C. § 1231 and 8 U.S.C § 1158 and have a special interest in the proper administration and interpretation of the nation’s immigration laws, particularly asylum and withholding of removal.

The second group is comprised of forty-one former immigration judges (“IJs”) and Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) members who have collectively presided over thousands of removal proceedings and have interest in this case based on their many years of dedicated service administering the immigration laws of the United States. Based on this experience, amici believe that withholding of removal

1 Pursuant to Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, amici notes that all parties have consented to the filing of this brief.

Furthermore, pursuant to Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, amici further certifies that no party’s counsel authored the brief in whole or in part, no party or party’s counsel contributed money that was intended to fund preparation or submission of the brief, and no person, other than amici, their members, or counsel has contributed money intended to fund preparing or submitting the brief.

  -1-

Case: 23-1426 Document: 00118044713 Page: 13 Date Filed: 08/25/2023 Entry ID: 6587480

is the means whereby Congress provided for the United States to meet its international treaty obligation of “nonrefoulement” under Article 33 of the Refugee Convention. Withholding of removal is a vital legal tool upon which IJs rely to ensure that noncitizens appearing before them are not removed to countries for which they have proven it to be more likely than not that they have experienced (or will experience) persecution on account of a protected ground — an extremely high burden to meet. This relief is mandatory where the noncitizen’s burden of proof is met and does not lead to permanent status or derivative status for immediate family members, in contrast to asylum, which is a discretionary form of relief that grants a permanent status and derivative status for immediate family members.

Amici contend that the more lenient “a reason” standard, as applied to the nexus between the protected ground and the persecution for withholding (as opposed to the “at least one central reason” standard for asylum) requires IJs to order withholding in cases where evidence of nexus may be insufficient for a discretionary grant of asylum. Such an interpretation would provide greater protection from violating the international treaty obligation of nonrefoulement. The instant case, where Petitioner is ineligible for asylum but may be protected from severe future persecution by withholding of removal, presents exactly the context in which Congress intended for the lesser “a reason” nexus standard to apply. Addressing this question here provides an opportunity for this Court to affirm Congress’s clear

-2-

Case: 23-1426 Document: 00118044713 Page: 14 Date Filed: 08/25/2023 Entry ID: 6587480

intent, expressed in the statutory language of 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(C), to establish protection against nonrefoulement for this noncitizen and many others who, for any number of reasons, are ineligible for the discretionary relief of asylum.

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

Many thanks to all involved!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-28-23

🤯 CAT-ASTROPHE: TOM MOSELEY DOWNS OIL, AS 3RD REACTS TO EOIR’S DISDAIN FOR FOLLOWING CIRCUIT PRECEDENT!

Train wreck
Train wreck — 
“A heck of a way to run the railway!”
Public Realm

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca3-on-cat-procedural-failures-not-following-instructions-llanes-quintero-v-atty-gen

“On Petition for Review of a Final Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. (Agency No. A209-343-065). Immigration Judge: David Cheng. … As for Quinteros’s Convention Against Torture claim, our precedent requires the agency to follow certain steps. Yet neither the judge nor the Board did so. … Here, neither the immigration judge nor the Board followed our instructions. … Those procedural failures infected the agency’s decisions. Neither the immigration judge nor the Board considered a separate death threat and beatings that Quinteros got from gang members. In gauging the likelihood and severity of future harm, the agency should have considered the gang’s death threat too. See Herrera-Reyes v. Att’y Gen., 952 F.3d 101, 112 n.5 (3d Cir. 2020). So we will grant the petition as to Quinteros’s Convention Against Torture claim, vacate the Board’s order, and remand.”

[Hats off to Thomas E. Moseley!]

Thomas E. Moseley
Thomas E. Moseley ESQ

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

Gee whiz, applying and following Circuit precedent seems like “Immigration Judging 101!” Yet two levels of supposedly “expert” EOIR judges blew it — badly! Fortunately, this respondent was represented by experienced Federal litigator Thomas E. Moseley, who is never afraid to go to the Article IIIs to correct EOIR’s errors.

But, most respondents aren’t so lucky.  So, it’s likely that for every defective adjudication “outed” by a Circuit, multiple, potentially deadly or at least life changing, mistakes go uncorrected. Worse yet, some are even “institutionalized!” Seems like a “heck of a way to run the railway,” particularly for a former Article III Judge who was once nominated for the Supremes!

Unforced error after unforced error in life or death cases from Garland’s substandard “courts!” Would brain surgeons 🤯☠️ who kept on screwing up critical operations still be “on staff.” I doubt it! So, why aren’t “DOJ attorneys” carrying out quasi-judicial functions subject to some quality controls? In theory, that’s supposed to be the BIA’s function. But, the BIA has firmly established itself as “part of the problem, NOT the solution!” 

Congrats to my long-time friend and former “Legacy INS” colleague Tom Moseley. As a former INS Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the SDNY (in the time of “Crazy Rudy”) during the “Inman/Schmidt Era” at INS General Counsel, Tom has also seen both sides of the system!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-27-23

🇺🇸🗽👍 WATCH TEA’S COFFEE: Immigrant Food’s Superstar 🌟 Co-Founder/COO & Cato’s Alex  Nowrasteh Take Apart The White Nationalist Restrictionist Myths About Immigrants! 

Tea Ivanovic
Tea Ivanovic
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer
Immigrant Food
PHOTO: Immigrant Food

 

Alex Nowrasteh
Alex Nowrasteh
Vice President for Economic & Social Policy Studies
Cato Institute

Tea writes:

Editor’s Note – August 2023

Dear Reader,

America is built on the drive and determination of immigrants. Even though immigration is one of America’s founding principles, it remains one of the most hotly contested social and political issues of modern times. This ongoing debate is fueled by a number of negative myths about immigrants that have taken root in society.

This month, we are committed to busting the common political, economic, and demographic myths about immigration. We examine how these myths have taken root in our society, how they spread, and what can be done to change the narrative on immigration.

For this month’s issue, we spoke with Alex Nowrasteh, the Vice President for Economic and Social Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Alex is one of the leading voices when it comes to immigration policy.

Hope you gain new insights,
Téa

 

Watch “Tea’s Coffee” where she interviews Alex Nowratseh here:

https://immigrantfood.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ce06e58bfebaeac8af360fd3e&id=2800d3f1d8&e=16814f5ced

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

Watch the video at the above link and find out more on the Immigrant Food website here:

https://immigrantfood.com/

Alex says there are three things we can do to combat the myths and lies being spread by the nativist/restrictionists:

  • Recognize the humanity of immigrants and their legal rights under our laws;
  • Emphasize that immigrants compliment, rather than compete with, us;
  • Point out that the “border chaos” is largely the result of bad laws and failed deterrence policies rather than the fault of immigrants.

By contrast, you can spot the bogus restrictionist/nativist myths a mile way because they:

  • Dehumanize immigrants by falsely reducing them to “statistics, numbers, apprehensions, beds, costs, graphs, and charts;”
  • Make the bogus claim that our economy is a “zero sum game” where every additional immigrant means “less of the pie” for you or me — a claim which is demonstrably false because people and immigration are what have allowed us historically to expand our economy so there potentially will be more for everyone (provided that those at the top don’t grab a disproportionate share for themselves);
  • Promote the myth of “just get in line” when there in reality is no line for most to get in because of the unduly restrictive nature of our laws and their poor administration by successive Administrations. They ignore the reality that robust migration is here to stay. The real choice is whether or not we want realistic laws and policies that recognize and harness that reality or instead continue to reward smugglers, enrich jailers, and force millions of migrants into the “extralegal” underground economy where they can not contribute fully economically or politically.

 

Haley Sweetland Edwards
Haley Sweatband Edwards
Nation Editor
Time Magazine
PHOTO: Pulitzer

As another “myth debunker,” Time’s Haley Sweetland Edwards, said:

These political reactions fail to grapple with a hard truth: in the long run, new migration is nearly always a boon to host countries. In acting as entrepreneurs and innovators, and by providing inexpensive labor, immigrants overwhelmingly repay in long-term economic contributions what they use in short-term social services, studies show. But to maximize that future good, governments must act -rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/01/27/inconvenient-truth-haley-sweetland-edwards-time-tells-what-trump-miller-cotton-sessions-their-white-nationalist-gang-dont-want-you-to-know-human-migration-is-a-powerful-force-as-old/

Clown Court
“And the winner was . . . .”
PHOTO: Clown Civertan.jpg, Creative Commons License

“Governments must act rationally!” Certainly, neither Trump nor any of the GOP clowns 🤡 seeking to be him are “rational actors” on immigration, the economy, infrastructure, education, individual rights, or anything else of importance to our nation. Indeed, the ignorance, indecency, irrationality, and bias exhibited during the so-called “GOP debate” was beyond appalling, despite the media’s pathetic attempts to “normalize” idiocy. Six folks afraid to say “hypothetically” that they would vote for someone OTHER than a convicted felon who made totally baseless claims that he won the 2020 election! Gimmie a break! (I’m certainly not the only one impressed by the disturbingly low quality of  the GOP “field.” See, e.g., https://www.huffpost.com/entry/larry-hogan-gop-candidates-trump-conviction-question_n_64e82302e4b0a2a9abc4bdc0).

Tea Ivanovic — an amazing immigrant entrepreneur and inspirational leader who is on Forbes’s list of “30 under 30” — is a stellar example of how immigrants of all types — from those at the border to those in boardrooms — make America better! See, e.g.,

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/07/22/🦃-hokie-hero-va-tech-honors-ndpa-all-star-tea-ivanovic-of-immigrant-food-industry-leader-spotlight-disruptive-food-startup-incorporates-gastronomy-a/

Food for thought from Tea and the good folks at Immigrant Food!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-26-23

⚖️🗽 ATTENTION NDPA: TRAINING OPPORTUNITY: Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (“SIJS”) Webinar From National Association of Women Judges on September 6 @ 1:30 pm — Register Here!

SIJS Training
SIJS Training

Here’s the registration link:

https://nationalassociationwomenjudges.app.neoncrm.com/eventReg.jsp?event=278&

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Hon. Eliza Klein
Eliza C. Klein, a retired immigration judge, said the asylum case backlog “creates a second class of citizens.”Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York Times

My good friend and Round Table colleague, Judge (Ret.) Eliza Klein, is among the all-star faculty.

Please note that this is a “live only” webinar that will NOT be recorded or repeated. Register now at the above link!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-25-23

🏈 “SEASON OF LOVE” ABOUT TO UNFOLD IN GREEN BAY — Can 4th Year Pro With Only a Few Regular Season Passes (Even Fewer Meaningful Ones) Take The Pack To the Same Heights As His Two Hall-of-Fame Predecessors? — While Some Are Doubters, Favorable Schedule & Weak Division Could Give Pack a Realistic Chance At Playoff Return!

 

Jordan Love
Jordan Love
Quarterback
Green Bay Packers
PHOTO” Packer website

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/08/23/jordan-love-packers-aaron-rodgers/

Adam Kilgore reports for WashPost:

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Their season ended in January with a frail whimper and the sour departure of a quarterback both legendary and malcontent. They handed their offense to a passer whose last victory as a starter came in 2019 over New Mexico. Their wide receivers room could be confused for a day care. The Green Bay Packers possess the outward signs of a franchise in reset. Internally, they dismiss a rebuild as preposterous, not even an option. They do not play in Future Championship Equity City. Lambeau Field resides in Titletown.

“All people see is the ‘G’ on the helmet, and they expect you to win,” Coach Matt LaFleur said. “That’s the reality of this league. You can either run from it, or you embrace it.”

LaFleur spoke sitting on a couch in his new office inside the new wing of the Packers’ facility, so fresh you can still smell the construction while walking the halls. It is an apt setting from which to launch Green Bay’s first season in three decades with a quarterback other than Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers, two men now facing the roughly equivalent challenges of beating a lawsuit in Mississippi and trying to win with the New York Jets.

The Packers are running toward Year 1 of the Jordan Love era anticipating immediate results — a hope that is more realistic than outlandish. Rodgers’s exit cast a long shadow, but the shade has obscured a roster with requisite talent to win an unsettled division in the weaker conference.

“There are a lot of unknowns with our team, but I think that’s also exciting,” LaFleur said. “With no expectations, there’s no limitations.”

He learned football on YouTube in Africa. Can he make an NFL roster?

The Packers have a defense stocked with eight first-round draft picks, unapologetic belief in Love and a collective desire to prove there is life after Rodgers, whose age-related decline, cantankerousness and thumb injury last year leave Love a lower bar to clear than Rodgers’s résumé would suggest — a mandate that comes from their home city.

. . . .

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Read the full report at the above link.

Only time will tell. JLove just hasn’t had enough meaningful snaps to have a good handle on what he can do over a full season.  

He has a good arm and runs much better than Rodgers did at the end of his Packer career. But, we can all think of QBs with those qualities and stellar collegiate careers who never made much of a mark at the next level. Also, as a cautionary note, NFL QBs who try to do too much with their feet often end up with careers shortened by debilitating injuries (“RG  III” of Washington is a recent example who comes to mind). 

Also, success ultimately depends on the team. Last year, in addition to Rodgers’s sometimes struggles, there were plenty of dropped balls, inability to get separation, failure to open holes, sacks allowed, lousy tackling, and defensive lapses at particularly inopportune times. 

My favorite line in Kilgore’s article described former Packer great QBs Brett Farve and Aaron Rodgers, respectively, as “two men now facing the roughly equivalent challenges of beating a lawsuit in Mississippi and trying to win with the New York Jets.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever, and Go Pack!

Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers

PWS

08-25-23

🗽⚖️ BIA CONTINUES TO STRUGGLE WITH STANDARDS — Fortunately, WilmerHale (Tasha H. Bahal), Round Table 🛡️, 1st Cir. There To Straighten Things Out! — Murillo Morocho v. Garland — With Commentary From Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase!

Kangaroos
“We don’t need no stinkin’ standards except how high to jump for DHS enforcement!”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rasputin243/
Creative Commons License

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community: 

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/22-1881P-01A.pdf

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-cat-standard-of-review-murillo-morocho-v-garland

“Petitioner Darwin Murillo Morocho seeks review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirming the denial of his application for deferral of removal to Ecuador under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Murillo Morocho claims that, if returned to Ecuador, it is more likely than not that he would be tortured by the Ecuadorian government itself or by private actors acting with the consent or acquiescence of public officials. Before this court, he argues that the BIA applied the wrong standard of review to the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ’s”) legal conclusions. He further claims that both the BIA and the IJ applied the incorrect legal standard in assessing whether the Ecuadorian government would more likely than not consent or acquiesce in his torture. Finally, he argues that even if the BIA and IJ applied the proper legal standards, the BIA’s decision, which adopts the IJ’s decision, is not supported by substantial evidence and that the IJ erred in not giving him the opportunity to further corroborate his testimony. We agree that the agency1 applied the incorrect legal standard to the “consent or acquiescence” prong of Murillo Morocho’s CAT claim. We therefore grant his petition for review in part, vacate the order of the BIA denying Murillo Morocho CAT relief as to Ecuador, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

[Hats off to Tasha J. Bahal!]

Tasha Bahal ESQ
Tasha J. Bahal
Counsel
WilmerHale

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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

Many congrats to Tasha and the rest of rest of the wonderful pro bono team over at WilmerHale!

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

Here’s what my Round Table colleague Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase had to say:

Wonderful decision. Wilmer Hale has been doing outstanding work on deportation defense litigation.

H.H., the First Circuit’s recent precedent in which our Round Table filed an amicus brief, featured prominently in this decision.

Once again, the agency took the easy out – i.e. giving lip service to the acquiescence standard, rather than indulging in the in depth analysis required in such claims. Of course, EOIR’s training does not teach otherwise, and the BIA chooses to rubber stamp rather than correct and remand.

The First Circuit actually did the required analysis here. By contrast, it appears that as a “dismissal of a denial” by an IJ, this decision “defaulted” to the BIA’s “any reason to deny” assembly line. I suspect that if this had been a DHS appeal of an IJ grant, it would have received a more detailed, critical analysis. However, as we often see, even that analysis might be devoted to finding a bogus reason to deny.

Despite some improvement in the quality of IJ and BIA appointments under Garland, the lack of dynamic expert “pro due process” leadership and “culture of denial and deterrence” remain debilitating (and potentially life-threatening) problems at EOIR!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-24-23

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️ GOP WHITE NATIONALIST THEOCRACY THREATENS AMERICA, STARTING @ BORDER! — “Worthy of Goebbels!” — “[N]othing new. . . . It’s called fascism.” — “America’s Orbans” Undermine Liberal Democracy, Promote Illiberalism!”

Melissa Del Bosque
Melissa Del Bosque
Border Reporter
PHOTO: Melissadelbosque.com

https://substack.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.Rwn0xJ7gMZxpR5nks4NIo58FlfZsCsJm972lF9tcKws?

Melissa Del Bosque writes in the Border Chronicle:

. . . .

While this might seem uniquely cruel, Abbott is closely following the authoritarian playbook of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, and current European thought leader for MAGA Republicans. Donald Trump calls Orbán a friend, and White supremacist Tucker Carlson spent a week covering him for his former show on Fox, later making a “documentary” about Hungary called Hungary vs. Soros: Fight for Civilization. For the last two years, the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference, founded in the U.S., has held a “Woke Free Zone” conference in Budapest.

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By studying Orbán’s crackdown on asylum seekers and its progression over the last several years, you can see exactly where Abbott’s Texas is headed (and DeSantis’s Florida, for that matter).

In a speech in July 2022, Orbán argued that European and non-European people should not mix. Europeans “do not want to become peoples of mixed-race,” he said. After the speech, one of Orbán’s longtime advisers quit in protest. “I don’t know how you didn’t notice that you were presenting a pure Nazi text worthy of Goebbels,” his adviser wrote in her public resignation letter. Orbán’s speech was widely condemned in Europe, and it further alienated him from other Western leaders.

But in Texas, just days after his speech “worthy of Goebbels,” Orbán was welcomed with a standing ovation at the CPAC conference in Dallas, where he touted his “zero migration” and Judeo-Christian nationalism. “The globalists can all go to hell,” he boasted. “I have come to Texas.”

On the same CPAC stage that day, Abbott followed with similar xenophobic talking points. He bragged about Operation Lone Star and encouraged conference-goers to donate to a state-run website to pay for bussing migrants out of Texas. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick echoed Orbán’s White Christian nationalism: “The framers did not write the Constitution,” he said. “God wrote the Constitution. We are a Christian nation.”

. . . .

Unsurprisingly, Orbán’s cruel tactics against asylum seekers, which have included kidnappings and beatings, do not deter people from coming. They are fleeing wars, after all. But Orbán has used his poisonous populism to solidify his power, just as Abbott and DeSantis are trying to do. It began with asylum seekers in 2015, but now in Hungary there is no independent media or judiciary, and the LGBTQ community and immigrants have become targets for persecution as the prime minister has consolidated his control over the government. Antisemitism is also on the rise.

This is the playbook that MAGA Republicans are following in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere. We already know how it ends. Orbán’s “illiberal democracy,” which is being lionized by Trump, Abbott, and others, is nothing new. In fact, it’s very old. It’s called fascism.

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Read Melissa’s complete article at the link. Nearly 80 years after the fall of the Nazi regime, Hitler’s hateful, racist, virulently anti-Semitic views are alive and well in today’s GOP. Even in Texas, a Federal Judge had no time for Abbott’s racist/absurdist claim of “invasion.” https://linkst.dallasnews.com/click/32480676.167870/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGFsbGFzbmV3cy5jb20vbmV3cy9wb2xpdGljcy8yMDIzLzA4LzIyL2ZlZGVyYWwtanVkZ2UtcmVqZWN0cy10ZXhhcy1taWdyYW50LWludmFzaW9uLWRlZmVuc2UtaW4tZG9qLWxhd3N1aXQtb3Zlci1ib3JkZXItYnVveXMvP3NhaWx0aHJ1X2lkPTYyNjgxMjQyNGY3NTdmNjRiYWUyYWEzMg/626812424f757f64bae2aa32C5a2af025.

This is NOT a “normal” American political party!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever, White Nationalism, Never!

PWS

08-23-23