Tag: President Trump

“CBS HOUR” IS A BIG HIT AT FBA/NY LAW SCHOOL ASYLUM CONFERENCE — Chase, Bookey, Schmidt Entertain, Educate Sell-Out Crowd!

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase

Blaine Bookey, Co-Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law

Me

“Eric the Cameraman”

NEW YORK, NY, Friday, March 8, 2019.  The “CBS Team,”* Jeffrey S. Chase, Blaine Bookey, and Paul Wickham Schmidt wowed the sellout crowd at the FBA Asylum Conference at NY Law School Friday. Speaking in the coveted “final slot” of the afternoon, the “CBS Gang” gave an enthusiastic audience lots of reasons and ways to go out and oppose former Attorney General Sessions’s perversion of American asylum law in Matter of  A-B-.

In that case, Sessions reversed nearly two decades of progress and consensus in asylum law to “stick it” to Ms. A-B-, a survivor of extreme domestic violence persecution in El Salvador who fled to the U.S., escaping torture and death threats.

Schmidt, a former Immigration Judge in Arlington, Virginia and past Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals, led off with a rousing speech blasting Sessions for bias, intellectual dishonesty, and bad lawyering. He agreed with U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in the recent case Grace v. Whitaker that much of what Sessions said was non-binding dicta.

Schmidt also formulated seven ways for advocates to challenge the decision. He brought the crowd to its feet with his closing exhortation to what he called the New Due Process Army: “Due Process forever, xenophobia never!”

Bookey, Co-Director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings Law and a long time refugee advocate, appeared “larger than life” from California through the “miracle of televideo.” She showed a moving video of Ms. A-B- relating the horrible rape, beatings, death threats and abandonment by her government  that forced her to leave El Salvador and her fear that she would be killed upon return.

Bookey also pointed out that this isn’t a mere “difference  of opinion” among lawyers. Rather, Matter of A-B- is a concerted and evil attempt to undo an existing national and international legal consensus that women facing domestic violence can and must be protected under refugee law. The reversion sought by Sessions and his restrictionist supporters would basically return women to the “dark ages” and result in torture, death, maiming and rape of countless females by persecutors throughout the world. Bookey also offered the Center for Refugee and Gender Studies at Hastings as a “clearinghouse” for litigation and litigation strategies attacking A-B-.

Batting “clean up,” retired Immigration Judge and noted asylum historian Chase led the audience in a tribute for Bookey’s “in the trenches” heroism in staunchly defending the rights of refugee women throughout our nation and the world. He then proceeded to eviscerate Sessions’s decision by going through Ms. A-B-‘s actual evidence in detail.

He pointed out how Sessions ignored facts of record supporting a grant of asylum to Ms. A-B- on the merits regardless of the favorable BIA precedent that Sessions went to great lengths to overrule. He also mentioned the ongoing efforts of “Our Gang” of retired U.S. Immigration Judges, assisted pro bono by some of America’s best lawyers, to educate the Article III Courts as to the realities of  asylum adjudication and the systemic destruction wrought by Sessions’s unprovoked attack on women’s asylum rights.

The Conference concluded with a request by FBA immigration Section Chair Elizabeth “Betty” Stevens for everyone to contract their Senators and Representatives about the need for an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court as proposed by the FBA, ABA, National Association of Immigration Judges, AILA, and others.

Netflix filmed the proceedings for a future documentary about American immigration. Additionally, star immigration reporter Nicole Neara of Law 360 was in the audience. Immediately following the closing, Conference organizer and NY Law School Professor Claire “Human Dynamo” Thomas left for the Southern Border with a group of students committed to putting into effect what they had learned about strategies for ensuring due process and re-establishing justice in the U.S. asylum system.

*The “CBS Hour,” “CBS Team,” and “CBS Gang” have no relationship to the CBS Network, CBS Broadcasting, CBS Sports, CBS News, or any other legitimate organization.

Here’s the video featuring Ms. A-B-:

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/news/cgrs-and-hrw-release-video-call-government-restore-protections-domestic-violence-survivors

And, here’s the text of my speech:

FEDERAL BAR ASSOCIATION ASYLUM CONFERENCE

NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL

March 8, 2019

 

Good afternoon, and thanks so much for inviting me.  In the “old days,” I would have started with my comprehensive disclaimer. But, now that I’m retired, I’m just going to hold the FBA, New York Law School, my fellow panelists, and anyone else of any importance whatsoever “harmless” for my remarks today.  They are solely my views, for which I take full responsibility. No sugar-coating, no bureaucratic doublespeak, no “party line,” no BS – just the unvarnished truth, as I see it!

“We’ve had situations in which a person comes to the United States and says they are a victim of domestic violence; therefore they are entitled to enter the United States. Well, that’s obviously false but some judges have gone along with that.”

 

“Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day—like water seeping through an earthen dam—to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the act. That is our most serious duty.”

 

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation. Your job is to apply the law — even in tough cases,” 

 

 

Those, my friends, are obviously not my words. Whose words are they? They are the words of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions who ran the U.S. Immigration Courts for nearly two years.

 

Incredibly, this totally biased, xenophobic, misinformed, and glaringly unqualified individual, who had actually been rejected for a Federal Judgeship by his own party because of alleged racial bias, was in charge of our U.S. Immigration Court system. That helps explains why it is such a total disgraceful mess today from both a Due Process and administrative standpoint.

 

The Immigration Courts have a “known backlog” of over 1.1 million cases, with tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of additional cases likely squirreled away and still unaccounted for following the unnecessary “shutdown,” no signs of abating, and absolutely no, I repeat no, credible planfor reducing or controlling the backlog consistent with Due Process and our asylum laws. The DOJ’s process for increasing the backlog, known as “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” – and their outrageous attempts to “shift the blame” to respondents and their attorneys – are, as my esteemed former colleague retired Judge M. Christopher Grant used to say, “on steroids.” And, as my friend and fellow panelist, Judge Jeffrey Chase pointed out this week to BuzzFeed News, the current “strategy shift” to slowing down judicial and court staff hiring and abandoning once again the “e-filing program” that EOIR has failed to roll out after two decades of failed efforts is a guarantee that: “More people will wait longer!”

 

Acting Attorney General Whitaker’s questionable certification of two important cases during his brief tenure promises a continuation of political interference with the Immigration Courts in derogation of Due Process.

 

Don’t expect any improvement under current Attorney General Bill Barr. He’s known as an “enforcement solves all problems” immigration hard liner who co-authored an article praising Sessions for his attacks on Civil Rights, immigrants, and other vulnerable communities.

 

One of Sessions’s most cowardly and reprehensible actions was his atrocious distortion of asylum law, the reality of life in the Northern Triangle, and Due Process for migrants in Matter of A-B-. There, he overruled the BIA’s important precedent in Matter of A-R-C-G-, a decision actually endorsed by the DHSat the time, and which gave much need protection to women fleeing persecution in the form of domestic violence.

 

Take it from me, Matter of A-R-C-G-was one of the few parts of our dysfunctional Immigration Court system that actually workedand provided a way of moving cases efficiently through the court system in accordance with Due Process while consistently granting much needed protection to some of the most vulnerable and most deserving refugees in the world!

 

Sessions is gone. But, his ugly legacy of bias and unfairness remains. Fortunately, because he was a lousy lawyer on top of everything else, he failed to actually accomplish what he thought he was doing: wiping out protection for refugee women, largely from Central America. That’s why it’s critically important for you, as members of the “New Due Process Army” to fight every inch of the way, for as long as it takes, to restore justice and to force our U.S Immigration Courts to live up to their unfulfilled, and now mocked, promise of “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all!”

 

The only real,Article IIIFederal Judge who has ruled on Matter of A-B-to date largely supports my criticisms of Sessions’s effort to distort asylum law against refugee women.  It’s a decision written by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, D.C. called Grace v. Whitaker. You will want to read that decision. There is also an outstanding analysis by my fellow panelist Judge Jeffrey S. Chase on his blog.

 

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, EOIR has purported to limit Grace’s rejection of Matter of A-B-to so called “Credible Fear Reviews.” In other words, they have improperly, and perhaps unethically, instructed Immigration Judges and the BIA not to apply Gracein individual asylum hearings.

 

But, that shouldn’t stop you from shoving Grace back down their throats! There is an outstandingonline practice advisory on how to argue Gracein Immigration Court by my fellow panelist Blaine’s amazing colleague, my good friend Professor Karen Musalo.  I also reposted it in my blog, immigratoncourtside.com.

 

I’m going to give you sevenvery basic tips for overcoming Matter of A-B-.  I’m sure that Blaine and her colleagues, who are much more involved in the day to day litigation going on in the courts than I am, can give you lots of additional information about addressing specific issues.

 

First, recognize that Matter of A-B- really doesn’t change the fundamental meaning of asylum.It just rejected the way in which the BIA reached its precedent in A-R-C-G-— by stipulation without specific fact-findings based on the administrative record. Most of it is mere dicta.

 

On a case by case basis, domestic violence can still be a proper basis for granting asylum in many cases. Indeed, such cases still are being granted by those Immigration Judges committed to following the rule of law and upholding their oaths of office, rather than accepting Sessions’s invitation to “take a dive.”

 

Just make sure you properly and succinctly state your basis, establish nexus, and paper the record with the overwhelming amount of reliable country condition information and expert opinion that directly contradicts the bogus picture painted by Sessions.

 

Second, resist with all your might those lawless judges in some Immigration Courts who are using, or threatening to use, Sessions’s dictum in Matter of A-B- to deny fair hearings or truncate the hearing process for those claiming asylum through domestic violence.If anything, following the overruling of A-R-C-G-,leaving no definitive precedent on the subject, full, fair case-by-case hearings are more important than ever. Under Due Process, asylum applicants are entitled to a full and fair opportunity to present their claims in Immigration Court. Don’t let wayward, biased, or misinformed Immigration Judges deny your clients’ constitutional and statutory rights. 

 

Third, keep it simple. Even before A-B-, I always said that any proposed “particular social group” (“PSG”) longer than 25 words or containing “circular” elements is D.O.A. I think that it’s time to get down to the basics; the real PSG here is gender! “Women in X country” is clearly a cognizable PSG.  It’s undoubtedly immutable or fundamental to identity; particularized, and socially distinct. So, it meets the BIA’s three-part test.

 

And, “gender” clearly is one of the biggest drivers of persecution in the world. There is no doubt that it is “at least one central reason” for the persecution of women and LGBT individuals throughout the world.

 

As Judge Chase and I recently reported on our respective blogs, a number of these “women as a PSG” cases have succeeded in the “Post-A-B-Era.” The detailed unpublished analyses by Immigration Judges are available online and, although of course not precedents, should give you helpful ideas on how to construct arguments and rebut ICE attempts to invoke A-B- to bar meritorious asylum claims by abused women.

 

Fourth, think political. There is plenty of recent information available on the internet showing the close relationship between gangs and the governments of the Northern Triangle. In some cases, gangs are the “de facto government” in significant areas of the country. In others, gangs and local authorities cooperate in extorting money and inflicting torture and other serious harm on honest individuals who resist them and threaten to expose their activities. Indeed, a very recent front-page article in the Washington Postpointed out that gangs are so completely in charge in El Salvador that U.S-trained policemen are forced to flee and seek asylum in the United States. Additionally, gangs are the largest employer in El Salvador.

 

In many cases, claiming political or religious persecution should be a stronger alternative ground than PSG. As one of my friends recently pointed out, because of the incorrect precedents by the BIA, Immigration Judges almost always reject gang cases as actual or imputed political opinion. That’s plain wrong.

 

We need to start making the record and fighting back, using the large amount of available evidence and expert testimony on how gangs have infiltrated and influence every aspect of life in the Northern Triangle including, of course, politics and government. It’s time for the “EOIR charade” of  “let’s not grant gang-based asylum cases” to end, once and for all.

 

Fifth, develop your record.  The idea that domestic violence and gang-based violence is just “common crime” advanced by Sessions in A-B-is simply preposterous with regard to the Northern Triangle. Establish records that no reasonable factfinder can refute or overlook! Use expert testimony or expert affidavits to show the real country conditions and to discredit the watered down and sometimes downright false scenarios set forth in Department of State Country Reports, particularly under this Administration where integrity, expertise, and independence have been thrown out the window.

 

Sixth, raise the bias issue. As set forth in a number of the Amicus Briefs filed in Matter of A-B-, Sessions clearly was a biased decision maker. Not only had he publicly dismissed the claims of female refugees suffering from domestic violence, but his outlandish comments spreading false narratives about immigrants, dissing asylum seekers and their “dirty lawyers,” and supporting DHS enforcement clearly aligned with him with one party to litigation before the Immigration Courts. By the rules governing judicial conduct there was more than an “appearance of bias” here – there was actual bias. We should keep making the record on the gross violation of Due Process caused by giving a biased enforcement official like Sessions a quasi-judicial role.

 

Seventh, and finally, appeal to the “real” Article III Courts.I can’t over-emphasize this point. What’s happening in Immigration Court today is a parody of justice and a mockery of legitimate court proceedings. It’s important to “open the eyes” of the Article III Judges to this travesty which is threatening the lives of legitimate refugees and other migrants.

 

Either the Article III’s do their jobs, step in, and put an end to this “theater of the absurd,” or they become complicitin it. There’s only one “right side of the law and history” in this fight. Those who are complicit must know that their actions are being placed in the historical record – for all time and for their descendants to know – just like the historical reckoning that finally is happening for so- called “Confederate Heroes” and those public officials who supported racism and “Jim Crow.”

 

Now is the time to take a stand for fundamental fairness, the true rule of law, and simple human decency! Join the New Due Process Army and fight to vindicate the rights of asylum seekers under our laws against the forces of darkness and xenophobic bias! Due process forever! Xenophobia never!

 

(03-11-19)

PWS

03-12-19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO @ LA TIMES: We Can Restore Legality & Humanity To U.S. Asylum Law — That’s Why The Refugee Protection Act Deserves Everyone’s Support — “The bill lays out a plan to allow women and girls fleeing gender-based violence the opportunity to obtain asylum, and bring our country back in line with its humanitarian commitments. It’s a vision that all members of Congress should be able to get behind, even at a time of bitter partisanship.”
  2. THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!
  3. ROUND TABLE NEWS:  Getting The Due Process Message Across — 9th Cir. Orders Regime To Respond To Round Table’s Amicus Briefs in Matter of A-B- Challenges!
  4. PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO: Persecution Of Women In El Salvador On The Basis Of Gender Is Real & Endemic – The Administration’s Attempts To Skew The Law Against Women Refugees Is Totally Dishonest, Immoral, & Illegal!

“DUE PROCESS FOREVER, XENOPHOBIA NEVER!” — Here’s An Inspirational Creation By The Courageous Students Of Professor Claire Thomas Of NY Law School, Stalwart Members Of The New Due Process Army!

This is derived from the closing lines of my speech to the 2019 FBA New York Asylum and Immigration Law Conference at NY Law School last Friday, March 8!

“Practicing what they preach,” Professor Claire Thomas of NY Law School and her courageous, smart, and dedicated students are now at the Southern Border saving lives and making a historical record of the cruel, ineffective, illegal, and bias-driven policies of the Trump Administration.

Thanks again to Professor Thomas, who was also one of the primary organizers of the “sold-out” Conference, and her inspiring students for all they are doing to preserve America and our system of justice against the attacks on the rule of law, our Constitution, and simple human decency by the scofflaw and incompetent Trump Administration.

Here’s the amazing Professor Thomas:

 

Due Process Forever, Xenophobia Never!

PWS

03-11-19

Related posts:

  1. THE ART OF SOCIAL JUSTICE — HON. POLLY WEBBER’S TRIPTYCH “REFUGEE DILEMMA” HITS THE ROAD!
  2. TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. 18 YEARS AFTER 09-11, THE “BAD GUYS” ARE WINNING THE BATTLE TO DESTROY AMERICAN JUSTICE & SPLIT THE COUNTRY! — Here’s The Disturbing Proof Of What Passes For “Justice” In America Today!

THE ART OF SOCIAL JUSTICE — HON. POLLY WEBBER’S TRIPTYCH “REFUGEE DILEMMA” HITS THE ROAD!

 

  1.  a) “Fleeing From Persecution;” b) “Caught in the Covfefe;” c) “Safe Haven;”
  2. The stories behold each rug by the artist, Hon. Polly Webber;
  3. Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase & Hon. Polly Webber admiring “Caught in the Covfefe” during a break at the 2019 FBA New York Asylum & Immigration Law Conference at NY Law School on March 8, 2019;
  4. Closeup of “Caught in the Covfefe.”

Art powerfully expresses the overwhelming need to fight for social justice and human dignity in the age of Trump’s unabashed cruelty, racism, and White Nationalism.

It’s even more powerful when the artist is Retired U.S. Immigration Judge Polly Webber (a proud member of “Our Gang” of retired judges) who has spent her life promoting Due Process, fundamental fairness, justice, and the rule of law in American immigration. She has served as an immigration attorney, former President of AILA, U.S. Immigration Judge, and now amazing textile artist bringing her full and rich life and deeply held humane values to the forefront of her art.

Thanks, Polly, for using your many talents to inspire a new generation of the “New Due Process Army!”

I’m only sorry that my photos don’t do justice to Polly’s art. Hopefully, the “real deal” will come to a venue near you in the future!

PWS

03-10-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “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.”

“SHAFTING KIDS” — Reuters’ FOIA “Dig” Exposes How USCIS Wastes Time & Resources Developing New Ways Of Using Bureaucracy To Undermine Public Service & Deny Protection To The Most Vulnerable!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-abuse-exclusive/exclusive-for-migrant-youths-claiming-abuse-u-s-protection-can-be-elusive-idUSKCN1QO1DS

Mica Rosenberg reports for Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Growing up in eastern Honduras, Jose said his father would get drunk and beat him with a horse whip and the flat side of a machete. He said he watched his father, a coffee farmer whose crops succumbed to plague, hit his mother on the head with a pistol, sending her to the hospital for three days.

At 17, Jose said, he hired a coyote to ferry him to the United States, seeking to escape his home life and violent feuding among his relatives, as well as seek better opportunities for himself and his siblings. He was picked up by border agents, then released pending deportation proceedings.

After struggling to get a good lawyer, Jose applied at 19 for special protection under a program for young immigrants subjected to childhood mistreatment including abuse, neglect or abandonment.

But like a growing number of applicants, his petition hit a series of hurdles, then was denied. Now he is appealing.

“It’s like being stuck not going forward or backwards,” said Jose, now 22 and living in New York. He spoke on condition his last name not be used because he is working without a permit and does not want to jeopardize his appeal. “You can’t advance in life,” he said.

As President Donald Trump vociferously pushes for a physical barrier across the country’s southern border, young people claiming to be eligible for protection under the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) program increasingly face a less publicized barrier: heightened demands for paperwork.

Data obtained by Reuters under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has recently ramped up demands for additional documents through “Requests for Evidence” and “Notices of Intent to Deny,” which can tie up cases for months.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Mica’s articles, with graphs, at the above link.

Importantly, the restrictionst group CIS’s claim (in the part of the article NOT set forth above) that SIJ status was intended solely for trafficking victims is untrue.  I actually worked on the enactment of the original SIJ provision in IMMACT 90 when I was in private practice. It was intended to be used by various states and localities, the largest number of which were in California, who had significant numbers of foreign-born “wards of the court” (some of them foster children) who otherwise would have been denied work and study opportunities upon becoming adults.

The later amendments to SIJ status were not intended to limit the scope in any way to “trafficked individuals.” The emphasis was on those who had suffered domestic abuse. Here is a link to an excellent report on that legislative history from American University. http://niwaplibrary.wcl.american.edu/wp-content/uploads/Appendix-B-SIJS-Legislative-History.pdf

Indeed, there is scant evidence that SIJ was ever intended to be limited to trafficked juveniles as restrictionists claim, although such juveniles often fit within the remedial scope of SIJ status. First, that’s clearly not what the statute says. Second, Congress has other specific provisions for the protection of trafficking victims and victims of crime under the “T” and “U” nonimmigrant statuses which may also lead to permanent status.

Just another example of how the USCIS and the Trump Administration have improperly incorporated many parts of the false narrative promoted by immigration restrictionists into Government policies and procedures.

PWS

03-09-19

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  2. PROFESSOR FITZ BRUNDAGE @ WASHPOST: Can We Regain Our Humanitarian Values In The Age Of Trump? — “We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.”
  3. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Trump, DHS Promise, “Reign Of Terror” Directed At Families In Ethnic Communities — “Orphaning” U.S. Citizen Children And/Or Feeding Them & Other Vulnerable Kids To MS-13 & Other Gangs As “Fresh Meat” America’s New Objectives! — But, The Law & Reality Could Be Problems For Trump & His Sycophants @ ICE!
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OUTED AGAIN ON ILLEGAL CHILD SEPARATION — Judge Sabraw Rejects DOJ’s Disingenuous Position!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/family-separation-trump-reunification-judge-order?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

From The Guardian:

A federal judge who ordered that more than 2,700 children be reunited with their parents has expanded his authority to potentially thousands more children who were separated at the border earlier during the Trump administration.

Dana Sabraw ruled late Friday that his authority applies to any parents who were separated at the border on or after 1 July 2017. Previously his order applied only to parents whose children were in custody on 26 June 26 2018.

Sabraw said his decision responds to a report by the US Health and Human Services Department’s internal watchdog that said thousands more children may have been separated since the summer of 2017. The department’s inspector general said the precise amount was unknown.

“The court made clear that potentially thousands of children’s lives are at stake and that the Trump administration cannot simply ignore the devastation it has caused,” said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s lead attorney in the lawsuit.

The judge says he will consider the next steps on 28 March.

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

Progress.  Judge Sabraw is a patient man.

But, here’s the reality:

  • The parents and children who are victims of the Government’s illegal conspiracy to violate their Constitutional rights are still suffering.
  • An Administration with billions to waste on unnecessary walls, unneeded troops at the border,  and inhumane detention has no time, money, or interest in rectifying their own misconduct.

So,  how is this “justice?”

It’s time for some accountability that will prevent such gross misconduct by Government officials from occurring in the future.

PWS

03-09-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” MORPHS INTO CONTEMPT FOR COURT AS ADMINISTRATION TELLS COURT & SEPARATED FAMILIES “GO POUND SAND” — They Just Don’t Care About Humanity!
  2. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, “PERPS” ON THE LOOSE! — DOJ Internal Report Shows How “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Rosenstein, Hamilton Conspired To Separate Migrant Kids In Violation Of 5th Amendment — When Will These Criminals Be Charged & Prosecuted Under 18 USC 242? — NY Times Reports!
  3. EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST ADMINISTRATION DEHUMANIZES MIGRANTS OF COLOR — “All of this is happening because Trump has no respect for law or due process and no sense of empathy. He was reportedly upset this spring by a rise in border crossings by asylum-seekers, who by law had to be allowed to stay pending resolution of their claims. He and Sessions seized upon the pretext — for which they have not provided evidence — that children were being “trafficked” into the country for some reason.”
  4. ACLU COURT EVIDENCE SUGGESTS McALEENAN LIED TO CONGRESS WHILE VIOLATING COURT ORDER ON CHILD SEPARATIONS — Continuing Separations Appear To Be Part Of Intentional Misapplication & Misinterpretation Of Narrow “Exception” — “Best Interests Of Child” Buried Beneath A Web Of Deception

TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=d85e48a2-1a59-4182-854b-dfd9a146177c

TThe numbers are sobering. The federal government reported Tuesday that immigration agents apprehended 76,000 people — most of them families or unaccompanied minors — at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, twice the level of the previous year and the highest for February in 11 years. The increase continues a trend that began in the fall, and offers direct evidence that President Trump’s strategy of maximal enforcement at the border is not reducing the flow of migrants.

And no, the answer is not “a big, beautiful wall.” Most of those apprehended weren’t trying to sneak past border agents; instead, they sought out agents once they reached the border and turned themselves in, hoping to receive permission to stay.

Furthermore, the situation isn’t a national security emergency, as he has declared in an effort to spend more on his border wall than Congress provided. It’s a complex humanitarian crisis that appears to be worsening, and it’s going to take creative analytical minds to address.

For instance, the vast majority of the families flowing north in recent months come from poor regions of Guatemala, where food insecurity and local conflicts over land rights and environmental protections are pushing more people off their farms and into even deeper poverty, according to human rights observers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Just months earlier, gang violence in urbanized areas were pushing people north to the United States; increasingly now, it’s economics.

But Trump’s rhetoric may be playing a role too. The more he threatens draconian enforcement and cutbacks in legal immigration, the more people contemplating moving north are pushed to go sooner, before it gets even harder to reach the U.S. Similarly, more migrants are arriving at more treacherous and remote stretches of the border to avoid getting stuck in Tijuana or other border cities where the U.S. government has reduced the number of asylum seekers it will allow in, claiming an inability to process the requests.

The system is overwhelmed. But the solution isn’t to build a wall, incarcerate more people, separate children from their parents or deny people their legal right to seek asylum. The solution is to improve the efficiency and capacity of the system to deal with the changed migrant demographics. A decade ago, about 1 in 100 border crossers was an unaccompanied minor or asylum seeker; now about a third are.

More judges and support staffs are necessary for the immigration court system, as the Trump administration has sought from Congress. Yet the case backlog there has continued to grow — in part because the increase in enforcement actions, in part because the Justice Department ordered the courts to reopen cases that had been closed administratively without deportations, often because the migrant was in the process of obtaining a visa. A faster and fair process would give those deserving asylum the answer they need sooner, cutting back on the years they spend in limbo, while no longer incentivizing those unqualified for asylum to try anyway.

The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, has suggested one partial fix. Currently, migrants claiming asylum have a near-immediate initial “credible fear” hearing with an asylum officer from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who determines whether the migrant has a significant potential to make a successful asylum claim. Most migrants pass that low threshold and are then directed to the immigration courts to make the formal case, a more involved process that can take years. Keeping those cases within the citizenship and immigration branch for an administrative hearing instead of sending them to immigration court could lead to faster decisions for the deserving at a lower cost — a single asylum agent is cheaper than a court staff — while preserving legal rights by giving those denied asylum a chance to appeal to the immigration courts. That’s a process worth contemplating.

More fundamentally, the current system hasn’t worked for years, and under Trump’s enforcement strategy it has gotten worse. It’s a big ask, but Congress and the president need to work together to develop a more capable system that manages the many different aspects of immigration in the best interests of the nation while accommodating the rights of the persecuted to seek asylum.

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=1cbd9b3d-f2d0-4249-b602-37223ff3f407

The U.S. government is reportedly compiling dossiers on journalists, lawyers and activists at the border.

ASan Diego television station recently obtained some troubling documents that seem to show that the U.S. government, working with Mexican officials under a program called Operation Secure Line, has created and shared dossiers on journalists, immigrant rights lawyers and activists covering or involved with the so-called caravans of migrants moving from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Worse yet, the government then detained some of these people for questioning (one photojournalist was held for 13 hours), barred some of them from crossing the border and interfered with their legitimate efforts to do their jobs. NBC 7 also received a copy of a purported government dossier on lawyer Nicole Ramos, refugee program director for a migrant rights group, that included a description of her car, her mother’s name, and details on her work and travel history. That’s not border security, that’s an intelligence operation and, as the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, “an outrageous violation of the First Amendment.”

The ACLU noted correctly that it is impermissible for the government to use “the pretext of the border to target activists critical of its policies, lawyers providing legal representation, or journalists simply doing their jobs.”

It’s unclear when the intelligence gathering began, or how widespread it is, but the Committee to Protect Journalists reported in October that U.S. border agents, using the broad power the law gives them to question people entering the country, seemingly singled out journalists for in-depth examinations, including searching their phones, laptops and cameras — all without warrants, because they’re generally not required at the border. These are troubling developments deserving of close scrutiny by Congress and, if warranted, the courts.

The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for controlling the flow of people across U.S. borders and has broad and court-recognized authority to search for contraband. But the government should not use that authority as a pretext to try to gain information to which it would not otherwise be entitled. And it certainly doesn’t give it a framework for harassing or maintaining secret files on journalists, lawyers and activists who are covering, representing or working with activists.

Homeland Security defended the targeting by linking the intelligence operation to the agency’s investigation of efforts this winter by some Central American migrants to cross the wall near San Ysidro, Calif. It said also that all the people entered into the database had witnessed border violence. That sounds an awful lot like a criminal investigation, not a border security operation.

The name of the report leaked to NBC 7 was “Migrant Caravan FY-2019: Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators, and Media.” The only thing suspect here is the government’s actions.

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

Unfortunately, the second editorial on the “enemies list” shows why the first one on solving the Central American forced migration issue in a sensible, legal, and humanitarian manner simply isn’t in the cards without “regime change.”

First, the Trump Administration simply lacks the competence, professionalism, and expertise to solve real problems. The absolutely stunning incompetence of Nielsen and the rest of the politicos who supposedly run immigration and national security policy these days was on full display this week. America’s “real” enemies must have been watching with glee at this public demonstration of lack of competence and concern for any of the actual national security issues facing our nation.

Career civil servants who have the knowledge, expertise, motivation, and ability to solve migration problems have been forced out, buried in make-work “hallwalker jobs” deep in the bowls of the bureaucracy, or simply silenced and ignored. The Administration has also declared war on facts, knowledge, human decency and scorns the humanitarian expertise available in the private and NGO sectors.

Second, there is zip motivation within the Trump Kakistocracy to solve to the problem. As long as neo-Nazi Stephen Miller is in charge of immigration policy, we’ll get nothing but White Nationalist, racist nonsense. Miller and the White Nationalist restrictionists (like Trump & Sessions) have no motivation to solve immigration problems in a practical, humane, legal manner.

No, the White Nationalist agenda is to use lies, intentionally false narratives, racial and ethnic stereotypes, bogus statistics, and outright attacks on our legal system to further an agenda of hate, intolerance, and division in America intended to enfranchise a largely White GOP kakistocracy while disenfranchising everyone else. It plays to a certain unhappy and ill-informed political “base” that has enabled a minority who cares not a whit about the common good to seize control of our country.

While the forces of evil, division, and Constitutional nihilism can be resisted in the courts, the press, and now the House of Representatives, the reign of “malicious incompetence” can only be ended at the ballot box. If it doesn’t happen in 2020, and there is certainly no guarantee that it will, it might well be too late for the future of our republic.

PWS

03-07-19

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!
  3. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  4. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”

9TH CIR. SAYS STATUTE BARRING MEANINGFUL JUDICIAL REVIEW OF EXPEDITED REMOVAL PROCESS VIOLATES CONSTITUTION‘S SUSPENSION CLAUSE — Throws “Monkey Wrench” Into Administration’s “Deportation Railroad” On West Coast — THURAISSIGIAM v. USDHS

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/us/asylum-seekers-ninth-circuit.html

Miriam Jordan reports for the NY Times:

LOS ANGELES — Creating yet another roadblock to the Trump administration’s efforts to deport ineligible migrants, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that immigration authorities can no longer swiftly deport asylum seekers who fail an initial screening, opening the door for thousands of migrants a year to get another shot in the federal courts to win asylum in the United States.

The ruling broadens constitutional protections for undocumented immigrants at the border and opens a new legal gateway for some of them to appeal for permission to stay in the country, even when an asylum officer and an immigration judge have made a determination that they do not have a credible fear of persecution in their homeland.

“The historical and practical importance of this ruling cannot be overstated,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the appeal on behalf of a Sri Lankan migrant who had been turned away at California’s border with Mexico in 2017. He said the ruling “reaffirms the Constitution’s foundational principle that individuals deprived of their liberty must have access to a federal court.”

After dropping precipitously over five decades, the number of migrants intercepted at the southern border — the key indicator of how many undocumented people are entering the United States — is soaring again, driven by an influx of families from Central America fleeing violence and poverty. Immigration authorities received more than 99,000 requests for asylum interviews during the 2018 fiscal year, including more than 54,000 submitted at the southwest border.

[Read the latest edition of Crossing the Border, a limited-run newsletter about life where the United States and Mexico meet. Sign up here to receive the next issue in your inbox.]

President Trump has said that migrants are exploiting the asylum system by making baseless and fraudulent claims in order to remain in the United States, and his administration has taken a number of steps to make the process harder, including narrowing the grounds for winning asylum, limiting the number of asylum seekers who can be processed at the border each day and requiring some applicants to wait in Mexico while their cases make their way through the courts.

In 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, an estimated 7,200 migrants were denied permission to apply for asylum after their initial interviews and were placed in expedited deportation proceedings. An analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University found that in June 2018, only 15 percent of initial asylum reviews found that the asylum seeker had a credible fear of persecution, about half the proportion that had prevailed a year earlier.

Thursday’s court decision will most likely send that trend in the other direction, legal analysts said.

“This is a historic decision,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration scholar at Cornell Law School. “But the government will surely appeal this to the Supreme Court.”

The opinion, from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, extends constitutional habeas corpus guarantees to those applying for asylum at the border and provides that they can seek a hearing in the federal courts before being summarily deported — though the court did not specify what standards the courts must use to evaluate such petitions.

The ruling applies to asylum seekers in the five states included in the court’s jurisdiction — California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii — and, because it conflicts with an earlier ruling rejecting such legal protections in the Third Circuit, the issue is likely to be resolved ultimately by the Supreme Court. In the meantime, legal analysts said, the western court’s decision is likely to have sweeping implications for immigration deterrence efforts by enabling thousands to remain in the country while they seek the court review.

Under current procedure, every migrant who arrives at the border and expresses a fear of persecution in his or her homeland is referred for an interview with an asylum officer. Those who succeed in convincing the officer that they have a credible fear are allowed to enter the country and proceed with their asylum cases in the immigration courts. Those who don’t can request a review by an immigration judge, but it is usually cursory and favorable decisions are rare. There is usually no access to a lawyer, and no opportunity to challenge the decision; deportation quickly ensues.

In the case before the appeals court, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil ethnic minority, was arrested about 25 yards north of the border near San Ysidro, Calif., and told an asylum officer that he was fearful of returning to his homeland. The officer found no credible fear, and that finding was upheld by a supervisor and an immigration judge.

Mr. Thuraissigiam was in deportation proceedings when he filed a habeas corpus petition in the federal court. He argued that the asylum officer had failed to elicit important background about his case, including that he had been detained and beaten by Sri Lankan army officers on two occasions, and at one point had been lowered into a well and nearly drowned. He also said there were communication problems between the translator and both the asylum officer and the immigration judge.

As a result, his lawyers argued, he was deprived of “a meaningful right to apply for asylum.”

A district court judge in Los Angeles rejected that argument, but the three-judge appeals court panel, sitting in San Francisco, held that even though an asylum seeker may lack the right to a full trial in immigration court, the Constitution requires a more complete review than what immigration law currently provides.

At its “historical core,” said the 48-page opinion written by Judge A. Wallace Tashima, “the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality of executive detention, and it is in that context that its protections have been strongest.”

Here’s the full text of the 9th Circuit’s decision.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/03/07/18-55313.pdf

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

As noted in the article, this issue is likely to end up with the Supremes, although perhaps not as quickly as the Administration might wish.

If anyone ever gets around to looking at the “rubber stamp review” by Immigration Judges that Sessions encouraged, it’s not going to be pretty for those judges giving short shrift to Due Process for asylum seekers.

Stay tuned.

PWS

03-07-19

 

 

Related posts:

  1. SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S ILLEGAL ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAW: ORDERS PROCESSING OF ALL WHO APPLY TO RESUME! — “Whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden!”
  2. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!
  3. WHILE LIFE-TENURED FEDERAL JUDGES CHICKEN OUT, FORMER ASYLUM OFFICER DOUG STEPHENS SPEAKS OUT IN NYT VIDEO EDITORIAL AGAINST JUDICIALLY-ENABLED NATIONAL DISGRACE OF “LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO” — “A former asylum officer says ‘remain in Mexico’ and other policies undermining asylum aren’t just racist, they’re illegal.”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

“RETURN TO MEXICO” GIVES DHS A CHANCE TO HARASS IMMIGRATION LAWYERS AND ACTIVISTS AT BORDER!

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/u-s-officials-made-list-reporters-lawyers-activists-question-border-n980301

Julia Ainsley

Julia Edwards Ainsley reports for NBC News:

WASHINGTON — Customs and Border Protection has compiled a list of 59 mostly American reporters, attorneys and activists for border agents to stop for questioning when crossing the U.S-Mexican border at San Diego-area checkpoints, and agents have questioned or arrested at least 21 of them, according to documents obtained by NBC station KNSD-TV and interviews with people on the list.

Several people on the list confirmed to NBC News that they had been pulled aside at the border after the date the list was compiled and were told they were being questioned as part of a “national security investigation.”

CBP told NBC News the names on the list are people who were present during violence that broke out at the border with Tijuana in November and they were being questioned so that the agency could learn more about what started it.

The list, dated Jan. 9, 2019, is titled “San Diego Sector Foreign Operations Branch: Migrant Caravan FY-2019 Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators, and Media” and includes pictures of the 59 individuals who are to be stopped. The people on the list were to be pulled aside by Customs and Border Protection agents for questioning when they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to meet with or aid migrants from the Honduran caravan waiting on the Mexican side of the border.

A sample of names and photos from the list. KNSD blurred the names and photos of individuals who haven't given permission to publish their information.
A sample of names and photos from the list. KNSD blurred the names and photos of individuals who haven’t given permission to publish their information.Obtained by KNSD

The list includes 10 journalists, seven of them U.S. citizens, a U.S.-based attorney and others labeled as organizers and “instigators,” 31 of whom are American. Symbols on the list show that by the time it was compiled 12 of the individuals had already been through additional questioning during border crossings and nine had been arrested.

Click here to read KNSD’s story about the list

In some cases, CBP had also compiled dossiers on the individuals with the help of intelligence from Mexican officials, according to the materials obtained by KNSD.

The cover of the list includes a seal with both the American and Mexican flags and was compiled shortly after the arrival of nearly 5,000 Honduran immigrants at the Tijuana-San Ysidro border, which is in the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector.

On Nov. 25, unrest broke out as some immigrants attempted to run through border checkpoints or scale the barriers after growing frustrated with the long wait to enter the country. CBP officers responded with tear gas, bringing attention to the worsening tension between CBP and the frustrated migrants in Tijuana.

In response to a KNSD question about the list, a spokesman for CBP said it is protocol to “collect evidence that might be needed for future legal actions.”

“To determine if the event was orchestrated…CBP and our law enforcement partners evaluate these incidents, follow all leads garnered from information collected, conduct interviews and investigations, in preparation for, and often to prevent future incidents that could cause further harm to the public, our agents, and our economy,” the spokesman told KNSD.

FEARS CONFIRMED

The documents confirm what many people who report on immigration or provide humanitarian aid and legal counsel to asylum seekers at the southern border have reported anecdotally. They say that CBP is focused on them and increasingly pulling them aside for what is known as a “secondary screening.”

During that screening, journalists and lawyers describe being told that they are being interviewed as part of a national security investigation and that they must give officers access to their cell phones. Many do not know their rights as American citizens to refuse to answer such questions or request a lawyer.

One lawyer from the list who was recently stopped at a San Diego-area crossing, Nicole Ramos, refugee director for Al Otro Lado, a law center for migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, learned from NBC News that CBP had compiled a dossier of information on her. The dossier included personal details such as her mother’s name, her social media pictures, the car she drives and her work and travel history.

“The document…appears to prove what we have assumed for some time, which is that we are on a law enforcement list designed to retaliate against human rights defenders who work with asylum seekers and who are critical of CBP practices that violate the rights of asylum seekers,” Ramos said.

Two other immigration lawyers who frequently travel to northern Mexico to help asylum seekers attempting to cross into the U.S. say the practice is starting to scare away would-be volunteers.

“It has a real chilling effect on people who might go down there. I was going to go this week, but I had to worry about whether I could get back in [to the U.S.],” one lawyer speaking on the condition of anonymity told NBC News.

Other immigration lawyers told NBC News they have been stopped and questioned in places far from San Diego. In Juarez, an attorney was stopped and accused of being a human smuggler. She was released only after the officers took her contacts and data from her phone. She was also asked what she was telling asylum seekers to say to U.S. authorities, according to another lawyer speaking on her behalf.

A former senior DHS official said it is against U.S. policy to target travelers based on their profession.

“It would be highly inappropriate and questionable from a legal perspective,” the former official said.

“While it is true that CBP has broad authority to interview and search anyone crossing the border, if there is no reasonable suspicion that you are involved in criminal activity, then they have no right to detain you,” the former official added.

Julia Ainsley

Julia Ainsley is a national security reporter for NBC News.

*****************************************
I was a guest lecturer at the University of District of Columbia David Clarke School of Law Immigration Clinic this week.  One of the students asked what the Administration was doing to facilitate legal representation of those caught up in the “Return to Mexico” program.
I said to my knowledge, nothing.  Quite the opposite, Nielsen actually came up with bogus reasons for not even allowing lawyers to be present during the credible fear process and there were “reliable reports” that lawyers trying to assist individuals waiting in Mexico were harassed and actively discouraged by DHS. Turns out that was “right on.”
This is a tragedy. Legal representation is probably the single most important and cost-effective thing that could be done to facilitate processing, insure fair decisions consistent with Due Process, prevent the mistakes that are prevalent in an overloaded and inherently biased system, and insure appearance at future hearings. For a fraction of the cost of the various “built to fail” and often illegal enforcement schemes this Administration crooks up, they could actually take a big step toward resolving the problem with universal representation.
Kakistocracy has its costs, both human and fiscal.
Join the New Due Process Army and fight the Trump Kakistocracy every day!
PWS
03-07-19

Related posts:

  1. Julia Edwards Ainsley @ NBC: DHS Set To Launch “Wait in Mexico” Program For Asylum Seekers — Expect Another Disaster!
  2. 18 YEARS AFTER 09-11, THE “BAD GUYS” ARE WINNING THE BATTLE TO DESTROY AMERICAN JUSTICE & SPLIT THE COUNTRY! — Here’s The Disturbing Proof Of What Passes For “Justice” In America Today!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!

GOVERNMENT BY MALICIOUS INCOMPETENTS: Trump Administration’s Latest “Backlog Reduction Plan” — Slow Down Hiring Of U.S. Immigration Judges & Support Staff — Abandon E-Filing (Again) — Barr Wins His First “Five Clown” Rating In Record Time! 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/hamedaleaziz/trump-administration-immigration-judges-hiring-pause?__twitter_impression=true

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

The Trump administration will pause its hiring of immigration judges, slow its procuring of support staff, and cancel a training conference, dealing a setback to the government’s efforts to cut down on a crushing backlog of cases, according to a Justice Department email obtained by BuzzFeed News.

James McHenry, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, notified immigration court staff in an email Wednesday morning, advising that the timing of the 2019 budget process has left them “considerably short of being able to fulfill all of our current operational needs.”

McHenry cited increases in costs related to transcriptions, operational needs, and interpreters.

“This challenging budget situation has led us to a position where difficult financial decisions need to be made,” wrote McHenry.

As a result of the funding issues, McHenry said, the court does not “anticipate” it will be able to hire additional judges after an already scheduled class of judges is brought on board in April. The budget costs will also impact the court’s hiring of 250 attorneys needed to support immigration judges.

The pause on hiring delivers a blow to an administration that has long complained that the immigration court backlog, which has increased in recent years to more than 800,000 cases, has led to wait times stretching months and years.

The budget signed by President Trump this year had been described as a way for the immigration court to hire an additional 75 immigration judge teams.

A Department of Justice official, Steven Stafford, disputed the notion it would freeze hiring, arguing that it was simply not continuing to hire judges at the same pace. McHenry noted that the administration had hired 174 new immigration judges in the last two years and now has more than 400 judges on staff.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

A migrant family enters the US near Imperial Beach, Calif., after squeezing through a small hole under the border wall.

The news comes a day before McHenry is set to speak before the House Appropriations Committee and as the court withstands criticisms from the union that represents immigration judges and moves to increase productivity, including quotas.

In recent months, many judges, who oversee asylum claims and deportation cases, have retired or resigned citing interference in how they were handling cases.

“This administration has justified so many of their more draconian policies in terms of ‘we have got to lower the backlog’ and then all of a sudden they don’t have the funds to hire more immigration judges,” said Jeffrey Chase, a former immigration judge. “If their true goal is to provide fair adjudications more quickly, then this is inconsistent with that. More people will wait longer.”

The nationwide rollout of a new online filing system, meant to help improve efficiency, will be frozen, McHenry said, and additional delays on new court spaces will also be possible this year.

“We are doing our best at headquarters to ensure that our funds are spent in the most fiscally responsible manner possible,” he said in the email to staff, “while consistently meeting the needs and mission of the agency.”

***************************************
Quick takes:
  • Duh! Who would have thought that hiring more judges would require more interpreters, transcripts, and “operational support.” Certainly not the geniuses at DOJ/EOIR;
  • After 18 years of fruitless effort, DOJ/EOIR fail yet again to deliver on e-filing (in and of itself enough reason to get this out of DOJ and “can” the EOIR ineffective management structure);
  • Apparently, building largely useless walls and wasting money on troops at the border are more important “priorities” for reducing the backlog than actually hearing and deciding cases;
  • Court morale is already at an all time low — this ought to send it even lower;
  • Count on this touching off yet another round of EOIR’s renowned “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and more vicious and disingenuous “Victim Blame Shaming;”
  • Bad start for new AG Bill Barr — Sessions “set the bar on the ground,” but you still might not get over it;
  • On the bright side, since in the “wacky incompetent world” of DOJ/EOIR more judges actually = more backlog, perhaps fewer judges will = less backlog.

The Immigration Court system is a farce, and EOIR doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to fix it (nor does anyone else in the Trump Kaksitocracy for that matter). Unfortunately, lives are at stake here. To quote Casey Stengel again: “Can’t anyone here play this game?”

TODAY’S FIVE CLOWN AWARD GOES TO RECENTLY APPOINTED AG BILL BARR — SELDOM HAS SOMEONE LOOKED SO STUPID WITHIN SUCH A SHORT TIME OF TAKING AN OFFICE (THAT HE PREVIOUSLY HELD):

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

03-07-19

Related posts:

  1. MOLLY HENNESSEY-FISKE @ LA TIMES: As DHS Disintegrates Under Trump, Volunteers Pick Up The Pieces & Save Lives!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  4. 😎👍🏼🥂SHEEEEEEE’S BACK! TAL KOPAN @ SF CHRON RETURNS TO THE “IMMIGRATION BEAT” WITH A POWERFUL IN-DEPTH LOOK AT HOW AMERICA’S MOST DYSFUNCTIONAL “COURT SYSTEM” PREDICTABLY SCREWED UP THE COVID-19 RESPONSE WHILE DEEPENING HUMAN MISERY INFLICTED ON THE “BACKLOGGED” — “’There isn’t a day that goes by that there isn’t mass chaos behind this veil of business as usual,’ said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.”

HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: ADMINISTRATION’S LATEST IMMORAL GIMMICK — A “REGIONAL REPRESSION COMPACT” — FURTHERS PERSECUTION WITHOUT ADDRESSING ROOT CAUSES OF REFUGEE FLOW FROM NORTHERN TRIANGLE!

February 21, 2019

Homeland Security Regional Compact Plan Won’t Address Root Causes of Refugee Crisis

New York City—In response to today’s announcement that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is discussing the development of a regional compact plan with Central American countries in the northern triangle, Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer issued the following statement:

The so-called compact announced today sounds like a short-sighted and heavy-handed attempt to stop people in desperate need of safety from finding it in the United States, rather than an actual commitment to address underlying human rights violations in the region. It is yet another move from an administration that has spent the past two years dismantling the systems put in place to protect the world’s most vulnerable people.

This announcement does not reflect any commitment to address the actual root causes pushing people to seek protection—political repression, gender-based persecution, brutal murders, and other human rights violations.

The Trump Administration is enlisting the very countries that people are fleeing to prevent the escape of individuals plagued by this persecution and violence. The United States should certainly work with countries in the region to counter and prosecute smugglers and traffickers who prey on migrants and asylum seekers. This plan, however, aims to stop asylum seekers who do not employ smugglers but travel with other people for safety through dangerous territories.

Human Rights First urges the Trump Administration to implement regional strategies that strengthen the rule of law and human rights conditions in Central America, strengthen refugee protection in Mexico and other countries, and stop its efforts to block refugees from asylum in the United States.

For more information or to speak with Acer contact Corinne Duffy at DuffyC@humanrightsfirst.org or 202-370-3319

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

It’s “Kakistocracy in Action” — malicious incompetence institutionalized. Certainly, Nielsen has to be the worst excuse ever for a DHS Secretary. Indeed, those who actually might threaten our security must be “licking their chops” at her continuous display of idiotic Trump sycophancy and White Nationalist lies and obsessions with bedraggled families seeking refuge while smugglers, drug traffickers, cartels, and gangs reap profits from her failed policies and take delight in her inability and unwillingness to address the real security problems.

While real human rights crises are unfolding, and real human lives are in danger, the Trump Administration dawdles away time and resources on endless “designed to fail” White Nationalist gimmicks that appear intended to enable and encourage persecution rather than addressing the problems that cause forced migration.

The Obama Administration did a genuinely lousy job of addressing the refugee and human rights issues in the Northern Triangle. But, Trump, Nielsen, and McAleenan are making to Obama group look like humanitarian geniuses by comparison.

As the great Casey Stengel once said while attempting to manage the 1962 NY Mets: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” Sadly, in the case of the Trump Administration, the answer is a resounding “No.”

Bad things happen to countries that allow themselves to be run by malicious incompetents (that is, a Kakistocracy).

As I have said before, “We Are diminishing ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration.”

Join the New Due Process Army and help restore humanity, Due Process, competence, and good government to America before it’s too late!

PWS

03-07-19

Related posts:

  1. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. TWO LA TIMES EDITORIALS “SPOT ON” IN CALLING OUT TRUMP’S FAILED BORDER POLICIES, BOGUS EMERGENCY, & ABUSE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY!
  4. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!

FORGET THE SHAMELESS LIES, EVASIONS, & VICTIM BLAMING BY NIELSEN AND MCALEENAN BEFORE CONGRESS – Vox’s Dara Lind Tells You Everything You REALLY Need To Know About What’s Happening At The Southern Border In 500 Words!

https://apple.news/A3s8h4IozRDGHLo1SJ6rPtg

Dara Lind reports in Vox News

In February 2019, 66,450 migrants crossed the US/Mexico border between official border crossings and were apprehended by US Border Patrol agents, committing the misdemeanor of illegal entry.

It’s a sharp increase from January and marks an 11-year high. But the number reflects an ongoing trend: record numbers of families coming to the US without papers.

The Trump administration reported that 76,103 people tried to enter the US without valid papers in February. That number combines people who came to official border crossings and migrants who were caught by Border Patrol after crossing illegally.

The total has alarmed conservatives; President Donald Trump has taken it as validation of his decision to declare a national emergency and appropriate more funding to build “a wall” along the border. (Construction of the wall would take months or years.)

But while current apprehension levels are higher than they’ve been in the last decade, they’re still way below pre-recession levels.

What is truly unprecedented is who the migrants are.

Almost two-thirds of Border Patrol apprehensions are of parents and their children. While we don’t have complete historical data, it seems likely that more families are coming to the US without papers than ever before. Additionally, a large share of migrants (both families and single adults) are expressing a desire to seek asylum.

Both groups are overwhelmingly coming from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

The US immigration enforcement system was designed to swiftly detain and deport migrants who attempted to sneak into the US illegally. Asylum-seekers and families don’t fit that mold.

Border Patrol agents aren’t equipped to deal with large groups of families who travel through Mexico by bus and then turn themselves in at the border. This has arguably contributed to the deaths of multiple children in Border Patrol custody in recent months, and spurred Customs and Border Protection to expand medical care.

There are strict limits on how long immigrant children and families can be held in immigration custody; in practice, officials release most families pending an immigration hearing. Asylum seekers can’t be deported without a screening interview, and those who pass (by meeting a deliberately generous standard) are often eligible for release from detention while their cases are resolved.

Some of those migrants, either intentionally or accidentally, do not complete the asylum process or lose their cases, and live in the US as unauthorized immigrants. For many Trump officials, this is the heart of the crisis. Officials have spent the last year working on regulations and pushing Congress to expand family detention and reduce asylum protections.

Trump critics continue to insist that migration isn’t at crisis levels. To them, the more urgent issue is the administration’s treatment of families, children, and asylum seekers. They are urging the administration to allow more asylum seekers to present themselves at ports of entry legally. They are calling attention to the conditions in which migrants are being held in custody.

Asylum seekers cannot be barred from entry. The question is whether they should be treated as vulnerable migrants who the US is obligated to treat with kindness, or as deportable migrants until (if at all) they win legal status.

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

It’s really a question of whether we honor our legal and international obligations by fairly processing refugees, or choose to dehumanize and further victimize them. The totally disingenuous performance by Administration officials testifying before Congress on Tuesday tells you all you really need to know. This Administration has shown a slavish devotion to failed policies, dumb gimmicks, and just downright cruelty in a vain attempt to stop people from fleeing danger zones. Not surprisingly, their “built to fail” policies, scofflaw behavior,  and malicious incompetence has made things worse rather than better.

What if we had an honest Administration that admitted that this is a refugee flow that we had a significant role in creating? What if we used the existing law and legal mechanisms to take as many refugees as we could and worked with the UNHCR and the international community to help the others find viable resettlement alternatives? Wow, that would be making government work for the common good. something that’s just not in the “White Nationalist playbook.”

PWS

03-07-19

Related posts:

  1. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!
  2. 18 YEARS AFTER 09-11, THE “BAD GUYS” ARE WINNING THE BATTLE TO DESTROY AMERICAN JUSTICE & SPLIT THE COUNTRY! — Here’s The Disturbing Proof Of What Passes For “Justice” In America Today!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

GW CLINIC REPORT: Justice Finally Triumphs — 7-Year Battle On Behalf Of Abused Refugee Woman Succeeds!

Paulina Vera, Esq.; Professor Alberto Benitez; Rachel Petterson

Friends,
Please join me in congratulating S-P-G-G, from El Salvador, whose asylum application was granted by IJ David Crosland on February 26.  We received the decision today.  When told of the grant, S-P-G-G screamed.  She can start the process of bringing her minor son to the USA.  Please also join me in congratulating Rachael Petterson, Julia Navarro, Solangel González, Chen Liang, Xinyuan Li, Abril Costanza Lara, Allison Mateo, and Paulina Vera, who worked on this case.
The IJ found that S-P-G-G warranted humanitarian asylum because she established compelling reasons arising from the severity of her persecution.  Among other things, she had been raped by her sister’s ex-boyfriend, which resulted in her becoming pregnant, and giving the child up for adoption.  S-P-G-G testified that she experiences recurring nightmares, suicidal feelings, a sense of hopelessness, and fear as a result of her persecution.
FYI.  The client’s initial hearing was on December 18, 2012, IJ Crosland denied asylum, she appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which remanded to the IJ, he denied asylum again, she appealed to the BIA, which denied asylum, she appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which remanded to the IJ, and he finally granted asylum on February 26.
**************************************************
Alberto Manuel Benitez
Professor of Clinical Law
Director, Immigration Clinic
The George Washington University Law School
************************************
Congrats to SPGG and her wonderful team at the GW Immigration Clinic! More than six years of litigation, two wrongful denials, two appeals to the BIA, one incorrect BIA decision, and a remand from the Fourth Circuit before justice was finally done.
Illustrates four things:
  • The absolute BS of those like Sessions and other restrictionists who say asylum cases can be raced through the system on an assembly line;
  • The further BS of claiming that asylum applicants and their lawyers are “gaming” the system when many delays, like this, are caused by poor anti-asylum decision-making within EOIR combined with the DOJ’s incompetent administration of the Immigration Courts;
  • The importance of full appellate rights, including review by a U.S. Court of Appeals that is actually an independent, fair, and impartial court, not a Government agency masquering as a court;
  • The absurdity of claiming that unrepresented asylum seekers can receive anything approaching Due Process in the EOIR system, particularly when they are held in inherently coercive “civil immigration detention.”

What if we had a fair, expert Immigration Court system that made every effort to do right by asylum seekers in the first instance by interpreting and applying the law in the generous and humanitarian manner to protect those in need as originally intended in the Refugee Act of 1980 and described by the Supremes in Cardoza-Fonseca?

What if we had a Government that cared about Due Process and worked to promote it rather than attempting to whack it out of shape to screw the most vulnerable among us at every opportunity?

What if the emphasis in the Immigration Courts was on fairness, scholarship, respect, and teamwork with all concerned (not just “partnership” with the prosecutor and politicized Administration goals) rather than on “haste makes waste” methods and gimmicks.

Hey, we could have a working court system where justice was served and more things got done right in the first place, instead of the disgraceful mess that EOIR has become under DOJ’s highly politicized mismanagement!

PWS

03-07-19

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHITE NATIONALIST AG MAKES VICIOUS UNFOUNDED ATTACK ON REFUGEES & THEIR ATTORNEYS THE CENTERPIECE OF HIS SPEECH TO LARGEST CLASS OF INCOMING U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES — “Good lawyers using all their talents and skills work every day … like water seeping through an earthen dam to get around the plain words of (immigration law) to advance their clients’ interests.”
  2. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “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.”
  3. DERELICTION OF DUTY: 4th Cir. Exposes BIA’s Incompetence & Anti-Asylum Bias, Yet Fails To Confront Own Complicity — SINDY MARILU ALVAREZ LAGOS; K.D.A.A., v. WILLIAM P. BARR
  4. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: GOOD NEWS: Migration Is Good For The World, Sending & Receiving Countries Benefit, & The Oft-Repeated Myths Of Fiscal Burdens & Wage Depression For “Host Countries” Are False — BAD NEWS: Countries With Nationalistic Leaders Who Are “Invested In The Myths” Are Unlikely To Realize The Full Potential Of Migration

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-compact-opposition-migration-development-by-mahmoud-mohieldin-and-dilip-ratha-2019-02

On December 19, 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, with 152 votes in favor, five votes against, and 12 abstentions. Supporters hailed the Compact as a step toward more humane and orderly management of migration, yet opposition remains formidable.

The Compact is not a legally binding treaty, nor does it guarantee new rights for migrants. In fact, the Compact’s 23 objectives were drafted on the basis of two years of inclusive discussions and six rounds of negotiations, focused specifically on creating a framework for international cooperation that would not interfere excessively in countries’ domestic affairs.

Because of misunderstandings about the Compact, it is worth taking a closer look at the migration challenge – and the vast benefits that a well-managed system can bring to host countries and home countries alike.

Migration is motivated, first and foremost, by lack of economic opportunities at home. With the average income level in high-income countries more than 70 times higher than in low-income countries, it is not surprising that many in the developing world feel compelled to try their luck elsewhere.

This trend is reinforced by demographic shifts. As high-income countries face population aging, many lower-income countries have burgeoning working-age and youth populations. Technological disruption is also putting pressure on labor markets. Moreover, climate change, as indicated by a recent World Bank report, will accelerate the trend, by driving an estimated 140 million people from their homes in the coming decades.

But, contrary to popular belief, nearly half of all migrants do not move from developing to developed countries. Rather, they migrate among developing countries, often within the same neighborhood.

Moreover, return migration is increasing, a fact that is often overlooked, often because migrants were denied entry into the labor market or their work contracts ended. For example, the number of newly registered South Asian workers in the Gulf states declined significantly – by anywhere from 12% to 41% – over the last two years. Between 2011 and 2017, the number of potential returnees in Europe – asylum-seekers whose applications were rejected or who were found to be undocumented – increased fourfold, reaching 5.5 million. Over the same period, the number of potential returnees in the United States more than doubled, to over three million. Return migration from Saudi Arabia and South Africa has increased as well.

Those migrants who remain in their host countries make substantial contributions. Although the world’s estimated 266 million migrants comprise only about 3.4% of the global population, they contribute more that 9% of GDP.

To achieve this, migrants must overcome high barriers to economic success. For example, unskilled workers, especially those from poor countries, often pay very high fees – which can exceed an entire year’s income for a migrant worker in some destination countries – to unscrupulous labor agents to find employment outside their own countries. That is why the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a target to reduce recruitment costs.

Migration also delivers major economic benefits to home countries. While migrants spend most of their wages in their host countries – boosting demand there – they also tend to send money to support families back home. Such remittances have been known to exceed official development assistance. Last year, remittances to low- and middle-income countries increased by 11%, reaching $528 billion, exceeding those countries’ inflows of foreign direct investment.

Globally, the largest recipient of remittances is India ($80 billion), followed by China, the Philippines, Mexico, and Egypt. As a share of GDP, the largest recipients were Tonga, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Nepal. The increase in remittances during 2018 was due to improvement in the labor market in the US and the recovery of flows from Russia and the Gulf States.

But the potential of remittances to support sustainable development is not being met. A major obstacle is the high cost of transferring money.

Migrants sending money home pay, on average, 7% of the total of the transfer itself, owing to weak competition in the market for remittance services – a result of stringent regulations intended to combat financial crimes like money laundering – as well as reliance on inefficient technology. Achieving the SDG target of reducing transfer costs below 3% – which would support progress toward the target of increasing the total volume of remittances – will require countries to address these weaknesses.

We are closely monitoring these often-overlooked ways that migration can support development, owing to their links to SDG indicators. But recent research busts other migration myths as well, showing, for example, that migrants neither impose a significant fiscal burden on host countries nor depress wages for lower-skill native workers.

Migration flows are increasing – a trend that is set to continue. Fragmented migration policies shaped by popular myths cannot manage this process effectively, much less seize the opportunities to spur development that migration creates. Only a coordinated approach, as envisioned in the Global Compact, can do that.

Written by

Mahmoud Mohieldin, Corporate Secretary, World Bank

Dilip Ratha, Manager of Migration and Remittances, Development Prospects Group of the World Bank

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

Needless to say, the Trump Administration has rejected the Global Compact out of hand, as an “infringement on sovereignty,” and takes a unilateral “America first, last, and always, who cares about anyone else” approach to migration issues.

These authors speak a “core truth:”

Migration flows are increasing – a trend that is set to continue. Fragmented migration policies shaped by popular myths cannot manage this process effectively, much less seize the opportunities to spur development that migration creates. Only a coordinated approach, as envisioned in the Global Compact, can do that.

That’s why “regime change” will be essential for the U.S. to take full advantage of the benefits of migration and for our country to regain its leadership role on the world stage.

PWS

03-06-19

 

Related posts:

  1. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “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.”
  2. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!
  3. ROQUE PLANAS @ HUFFPOST: TRUMP’S BOGUS CARAVAN THREAT MIGHT BE HIS MOST OUTRAGEOUS SCAM YET! — GOP’S Racist Commercial So Vile That Even Fox Pulls It!
  4. PAUL WALDMAN @ WASHPOST: Why True Bipartisan Immigration Reform In Our National Interest Will Require “Regime Change:” “[I]t’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.”

REP. DON BEYER (D-VA) IN THE HILL: There Are Strategies To Constructively Address Human Rights Problems In The Northern Triangle — A Wall Isn’t One Of Them

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/431757-rep-beyer-what-i-learned-in-central-america

Rep. Breyer writes:

Last week I traveled with colleagues to Central America’s Northern Triangle — Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — where we spent five days meeting with heads of state, law enforcement, business leaders, U.S. ambassadors and diplomatic staff, USAID officials, and working people.

The trip, organized by Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, was highly informative, particularly given the ongoing debate over immigration policy, temporary protected status (TPS), trade, and other related issues.

I think my fellow travelers – Sens. Carper and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), Lou Correa (Calif.), and Donald Norcross (N.J.) – would agree that what we saw and heard was both depressing and encouraging.

It is clear that the top mission of our U.S. presence in these countries is changing the conditions which drive irregular migration attempts to the United States. We are attacking the corruption, especially within the governments, which undermines citizen confidence that their countries will progress.  We are training police forces to deal with both gang violence and narcotics trafficking, with significant reductions in the murder rates in all three countries.  And we are investing in the conditions necessary for economic growth, especially the training of young people for jobs that pay much more than the minimum wage.

Our top concern was the decline in presidential support for U.S. initiatives to support economic growth and improved security in the region, and the naive idea that a wall on a border more than a thousand miles north will be any disincentive for jobless people living in fear of violence. The notion that a wall would magically solve the complex problems which cause people to flee to the United States was not borne out by what we saw.

Instead, we saw again and again that when we help create conditions of the most modest prosperity, when we reduce the fear of imminent violence, and when folks believe things will get better, it greatly reduces people’s desire to emigrate to the United States.

The most effective way for us to deal with unwanted immigration is to address the root causes in the developing economies of the Northern Triangle. We have already made a significant difference, but there is so much more we can and must do.

We should begin by shifting the useless waste of taxpayer funds in a silly border wall into greater investment into the Alliance for Prosperity, into our law enforcement efforts, and into diplomacy which will ensure ever less corrupt and more responsive governments.

My colleagues and I will be sharing these lessons with our colleagues this week, as Congress takes up a measure to reject the president’s fake national emergency, and beyond it as we look for humane, practical solutions to improve our immigration system and our relationships with these nations.

Beyer represents Virginia’s 8th District.

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

There are many other things that we could do, both internationally and domestically, to address the current humanitarian situation in the Northern Triangle. The money that the Trump Administration is happy to waste on a wall, unnecessary and inhumane detention, and the unneeded stationing of troops on the border could actually support much more reasonable and effective approaches that would comply with the law, rather stretching and often breaking it.

We need a better government by better people. Join the New Due Process Army and help end the Trump Kakistocracy.

NOTE:  Don Beyer is our Representative.

PWS

03-06-19

Related posts:

  1. FOUR TODDLERS RESCUED BY PRO BONO LAWYERS FROM DEADLY SITUATION IN CBP CUSTODY — Putrid, Unsanitary, Repressive Conditions Causing Lifetime Harm To Other Traumatized Kids — But, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Wants You To Know That She’s Not Taking Responsibility For The Humanitarian Disaster Intentionally Engineered On Her Watch!
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “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.”
  4. SPRINT TO THE BOTTOM: Trump Administration Trashes Refugees & Human Rights In A Despicable Return To “1939-Style Fascism Lite!” — America’s Rancid Conduct & Negative Leadership Presages Another Worldwide Refugee Tragedy — This Time The Blood Will Be Directly On Our Hands!

REFUGEES ARRIVE IN INCREASING NUMBERS AS TRUMP’S UNILATERAL “ENFORCEMENT ONLY” POLICIES FAIL: “Deterrents” Don’t Work, But DHS Officials Request More Authority To Abuse Refugees — With An Administration That Refuses To Recognize The Reality Of The Situation In The “Failed States” Of The Northern Triangle & To Work Cooperatively With Refugee NGOs, The International Human Rights Community, & Lawyers, No Solution On Horizon!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/03/04/feature/after-cold-busy-month-at-border-illegal-crossings-expected-to-surge-again/

Nick Miroff reports for WashPost:

In a dusty lot along the U.S.-Mexico border fence, a single Border Patrol agent was stuck with few options and falling temperatures.

A group of 64 parents and children had waded through a shallow bend in the Rio Grande to turn themselves in to the agent on the U.S. side. He radioed for a van driver, but there were none available. By 2 a.m., the temperature was 44 degrees.

The agent handed out plastic space blankets. The group would have to wait.

Groups like this arrived again and again in February, one of the coldest and busiest months along the southern border in years. U.S. authorities detained more than 70,000 migrants last month, according to preliminary figures, up from 58,000 in January. The majority were Central American parents with children who arrived, again, in unprecedented numbers.

During a month when the border debate was dominated by the fight over President Trump’s push for a wall, unauthorized migration in fiscal 2019 is on pace to reach its highest level in a decade. Department of Homeland Security officials say they expect the influx to swell in March and April, months that historically see large increases in illegal crossings as U.S. seasonal labor demand rises.

Migrant families wait for a Border Patrol van to take them to a holding facility in El Paso on Feb. 22. It was cold and windy that night, so a border agent distributed plastic blankets to the group.

The number of migrants taken into custody last year jumped 39 percent from February to March, and a similar increase this month would push levels to 100,000 detentions or more.

It was a surge in the border numbers in March 2018 that infuriatedPresident Trump and launched his administration’s attempt to deter families by separating children from their parents. Trump stopped the separations six weeks later to quell public outrage. But the controversy the policy generated — and its widely publicized reversal — is now viewed by U.S. agents as the moment that opened the floodgates of family migration even wider, worsening the problem it was meant to fix.

While arrests along the border fell in recent years to their lowest levels in half a century, they are now returning to levels not seen since the George W. Bush administration, driven by the record surge in the arrival of Central American families.

For U.S. border agents, the strain has grown more acute, as they struggle to care for children using an enforcement infrastructure made in an era when the vast majority of migrants were Mexican adults who could be quickly booked and deported. The Central American families — called “give-ups” because they surrender instead of trying to sneak in — have left frustrated U.S. agents viewing their own role as little more than the facilitators for the last stage of the migrants’ journey. They are rescuing families with small children from river currents, irrigation canals, medical emergencies and freezing winter temperatures.

“We’re so cold,” said Marlen Moya, who had left Guatemala with her sons six weeks earlier and crossed the Rio Grande with the group of 64.

Moya’s son Gael, 6, was sick with a fever and moaning, his face streaked with tears. “In Juarez, we were shoved and yelled at,” she said, looking back across the river to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. “We slept on the street.”

Asked why she didn’t cross during the day, when temperatures were mild, Moya said she worried that Mexican police would stop them. “We’ve already come this far,” she said.

Marlen Moya, who had left Guatemala with her sons six weeks earlier, holds Gael, 6, as they wait along with Anderson, 8. Moya said she fled Guatemala City after being threatened and robbed at gunpoint at her beauty salon.

Much of the attention last fall was focused on caravan groups, mostly from Honduras, as they reached Tijuana, Mexico, not far from San Diego. Then concern shifted to Arizona and New Mexico, where groups of rural Guatemalan families began showing up at remote border outposts. Two Guatemalan children died in December after being taken into U.S. custody, as Homeland Security officials declared a humanitarian and national security crisis.

The border deal Trump and Democrats reached last month includes $415 million to improve detention conditions for migrant families, including funds to potentially open a new processing center in El Paso. But in the meantime, families continue to arrive in groups large and small, in faraway rural areas and right in downtown El Paso.

“The numbers are staggering, and we’re incredibly worried that we will see another huge increase in March,” said a Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the unpublished figures.

The lone U.S. agent with the group was the only one available along that span. Drug smugglers have been using the groups as a diversion, so the agent couldn’t leave the riverbank.

No vans or buses arrived to pick up the families. Other agents were busy at the nearby processing center because so many groups had arrived in El Paso that night, and still others were at the hospital, where they were helping parents and children receive treatment for severe flu symptoms.

Homeland Security officials have been urging lawmakers to grant them broader powers to detain and quickly deport families in a search for deterrent measures. Their attempts to crack down using executive actions have been blocked repeatedly in federal court.

The migrants travel by van to a holding facility in El Paso.

The Trump administration has begun sending some asylum-seeking Central Americans back to Mexico to wait while their claims are processed, but so far that experiment has been limited to California’s San Ysidro port of entry.

About 150 migrants were sent back across the border in February, according to Mexican authorities, but that is a small fraction of the more than 2,000 unauthorized migrants coming into U.S. custody on an average day.

Homeland Security officials said Friday that the pilot program, which they call Migrant Protection Protocols, will expand to El Paso and potentially other locations in coming weeks, predicting that the number of Central Americans sent back would grow “exponentially.” Some of the cities where they will wait are among the most dangerous in Mexico.

Mexican officials are cooperating by providing general assistance and job placement for those sent back to wait, but privately they have warned the Americans that their capacity to take parents with children is extremely limited, especially families that need welfare assistance and enrollment in already-crowded public schools.

Migrants at the border hold tight to the blankets and move about the area to stay warm while they wait for the van.
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Read the full article at the above link.
As long  as the Trump Administration insists on dealing unilaterally with a humanitarian refugee situation as a fake law enforcement problem, there will be no resolution; just more pain, needless suffering, and scofflaw gimmicks by an inhumane and incompetent Administration.
PWS
03-04-19

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