"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
As we all cope with the COVID crisis, we can learn a lesson in resiliency.
BY EKHLAS AHMED SPECIAL TO THE PRESS HERALD
In 2005, on my first day of school in America, I got off at the wrong bus stop. Days before, my family and I moved to Portland, having fled genocide in our native Darfur, Sudan. I was 11 years old, had never ridden a public bus before and couldn’t speak English. I walked around lost for eight hours until the Portland police finally found me. I’m now 26, and I think the most courageous thing I’ve ever done is to get back on that bus the next day.
I’ve thought about this story a lot during the pandemic. Like everyone, I feel the uncertainty and pain of this moment. But when I remember the struggles I’ve overcome as a refugee and newcomer to America, I am reminded of how resilient human beings are. You certainly don’t have to be a refugee in order to know perseverance, but take it from someone who has been displaced, lost and in fear of her life: we can get through this. Here’s how.
First, find your purpose by serving others. Given the trauma that refugees have experienced, you wouldn’t expect us to be so resilient. But we forge ahead by reaching out. It’s no surprise that healthcare is the second most common field for refugees in the U.S., according to New American Economy. A fifth of refugee healthcare workers are personal care aides, 14 percent are registered nurses and 8 percent are doctors. Refugees fill these rolls, because we want to give back to the country that welcomed us. But we also do it because selflessness eases our suffering. I became an ESOL teacher five years ago because I knew I would be in a unique position to help young newcomers. I’ve walked in their shoes and understand how to build a safe learning environment for them to thrive.
Second, find hope in community. In refugee circles, even those of us who aren’t strictly “essential” are lifting our neighbors up through mutual-aid organizing. This is a type of local support that refugee communities use to fill in the gaps after our resettlement assistance ends. In normal times, networks of neighbors might organize ride shares and translation assistance for newcomers. Now we’ve added services to meet changing demands. Before coronavirus hit Portland, there was no existing infrastructure to get groceries to the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions. To meet that need, myself and other volunteers are doing the shopping for them. I’m also hosting virtual information meetings to keep the refugee community up-to-date on the latest coronavirus guidelines and teaching people how to use services like Zoom so they can participate and keep up with friends and family.
Lastly, don’t keep your fear bottled up. Refugees know how important it is to have an outlet to express our feelings. This is true for so many of us who have experienced trauma, but especially the women who suffered sexual violence during war. That’s why my mom is a care provider at Spurwink, a Portland organization that helps individuals affected by mental health challenges and developmental disabilities. And it’s why I started hosting bi-monthly conference calls for anyone who wants to share their pandemic experiences. Given widespread job loss, food insecurity and the inability to pay the rent, it’s no wonder that experts are warning about the profound impact coronavirus will also have on our mental health. Talking to your friends and neighbors or simply lending an ear is crucial to breaking through the isolation. It reminds us that we are not alone.
If coronavirus has taught me anything, it’s that we all have far more in common than we think. As states begin to slowly reopen in the coming weeks and months, we will need each other more than ever. Refugees are used to approaching challenges day by day, because tomorrow has never been promised to us. We are proof that all Mainers—and all Americans—can persist through this crisis and adapt to our new normal. We may feel lost, but tomorrow is another day. Have courage.
Ekhlas Ahmed is a refugee, activist and educator from Darfur, Sudan.
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A message from the real America, and those who actually make it great!
The current regime has basically (without legislation) ended our compliance with domestic laws and international treaties that save refugee lives while humanizing and enriching our nation. It’s a national disgrace! Vote ‘em out, vote ‘em out!
This November, vote like your life and your humanity depend on it! Because they do!
For more than two decades, Roberto Valdez has harvested crops in California’s eastern Coachella Valley, a scorching region dotted with impoverished communities that are surrounded by bountiful fields of grapes, bell peppers, broccoli, watermelon and more. In 2005, after his son nearly died from heatstroke while picking grapes, Valdez advocated for improved safety measures for farm workers, which culminated in new state regulations that protect workers from heat stress. An undocumented immigrant, he is not eligible for federal relief during the Covid-19 pandemic, but while millions of people shelter in place, he continues to work in the fields with his wife. Here he tells Gabriel Thompson about his life as an essential worker.
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Right now I’m harvesting eggplant for $13 an hour. The company gives the crew a 50 cent bonus for each box we fill, so in eight hours we can earn an extra $15 or so. The plants are about 4ft tall and the eggplants grow low, so we usually work on our knees in the dirt. You cut off the eggplants with scissors and fill up buckets that weigh between 40 and 50 pounds, carry them to a large tub where they are washed and packed, and dump them in.
California’s farm workers pick America’s essential produce – unprotected from coronavirus
It tires you out, especially when it’s hot. It was 105 degrees today. By 10 in the morning your clothes are completely soaked with sweat and it’s hard to make it through the eight hours. In fact, some days there are people who leave, who can’t make it.
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Because of the coronavirus we always cover our faces now, no matter what the temperature is. The company has given us disposable blue masks, but we mostly use bandannas. The masks don’t stay clean for very long and they start to smell. When they’re dirty, it’s very hard to breathe. The sun is hot, the ground is hot, you’re working fast, and you can’t breathe. A bandanna you can wash and use again. I bring three bandannas every day: one that goes over my head to protect my neck, and two that I use as masks. We have breaks every four hours, and I use that time to wash the old one out with water and soap and put on a new one. My wife and I work together on the crew, and I bought 16 bandannas that we use.
We leave two rows between each person now, a distance of about 8ft. Before, we ate lunch together around portable tables in the shade. We’d share food. “Hey, grab a taco!” That’s all over. Now we eat apart, mostly in our cars. I also can’t greet people like I used to do, either. I’m the kind of person who likes to shake hands, pat people on the back. “How’s it going? How’re you doing this morning?” Among us Latinos, that’s very common. That’s over, too.
Farm workers wear protective equipment and work behind plastic dividers in the field. Photograph: Brent Stirton/Getty Images
But we still joke and talk, even though we’re separated. There are about 30 people in the crew, and some of us have worked together for years. There are people who are tired, and we’ll tell them a story, just so they’ll be able to get through the day – that’s how we make the work more bearable. Some people have had to stop working because of the coronavirus. There’s a young woman, a single mother with two kids, and she couldn’t keep working because the schools and daycares have shut down. It’s very hard right now – so many mothers have had to stay home.
You have to respect this disease. My brother-in-law died eight days ago, in Mexicali. He was in his 40s and worked at a plant that makes glass. He had high blood pressure and kidney problems, and they had to operate on his kidneys in March. While he was in the hospital he had a hard time breathing, and they suspected he had the coronavirus. They isolated him and put him in an area where the Covid-19 patients were. They didn’t give my sister any information about how he was doing. The government said he died of the coronavirus, but we’re still waiting for the official cause of death. It hurt us a lot, because he was a very good person and no one could visit him.
I saw a news report from New York, where doctors were saying that people weren’t keeping quarantine – going out even when they were supposed to be at home, and more people got infected. That’s something we think a lot about. We stay very clean at work, because we know innocent people are buying the food we harvest, with money they have earned, so that their families will be healthy. And the majority of farm workers, we’re happy to work, we do so with love, and the coronavirus won’t stop us. It’s not going to stop us. Because we know that our work supports the whole nation.
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Right now, Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed giving undocumented immigrants $500 each. There are people who have sued to try and stop this, a woman named Jessica Martinez and a man from El Salvador, Ricardo Benitez. I’d like these people to come out and meet us. I’d like them to see us working. There are people out here who really need this $500, especially people who have lost their jobs. We are the people who are feeding the country. No one else is going to be able to do this. We are the only ones who know how.
We are people who’ve lived in the country 10 and 20 years, and we don’t have a social security number. From my point of view – I say this from my heart – we are like chess pieces that politicians move around. They haven’t done anything, since Barack Obama, since Bill Clinton, since 9/11. I remember I was picking grapes in Arvin when they attacked the twin towers. Back then there was talk of immigration reform for workers. We’ve had hope for a long time, and nothing has happened. We pay taxes. We go to stores and we buy things. Our kids are studying in school. My daughter is about to graduate high school. It’s hard for me to understand why they aren’t letting us become legal residents.
In the media, they’re now calling us “essential workers”. But that’s what we’ve always been. We think of doctors, firefighters and police as important. People who never saw us before now see that we also have value. The coronavirus has brought us both good and bad opportunities. It has hurt us, and it has also made many people realize something they didn’t realize before: that they need us.
Last Monday I arrived home from work and there was a box at my door. The box was filled with milk, bags of lettuce, cabbage, onions and potatoes. I don’t know who brought us the food. I asked the person who manages the trailer park, and he just said some people came to drop off food for everyone. It made me want to cry. It meant that someone was thinking about us, that someone was worrying about us. This was a gesture of kindness toward us. Nothing like that had happened before.
Roberto’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
This is an excerpt from the Unheard Voices of the Pandemic series from Voice of Witness. Thompson is editor of Chasing the Harvest: Migrant Workers in California Agriculture.
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It’s time to stop the disgraceful waste of taxpayer resources by the Trump regime’s cruel, wasteful, and just plain dumb efforts to penalize, dehumanize, and deport productive members of our society whom we have failed to offer a path to full membership.
The Trump Family, Steven Miller, Chad Wolf, Billy Barr, Cooch Cooch, and the rest of the White Nationalist restrictionists wouldn’t last a day picking fruits and vegetables in the hot sun, and I guarantee they wouldn’t do a very good job at it.
The pandemic is teaching us lots about who’s really essential; and who’s not!
This November, vote like you life depends on it! Because it does!
There’s no question that everyone is struggling to navigate a world marred by a serious pandemic that’s brought about serious repercussions, especially economic and financial. However, it can be argued that immigrants are having it so much worse at this time as the government, in an effort to protect its own, has chosen to overlook their plight. As a result, countless migrant workers are now on unsure footing. So, let’s dig deeper to understand the problem and see what solutions may be at hand.
Anticipating the Challenges
It’s undeniable that migrant workers are among the hardest hit by COVID-19 — not in terms of infections, per se, but by the fallout. While the government is quick to come to the aid of its citizens affected by the pandemic, the same can’t be said for immigrants, leaving countless migrant workers to fend for themselves.
Many are even working on the frontlines of this pandemic, making them truly vital to the country’s COVID-19 response.
Unfortunately, they are all but neglected right now in the pandemic, lacking assistance in almost all avenues from healthcare to economic.
Getting the Help You Need
Despite the direness of the situation, there’s still hope on the horizon. Migrant workers will likely have their work cut out for them as they seek much-needed help in their adoptive countries. But the fact is, help and support are available out there.
Despite the general lack of healthcare for migrants, there are some healthcare resources that can prove to be useful.
Some states and local governments have also stepped up to provide resources for immigrants, running the gamut from legal to financial to healthcare.
Of course, it definitely pays to take matters into one’s own hands. In fact, it will serve migrant workers well to look into the many services that can be leveraged.
In fact, it can be wise to hire freelancers to help navigate through the red tape, so consider engaging an immigration lawyer or even just a translator.
Of course, find a nanny who can be trusted to care for your kids as you work on improving your situation.
Indeed, it’s a difficult time that’s been made even more so with the multitude of uncertainties that migrant workers face on a daily basis. But really, there’s no reason to make this situation more overwhelming than it already is. Again, help can be had, and regardless if it comes from you, the government or other kind-hearted souls no longer matter. It just needs to be accepted.
I’m Diane Harrison, a former librarian of 15 years turned non-profit marketing guru. Although I’m no longer a librarian and have switched career gears completely, I’ve combined my passion for helping others as well as my writing and researching skills to gather helpful health information.
Federal immigration agency to furlough employees unless Congress provides funding
6:05 PM EDT May 26, 2020
US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency responsible for visa and asylum processing, is expected to furlough part of its workforce this summer if Congress doesn’t provide emergency funding to sustain operations during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Unfortunately, as of now, without congressional intervention, the agency will need to administratively furlough a portion of our employees on approximately July 20,” USCIS Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow wrote in a letter sent to the workforce on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the agency — which has 19,000 government employees and contractors working at more than 200 offices — requested $1.2 billion from Congress due to its budget shortfall.
Communications from the agency to Congress have grown more urgent as the threat of potential rolling furloughs could number in the thousands, according to one source familiar with the discussions.
The goal would be to attach the needed funds to the next coronavirus relief bill, which lawmakers plan to negotiate next. Still, with both parties far apart on any resolution, there is currently no clear pathway for lawmakers to fulfill the emergency request.
The immigration agency is primarily fee-funded and typically continues most operations during lapses in funding, such as last year’s government shutdown. However, during the pandemic the agency suspended its in-person services, including all interviews and naturalization ceremonies.
“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS has seen a dramatic decrease in revenue and is seeking a one-time emergency request for funding to ensure we can carry out our mission of administering our nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity, and protecting the American people,” said a USCIS spokesperson.
The agency proposed a 10% surcharge on USCIS application fees to reimburse taxpayers at a later time. USCIS previously estimated that application and petition receipts will drop by approximately 61% through the end of fiscal year 2020, exhausting funding this summer, according to the agency.
Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told CNN earlier this month that USCIS’ depleted funds are the “inevitable result” of the administration’s policies, which decreased the number of petitions — and thus fees — received by the agency.
“Between the end of fiscal years 2017 and 2019, USCIS received nearly 900,000 fewer petitions. This decrease was largely driven by the administration’s own decisions, such as ending Temporary Protected Status for nationals of several countries or drastically decreasing the number of refugees admitted to the United States,” she said.
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
Sarah Pierce of MPI is totally right! This self-created “emergency” has to do mostly with the Trump regime’s ill-advised decision to turn what was supposed to be an agency providing impartial, expert, professional services to the public, and specifically the immigrant community, into a “junior branch of DHS enforcement.”
The need for a bailout or huge fee increases appears specious. How about giving USCIS the money that the regime illegally reprogrammed for Trump’s unneeded wall or the money used to maintain unfilled detention spaces and unneeded detention programs?
Right now, USCIS is engaged in improperly “slow walking” naturalization applications to prevent new citizens from being able to vote in the Fall 2020 elections. As a minimum requirement for further bailout, Congress should require that the “Naturalization Program” be removed from USCIS and returned to the supervision of the Article III Federal Courts.
I actually was once a “big fan” of “administrative naturalization,” believing that it could bedone most efficiently and with the best public service by adjudicators serving within the Examinations Branch of the “Legacy INS” which eventually “morphed” into USCIS. I supported the concept and helped lay the groundwork for it during my time at the “Legacy INS.”
The Trump kakistocrats have proved me wrong. The function is too important, too politicized, and too tied into the White Nationalist anti-immigrant agenda to remain within the Executive Branch. It also requires competent, professional, apolitical leadership which does not exist within today’s “DHS mass of disastrous politicized incompetence.”
A Syrian girl is among the residents in an apartment building where foreign workers have tested positive for the coronavirus. Long before the pandemic in Lebanon, they lived and worked in conditions that rights groups called exploitative — low wages, long hours, no labor law protections. Now, about 250,000 registered migrant laborers in the country — maids, garbage collectors, and farm and construction workers — are growing more desperate as an economic and financial crisis sets in, coupled with coronavirus restrictions.
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A crisis is no excuse for a President and a regime that “checks humanity at the door” and encourages others to do so.
Trump is now threatening to “shut down Twitter” because it fact-checks him. But, what other forum would allow him to spread his lies and vile, hateful rhetoric so widely and rapidly? I could live without Twitter. Others probably could too. But, could Trump?
This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!
Migrant children are still confined and vulnerable. It’s a gratuitous act of cruelty.
By Editorial Board
May 25 at 2:09 PM ET
As the pandemic gathered speed In March, a federal judge called the government’s immigrant detention centers “hotbeds of contagion” and ordered that migrant children be released from them without delay. Some have been. But the Trump administration has dragged its feet in freeing many migrant children detained with their families, offering parents the formal “option” of letting their children go — to be separated from their mothers and fathers.
That Hobson’s choice was presented in mid-May to several hundred asylum-seeking parents at the three migrant family detention centers, in Texas and Pennsylvania, run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many Americans may have assumed that the administration, scalded by its last experiment with separating migrant children from their families, would not again broach that subject. But it did.
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On May 13 and 14, parents at those facilities, mainly mothers, were herded into sudden encounters with ICE officials, who presented them with forms to sign. The detainees’ lawyers were neither notified nor aware of what was going on. The forms presented parents with the option of allowing government agents to place their children with relatives or other sponsors elsewhere in the United States, while the parents would stay behind in detention. Very few of the parents assented, though plenty were shaken by the experience; some agreed without realizing the repercussions, according to a subsequent court filing.
Judge Dolly M. Gee, of the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, has jurisdiction over detained migrant children under the 1997 Flores settlement, which prohibits the long-term detention of migrant minors. In March, as covid-19 cases were spreading rapidly in migrant detention facilities, she ordered the administration to speed up the release of minors; hundreds were placed with sponsors. However, the Flores agreement grants the judge no jurisdiction over parents detained with their children.
That apparently prompted ICE to undertake its proceedings in the family detention centers, in which agents asked asylum-seeking parents if they were willing to part with their children, some of them babies and toddlers. In fact, ICE has the authority to release families pending their next appearance in immigration court, and has done so routinely in the past. The Trump administration has taken a different tack, raising the bar on asylum as it subjects migrant families to months-long confinements even if children suffer in the process — which they do.
According to advocates and attorneys for the migrant parents, the parents summoned by ICE officials were confused and intimidated. Some thought they risked being deported if they refused to let their children be taken away. In at least one instance, according to a court filing, a mother who signed the form asked an ICE officer if she could change her mind; she was told no.
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The administration closed the U.S. southern border to asylum seekers this spring, citing the risk of the pandemic. Most detained migrants had entered the country months earlier, and more than 1,000 covid-19 cases have been reported in detention facilities nationwide, including among detainees and staff members. None have been confirmed in the three family detention centers, perhaps because there has been little testing. Still, hundreds of migrant minors detained with their families remain at risk of contracting the virus. At this point, their continuing confinement seems a gratuitous act of cruelty.
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A regime of scofflaws, child abusers, and human rights violators. How will we explain that to future generations?
This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!
A 34-year-old Guatemalan man who tested positive for COVID-19 died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a Georgia hospital on Sunday, according to an internal government report obtained by BuzzFeed News.
Santiago Baten-Oxlaj, 34, had been in ICE custody at Stewart Detention Center, in Lumpkin, since early March and was granted a voluntary departure to Guatemala, ICE later confirmed in a press release.
Baten-Oxlaj was arrested on March 2 at a probation office in Marietta, Georgia “pursuant to his conviction for driving under the influence,” ICE said. On March 26, an immigration judge granted him voluntary departure. “At the time of his death, Baten was awaiting departure from the United States,” ICE added.
On April 17, he was admitted to a local hospital for treatment of decreased oxygen saturation levels, hospital officials tested the man for COVID-19 and the result was positive.
On Sunday, he died at the hospital, according to the report, which listed his preliminary cause of death as COVID-19.
ICE said it “is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases.”
His death comes weeks after a 57-year-old man in ICE custody in San Diego died after testing positive for COVID-19. The San Diego County medical examiner’s office said the man, Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia, died of acute respiratory failure due to pneumonia resulting from COVID-19. He was the first immigrant in ICE custody to die of the disease.
As of May 16, 1,201 immigrant detainees have tested positive for the disease in ICE custody out of 2,394 who had been tested.
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Read the rest of Hamed’s article at the above link.
Unfortunately, this won’t be the last victim. According to the article, over 50% of those detainees tested for COVID-19 were positive.
With the BIA basically taking a “pass/dive” on requiring health and safety considerations to be serious factors in custody decisions, custody cases will continue to be litigated in U.S. District Courts throughout the country. Why have a BIA incapable of functioning as an independent tribunal consistent with due process?
Family Separation 2.0: “You aren’t going to separate me from my only child.”
On April 7, 2020, Amnesty International issued a report, ‘We are adrift, about to sink’: The looming COVID-19 disaster in US immigration detention facilities, documenting how the Trump administration was failing to adequately protect tens of thousands of immigrants and asylum- seekers whom the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS”) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) agency was detaining in over 200 detention centers across the United States.1
Three of these facilities detain families, including infants as young as 1-year-old who are still breast-feeding. Deceptively named “family residential centers” (FRC), these detention facilities are: the Berks County Residential Center (“Berks”) in Leesport, Pennsylvania; the South Texas Family Residential Center (“Dilley”) in Dilley, Texas; and the Karnes County Residential Center (“Karnes”) in Karnes City, Texas.
While the dangerous conditions in immigration detention remain little changed since Amnesty International published its April report, ICE has now introduced a new element of harm: family separation. Once again, this administration is weaponizing its public health response to COVID- 19 to punish and deter people seeking safety.
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Read the complete report at the above link.
The regime’s “Dred Scottification” — dehumanization of “the other” before the law — continues unabated as those institutions charged with preventing such abuses tank.
This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!
Another day, another extreme cruelty: according to a report in the New York Times, the Trump administration has deported almost 1,000 migrant children and teens during the past two months of the covid-19 pandemic, sending them out of the United States alone and at times putting them on a flight without even telling their family members. Stephen Miller, who is unfortunately still alive, must be thrilled.
Trump’s latest tactic in the service of slashing immigration is, as the New York Times points out, a complete 180 from past policy:
The deportations represent an extraordinary shift in policy that has been unfolding in recent weeks on the southwestern border, under which safeguards that have for decades been granted to migrant children by both Democratic and Republican administrations appear to have been abandoned.
Historically, young migrants who showed up at the border without adult guardians were provided with shelter, education, medical care and a lengthy administrative process that allowed them to make a case for staying in the United States. Those who were eventually deported were sent home only after arrangements had been made to assure they had a safe place to return to.
But now, not even children who are already in the United States with pending asylum cases are safe from deportation. As the Times reported, in addition to the more than 900 children and teens who were deported in March and April shortly after arriving at the border, 60 young people who were already being held in government shelters were also abruptly sent out of the United States, at times “rousted from their beds in the middle of the night.”
According to the Times, even young children have been put on flights by themselves. Take the case of Sandra Rodríguez and her 10-year-old son Gerson, whom she sent across the southern border with the expectation that once Gerson arrived in the United States, he would be able to eventually live with Rodríguez’s brother in Houston. But instead, shortly after entering the U.S., Gerson was sent to Honduras alone.
This incredibly callous treatment of young migrants as well as their families is part of the Trump administration’s attempt to erase any vestige of due process at the border with Mexico. Citing the pandemic, immigration officials have used provisions in the 1944 Public Health Act as justification to essentially close the United States to all asylum seekers who cross the border. The impact has been severe: In an almost two-month period from mid-March to May, only two people seeking protection on humanitarian grounds at the border were allowed to stay within the United States.
“What is happening at the border right now is a tragedy. We are abandoning our legal commitment to provide asylum to people whose lives are in danger in other countries,” Kari Hong, an immigration attorney and Boston College law school professor, told the Washington Post. “By invoking these emergency orders, the Trump administration is simply doing what it’s wanted to do all along, which is to end asylum law in its entirety,” she said.
While Trump administration officials have justified their likely illegal use of emergency orders in the name of public health, the fact that officials have also deported children and teens who were already in the care of the federal government sure indicates that something else is going on here. I wonder what that could be.
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Who would have thought that America would become a nation of child abusers and that Federal Courts would be so feckless and complicit in the face of such clear abuses? Three years of concerted failure, led by John Roberts and the Supremes, to give meaning to Due Process and Equal Protection in the face of the “New Jim Crow” have emboldened the regime’s White Nationalist, anti-American abusers while kneecapping democratic and constitutional institutions.
Then, there’s the extreme, wanton cruelty and dehumanization inflicted on the mostly vulnerable among us that has come to symbolize our nation in the Age of Trump. Like all the other abuses by the regime, it’s been “normalized” by feckless legislators and judges: “Another day, another extreme cruelty!” ☠️⚰️🤮🏴☠️
Somewhere down there in the fires of the underworld, Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the infamous “Dred Scott Decision” must be feeling totally vindicated by Roberts and his gang!
Is this really how we want to be remembered by future generations? If not, vote ‘em out this November!
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has expedited the deportation of child migrants during the coronavirus pandemic, citing public health, but documents obtained by NBC News show that as far back as 2017, now–DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf sought to expedite child deportations in order to discourage Central American asylum seekers.
Recent reports from immigration lawyers, DHS officials and congressional staff have indicated a rise in the number of rapid deportations of unaccompanied migrant children. Previously, children who arrived in the U.S. without a parent or legal guardian were given protections under anti-trafficking laws, which included the right to claim asylum and to be placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services until they could be placed with a guardian.
The New York Times recently reported that more than 900 children have been deported under a new policy that sends children back to their home countries before they have had a chance to coordinate plans with a guardian at home or claim asylum in the U.S.. Many of those children, according to the Times, were in the U.S. and living in HHS custody or with family members before the pandemic began.
DHS has said the deportations are justified under Title 42, which allows restrictions on immigration to slow the spread of disease.
But a 2017 policy proposal by Wolf shows that the agency has long sought the ability to deport children more quickly, long before the threat of a virus gave it cover to do so.
The documents were first obtained by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D.-Ore., and then shared with NBC News.
Wolf, who was then chief of staff to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, sent a collection of policy ideas to the Justice Department, which included plans to reclassify unaccompanied migrant children as accompanied once they had been placed in the care of a parent or sponsor.
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Read Julia’s complete article at the link.
As I keep saying, ever since “tanking” on the so-called “Travel Ban Cases,”John Roberts and his GOP buddies on the Supremes have been avoiding their duty to critically examine the clearly invidious motives of the Trump regime. They have encouraged legal and intellectual fraud by inviting the regime to present a plethora of demonstrably bogus pretexts to thinly cloak their unlawful intent.
Undoubtedly, we’re just seeing the “tip of the iceberg” here. Future historians will unearth overwhelming evidence of the racism and other improper drivers of the regime’s cowardly attack on vulnerable children and asylum seekers. They will expose fully the disgraceful role of Roberts and his gang in encouraging and covering up what future generations will almost universally view as grotesque abuses of human rights and the rule of law. Which they are!
This November, we have a chance to change course and start writing an end to this disgraceful chapter of American history. Don’t blow it!
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said he is planning to introduce legislation on Wednesday that would expand legal immigrants’ access to health care subsidy programs and allow unauthorized immigrants to buy health plans from federal insurance marketplaces.
The bill, known as the HEAL for Immigrant Women and Families Act, would permit legal immigrants to enroll in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), provided that they meet the programs’ income requirements. Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced the bill in the House in October 2019, but it would be the first time that the Senate would consider the legislation.
The bill isn’t likely to advance in a Republican-controlled Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already rejected relief for unauthorized immigrants. But it’s the latest effort by Democrats to rectify inequalities in access to health care laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic.
Only a fraction of immigrants is eligible for Medicaid and CHIP: naturalized citizens, green card holders who have lived in the US for at least five years, immigrants who come to the US on humanitarian grounds (such as receiving asylum), members of the military and their families, and, in certain states, children and pregnant women with lawful immigration status. But many other categories of immigrants — including temporary visa holders and young immigrants who have been allowed to live and work in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — would become eligible under Booker’s bill.
“Covid-19 has shined a punishing light on the unjust health care inequities that exist for communities of color broadly, and immigrant communities in particular,” Booker told Vox. “While we should always be working to expand access to health care for everyone, the dire current situation highlights the urgency of addressing these gaps in health care coverage. Health care is a right, and it shouldn’t depend on immigration status. We’re never going to be able to slow and stop the spread of the virus be if we continue to deny entire communities access to testing, treatment, or care.”
The bill also contains provisions expanding health care options for unauthorized immigrants, who are often uninsured and have so far been largely left out of Congress’s coronavirus relief efforts. Booker’s bill would allow them to buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, from which they’re currently barred. It would also allow unauthorized immigrants to become eligible for health care subsidies if they have purchased such an insurance plan and meet other criteria, including minimum income requirements.
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Read the rest of Nicole’s always outstanding and accessible analysis at the above link.
Good luck with getting this through the Senate with Moscow Mitch and the GOP in charge! Not going to happen. And, Booker knows it!
Few groups in America have been as screwed over as migrants, regardless of status, in this pandemic. They perform some of the most difficult and essential jobs that have kept us going through this crisis. But, when it comes to safety, stimulus, health care, unemployment and pretty much anything else they are left out in the cold by the GOP nativists.
Get back to work:no PPE, social distancing, hazard pay, testing, unemployment benefits, home computers, or health care for you! This isn’t the “GOP playing Soup Nazi” – it’s the real deal, the 21st Century version of completely expendable workers and intentional “dehumanization” of the “other.” Already, xenophobic GOP nativists are whining about the very modest economic emergency money that the State of California has provided to their migrant residents, many “essential workers,” regardless of status.
But, Booker’s HEAL bill is a significant “ready for prime-time marker” if we get regime change! Health care and immigration are huge issues in the Hispanic community. Biden needs to get out the Hispanic vote and having legislation like this “ready to roll” on “Day 1” will be key in energizing voters to “work through the obstacles” and vote Trump & the GOP Senators out in the key states to finally get some much needed aid out to the American Hispanic community and others, including folks in rural areas of so-called “Red States,” and disproportionately adversely affected African-American communities in need who are excluded from “Trump’s America” (except, of course, when the chips are down and we need workers for thankless jobs or when Trump needs votes). You can also add in Asian Americans who have been working hard for America but face a barrage of racist-inspired incidents. There’s a “community of interest” there that the Dems’ should be able to attract and build upon with “good government” that furthers the common interests.
This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!
The last time Sandra Rodríguez saw her son Gerson, she bent down to look him in the eye. “Be good,” she said, instructing him to behave when he encountered Border Patrol agents on the other side of the river in the United States, and when he was reunited with his uncle in Houston.
The 10-year-old nodded, giving his mother one last squinty smile. Tears caught in his dimples, she recalled, as he climbed into a raft and pushed out across the Rio Grande toward Texas from Mexico, guided by a stranger who was also trying to reach the United States.
Ms. Rodríguez expected that Gerson would be held by the Border Patrol for a few days and then transferred to a government shelter for migrant children, from which her brother in Houston would eventually be able to claim him. But Gerson seemed to disappear on the other side of the river. For six frantic days, she heard nothing about her son — no word that he had been taken into custody, no contact with the uncle in Houston.
Finally, she received a panicked phone call from a cousin in Honduras who said that Gerson was with her. The little boy was crying and disoriented, his relatives said; he seemed confused about how he had ended up back in the dangerous place he had fled.
Hundreds of migrant children and teenagers have been swiftly deported by American authorities amid the coronavirus pandemic without the opportunity to speak to a social worker or plea for asylum from the violence in their home countries — a reversal of years of established practice for dealing with young foreigners who arrive in the United States.
The deportations represent an extraordinary shift in policy that has been unfolding in recent weeks on the southwestern border, under which safeguards that have for decades been granted to migrant children by both Democratic and Republican administrations appear to have been abandoned.
Historically, young migrants who showed up at the border without adult guardians were provided with shelter, education, medical care and a lengthy administrative process that allowed them to make a case for staying in the United States. Those who were eventually deported were sent home only after arrangements had been made to assure they had a safe place to return to.
That process appears to have been abruptly thrown out under President Trump’s latest border decrees. Some young migrants have been deported within hours of setting foot on American soil. Others have been rousted from their beds in the middle of the night in U.S. government shelters and put on planes out of the country without any notification to their families.
The Trump administration is justifying the new practices under a 1944 law that grants the president broad power to block foreigners from entering the country in order to prevent the “serious threat” of a dangerous disease. But immigration officials in recent weeks have also been abruptly expelling migrant children and teenagers who were already in the United States when the pandemic-related order came down in late March.
Since the decree was put in effect, hundreds of young migrants have been deported, including some who had asylum appeals pending in the court system.
Some of the young people have been flown back to Central America, while others have been pushed back into Mexico, where thousands of migrants are living in filthy tent camps and overrun shelters.
In March and April, the most recent period for which data was available, 915 young migrants were expelled shortly after reaching the American border, and 60 were shipped home from the interior of the country.
During the same period, at least 166 young migrants were allowed into the United States and afforded the safeguards that were once customary. But in another unusual departure, Customs and Border Protection has refused to disclose how the government was determining which legal standards to apply to which children.
“We just can’t put it out there,” said Matthew Dyman, a public affairs specialist with the agency, citing concerns that human smugglers would exploit the information to traffic more people into the country if they knew how the laws were being applied.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration extended the stepped-up border security that allows for young migrants to be expelled at the border, saying the policy would remain in place indefinitely and be reviewed every 30 days.
Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said the policy had been “one of the most critical tools the department has used to prevent the further spread of the virus and to protect the American people, D.H.S. front-line officers and those in their care and custody from Covid-19.”
An agency spokesman said its policies for deporting children from within the interior of the country had not changed.
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Read the rest of Caitlin’s article at the above link.
Thanks to my friend, the amazing “Due Process Warrior Queen,” 👸🏼 👑 ⚔️🛡Deb Sanders for bringing Caitlin’s article to my attention.
Kids suffer, the law is ignored, corrupt bureaucrats like Chad Wolf continue to wander around spreading lies. There is no evidence that any of those kids “rocketed” out of the country in violation of laws and human rights had coronavirus.
And if they did, returning them to a poorer nation with even fewer resources to fight the pandemic without taking proper precautions and safeguards would be totally irresponsible, inhumane, and ultimately counterproductive. What goes around, comes around!
This has absolutely nothing to do with “protecting” the U.S. from coronavirus (something that Trump otherwise largely eschews) and everything to do with advancing a racist, xenophobic, White Nationalist political agenda designed to appeal to a relatively narrow slice of Trump voters. So, how does this pass “legal muster?” Clearly, “It doesn’t!”
How do folks like Trump, Miller, Wolf, and their accomplices get away with it? Easy when GOP legislators and life-tenured Federal Judges look the other way rather than forcing the regime to comply with the rule of law and simple human decency.
Congressional letters, particularly to a lawless regime, are useless unless accompanied by veto-proof legislation. Courts that fail to take a unified “Just Say No” approach to Trump’s systemic abuses, all the way up to the Supremes, and which rule without holding the officials and lawyers masterminding these abuses legally accountable are basically feckless!
These are not difficult questions from either a legal or moral standpoint. What the Administration is doing is wrong! Period! Those who say otherwise are wrong! Period!
The Trump regime disguises their vicious attacks on human dignity and the rule of law as bogus “legal issues.” And, the Federal Courts encourage them by going along with the charade. This is no “normal Executive.” It’s a “rogue regime” and must be treated as such!
The failure to end these disgraceful practices and hold those who are abusing their authority accountable says much about the current state of our democratic institutions, justice system, civil servants, and the inadequacy and moral complacency of many of our current GOP legislators and Federal Judges.
This November, vote like your life and your humanity depends on it! Because it does!
Immigration courts in ‘chaos,’ with coronavirus effects to last years
By Tal Kopan
WASHINGTON — Raquel and her sons fled gang threats in El Salvador, survived the weeks-long journey to the U.S., and then endured the Trump administration’s 2018 separations at the southern border.
This month, she was finally going to get her chance to convince an immigration judge in San Francisco that she should be granted permanent asylum in the U.S., ending the agony of having to prepare for her court date by reliving the danger in her native country and her weeks of detention at the border.
Thanks to the coronavirus, she will have to endure the wait for three more years.
“It’s really traumatizing, because I have to keep telling them the same thing,” Raquel said. “I thought I had gotten over everything that had happened to me … but every time I remember, I can’t help crying.”
Raquel’s case is one of hundreds of thousands in the immigration courts that are being delayed by the pandemic. The courts, run by the Justice Department, have been closed for health reasons in the same way that much of U.S. public life has been on hold. But many of those who work in the system say the Trump administration has handled the shutdown in an especially haphazard manner, increasing the stress on judges and attorneys in addition to immigrants and making it harder for the courts to bounce back.
“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.
The Justice Department began postponing hearings for immigrants who are not in detention on March 18, and the delays have been extended every few weeks. Hearings are now set to resume June 15. But many courts technically remain open, including the one in San Francisco, with frequently changing statuses announced on social media and a website. It also took weeks for all judges to get laptops that would allow them to work remotely, said Tabaddor, who hears immigration cases in Los Angeles.
The scattershot communications make it difficult to prepare for if and when the hearings are held, immigrants say. And it’s worse for those who have no lawyer who can help navigate the changes. About one-third of immigrants with pending cases have no representation, according to Justice Department statistics, and missing a hearing is grounds for deportation.
The Justice Department says it is being proactive in balancing safety with immigrants’ rights. A spokeswoman said the agency is “deeply concerned” for the health of its staff and the public.
In a recent legal filing, the director of the immigration courts, James McHenry, said a “one size fits all” approach to court closures and procedures wouldn’t work, given varying situations at different locations.
With postponements happening on short notice, most immigrants fighting deportation feel they must prepare for court even if pandemic-caused delays seem likely. But doing so can force them to revisit the terrifying situations they say they came to the U.S. to escape.
None who spoke with The Chronicle said they wanted to risk their health by keeping the courts open. But they and their attorneys said they wished the administration was doing more to take immigrants’ and staffers’ needs into account.
Because the immigration courts already have a backlog of more than 1 million cases, it can take years for an asylum applicant such as Raquel to go before a judge. In the meantime, they build lives here, knowing that can be yanked away if they’re ordered deported.
Raquel and others whose hearings have been postponed won’t go first when the courts reopen — they go to the back of the line. The alternative for the immigration courts would be a logistical nightmare of rescheduling everyone else’s hearings, which are now booked years in advance.
The Trump administration ended the practice of prioritizing cases of criminal immigrants or recent arrivals, and has curtailed judges’ ability to simply close the case of a low-risk migrant less deserving of deportation, which would clear court schedules for more serious cases.
The Justice Department declined to say how many hearings have been postponed because of the pandemic. But a nonprofit statistics clearinghouse estimated that the government shutdown of 2018-19 resulted in the cancellation of 15,000 to 20,000 cases per week.
Raquel’s case is emblematic of the thousands that are now in limbo. The Chronicle has agreed not to use her real name out of her concern for her safety, in accordance with its anonymous sourcing policy.
Raquel says she came to the U.S. in 2018 because a gang in the area of El Salvador where she lived threatened her family after her two sons refused to join.
She was among the immigrant families that were forcibly separated at the border. She spent a month and a half apart from her teenage son as she was shuffled between detention centers and jails. She says she endured numerous indignities, including having to shower in front of guards and being shackled by her wrists and ankles.
“It was the most bitter experience I’ve ever had,” she said in Spanish.
After finally being reunited with her son and released, Raquel rejoined her husband and other son who had come here previously, settling in San Francisco. She was ordered to wear an ankle monitor, which again made her feel like “a prisoner.”
“I had never felt so hurt like I did in this country, which hurt me so much just for crossing a border illegally,” Raquel said. “That was the sin and the crime that we committed, and we paid a high price.”
Raquel spoke with The Chronicle before receiving word that her May hearing was canceled. She and her attorney had felt forced to prepare despite a high likelihood of postponement, just in case the Justice Department forged ahead.
San Francisco attorneys who are working with immigrants during the pandemic say it is an acute challenge. Stay-at-home orders complicate preparing for cases that could have life-and-death consequences for those who fled violence back home.
Difficulties include trying to submit 1,000-page filings from home, needing to discuss traumatic stories of domestic and sexual violence with immigrants who are sharing one-bedroom apartments with 10 other people, and navigating courts’ changing status on Twitter.
“It’s taking an already not-user-friendly system and spinning it into chaos to the extent that even savvy practitioners don’t know how to get information, let alone the applicant,” said Erin Quinn, an attorney in San Francisco with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
She added, “The stakes are high, and at the same time, a comment I got yesterday from a practitioner was, ‘I’m tired of trying to figure out what to do with my practice based on tweets.’”
Judges and court staffers are also frustrated. On March 22, an unprecedented partnership was formed among the unions representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys who serve as prosecutors in the courts, judges and the association for attorneys who represent immigrants. They wrote a letter to the Justice Department demanding it close all the courts, not just postpone hearings for immigrants who are not in detention. The agency later expanded the ability of attorneys to appear by telephone and for some judges to work from home.
Even now, however, the Justice Department is requiring some judges and staff to come in to court to handle cases of immigrants who are being detained — those hearings have not been canceled — or to process filings.
“It is very, very upsetting. Employees do not feel like they are, No. 1, being protected and, No. 2, you don’t feel respected and valued,” said Immigration Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president emerita of the judges’ union.
Marks and Tabaddor say it’s part of a Trump administration pattern of stripping immigration judges of their independence at the expense of fair proceedings— an example of “haste makes waste,” Marks said. The Justice Department has set performance metrics to push judges to complete more cases, and Trump’s attorneys general have issued rulings that made it more difficult for judges to prioritize their caseloads.
The Justice Department, for its part, says it is making the courts more efficient. In November, McHenry testified before Congress that his agency had “made considerable progress in restoring (the courts’) reputation as a fully functioning, efficient and impartial administrative court system fully capable of rendering timely decisions consistent with due process.”
Quinn, the San Francisco attorney, said the Justice Department should work more closely with immigrants’ lawyers like Raquel’s to prioritize cases that are ready to move forward.
“Everything this administration has done to speed up or deal with the backlog are actually actions that limit the meting out of justice in the courts, which even before this crisis have been gumming up the system further,” Quinn said. “We will see the impact of that now as we try to come out of this crisis.”
Meanwhile, for immigrants like Raquel, the wait will continue. Even with the hardship, she says coming to the U.S. was worth the risks.
“It’s about protecting my children,” she said. “I’ve always told my sons, if God let us get here, they have to take advantage of it. … In my country, someone walks down the block and they get assaulted or kidnapped and nobody ever finds them. But not here. Here you feel safe.”
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Alexei Koseff contributed to this report.
It’s great to have you back, Tal! We’ve missed you!
It’s well worth going to the link to read Tal’s full article! Also, you’ll see some great pictures from the “home chambers” of my good friend and colleague Judge Dana Leigh Marks of the San Francisco Immigration Court, a Past President of the NAIJ.
What also would be great is if the dire situation in the U.S. Immigration Courts had actually improved over the past few months. But, predictably, the “downward spiral” has only accelerated.
Tal’s article brings to life the “human trauma” inflicted not only on those poor souls whose constitutional due process rights have been “sold down the river” by this “maliciously incompetent” regime, but also the unnecessary trauma inflicted on everyone touched by this disgraceful system: private and pro bono counsel, judges, interpreters, clerical staff, government counsel, and their families all get to partake of the unnecessary pain and suffering.
While it undoubtedly would take years to restore due process, fundamental fairness, and some measure of efficiency to this dysfunctional mess, the starting points aren’t “rocket science” – they are deceptively simple. One was eloquently stated by Erin Quinn, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco who “said the Justice Department should work more closely with immigrants’ lawyers like Raquel’s to prioritize cases that are ready to move forward.” That’s actually how it used to be done in places like Arlington.
As Judge Marks points out, a host of “haste makes waste” gimmicks and enforcement schemes by this Administration (and to a lesser extent by the Obama Administration) have resulted in massive “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and total chaos as politicos in at the DOJ and bureaucrats in EOIR HQ “redesign and reshuffle” dockets to achieve political objectives and “send messages” without any meaningful input from the Immigration Judges and attorneys (on both sides) who actually do the work and understand the dynamics of a particular docket.
In particular, under a fair and unbiased application of legal standards there are thousands of well-documented meritorious asylum and cancellation of removal cases that could be handled in “short hearings.”Other individuals could be removed from the docket to pursue U and T nonimmigrant visas or “stateside processing” permanent immigration with USCIS. Still others have documentation establishing that they are productive, law-abiding tax-paying members of their communities, often with U.S.citizen family, who should be removed from the dockets through the type of sensible, mutually beneficial “prosecutorial discretion” (“PD”) programs that were beginning to show meaningful results before being arbitrarily terminated by this Administration.
This is just the “tip of the iceberg.” There are many more improvements in efficiency, without sacrificing due process, and “best practices” that could be made if this were operated as a fair and impartial court system, rather than an appendage of DHS Enforcement committed to Stephen Miller’s nativist agenda.
The other necessary piece is the one promoted by Judge Tabaddor and the NAIJ and endorsed by nearly all “non-restrictionist” experts in the field: establishing an independent Immigration Court outside of the Executive Branch. That’s not likely to happen without “regime change.”
Moreover, it’s clear from his recent actions that Billy Barr, who is currently running the Immigration Courts into the ground, actually aspires to “kneecap” the Article III Judiciary in behalf of his lord and master, Trump. Barr would be delighted if all Federal,Courts, including the Article IIIs, were functionaries of the all powerful “Unitary Executive.” Given the Supremes’ failure to stand up for immigrants’ and asylum seekers’ legal rights as they are systematically dismantled by the regime, Barr is already a ways down that road!
Tal’s article also highlights another glaring deficiency: the lack of a diverse, merit-based Immigration Judiciary committed solely to “due process with efficiency” and fair and impartial adjudications under the law, particularly the asylum laws. Experts like Erin Quinn, folks with a deep scholarly understanding of immigration and asylum laws and experience representing the individuals whose lives are caught up in this system, should be on the Immigration Bench. They are the ones with the knowledge and experience in making “hard but fair” choices and how to achieve “practical efficiency” without sacrificing due process.
Rather than actively recruiting those outstanding candidates from the private, academic, and NGO sectors with asylum experience and knowledge, so that they could interact and share their expertise and practical experiences with other judicial colleagues, the current system draws almost exclusively from the ranks of “insiders” and government prosecutors. They apparently are hired with the expectation that they will churn out orders of removals in support of DHS Enforcement without “rocking the boat.” To some extent this was also true under the Obama Administration, which also hired lopsidedly from among government attorneys.
Indeed, prior immigration experience is not even a job requirement right now. The hiring tends to favor those with high volume litigation skills, primarily gained through prosecution. That doesn’t necessarily translate into fair and scholarly judging, although it might and has in some instances.
Of course, a few do defy expectations and stand up for the legal and due process rights of respondents. But, that’s not the expectation of the politicos and bureaucrats who do the hiring. And the two-year probation period for newly hired Immigration Judges gives Administration politicos and their EOIR subordinates “leverage” on the new judges that they might not have on those who are more established in the system, particularly those who are “retirement eligible.”
Moreover, the BIA has now been “stocked” with judges with reputations for favoring enforcement and ruling against asylum seekers in an unusually high percentage of cases.The design appears to be to insure that even those who “beat the odds” and are granted asylum by an Immigration Judge get “zapped” when the DHS appeals. Even if the BIA dared not to enforce the “restrictionist party line,” the Attorney General can and does intervene in individual cases to change the result to favor DHS and then to make it a “precedent” for future cases.Could there be a clearer violation of due process and judicial ethics? I doubt it. But, the Courts of Appeals largely pretend not to see or understand the reality of what’s happening in the Immigration Courts.
Beyond that, the Immigration Judge job, intentionally in my view, has been made so unattractive for those who believe in due process for individuals and a fair application of asylum laws, that few would want to serve in the current environment. Indeed, a number of fine Immigration Judges have resigned or retired as matters of conscience because they felt unable to square “system expectations” with their oaths of office.
To state the obvious, the current version of Congress has become a feckless bystander to this ongoing human rights, constitutional, ethical, and fiscal disaster. But, the real question is whatever happened to the existing independent Article III Judiciary? They continue to remain largely above the fray and look the other way as the Constitution they are sworn to uphold is further ground into the turf every day and the screams of the abused and dehumanized (“Dred-Scottified”) emanating from this charade of a “court system” get louder and louder.Will they ever get loud enough to reach the refined ears of those ensconced in the “ivory tower” of the Article III Judiciary?
Someday! But, the impetus for the necessary changes to make Due Process, fundamental fairness, and equal justice for all a reality rather than a cruel, intellectually dishonest, and unfulfilled promise is going to have to come from outside the current broken and intentionally unfair system and those complicit in its continuing and worsening abuses of the law and humanity!
THE WORLD CHANNELS “COURTSIDE” — A Shocked & Dismayed World Now Sees America Under The Trump Clown 🤡🤡 Kakistocracy For What It Is: A Rich, Arrogant, Willfully Ignorant, Dishonest, Dangerous “Failing State” To Be Pitied — Not To Be Trusted, Followed, Or Admired — “But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the US is “leading the world” with its response to the pandemic, but it does not seem to be going in any direction the world wants to follow.
Across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, views of the US handling of the coronavirus crisis are uniformly negative and range from horror through derision to sympathy. Donald Trump’s musings from the White House briefing room, particularly his thoughts on injecting disinfectant, have drawn the attention of the planet.
“Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger,” the columnist Fintan O’Toole wrote in the Irish Times. “But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.”
The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life
The US has emerged as a global hotspot for the pandemic, a giant petri dish for the Sars-CoV-2 virus. As the death toll rises, Trump’s claims to global leadership have became more far-fetched. He told Republicans last week that he had had a round of phone calls with Angela Merkel, Shinzo Abe and other unnamed world leaders and insisted “so many of them, almost all of them, I would say all of them” believe the US is leading the way.
None of the leaders he mentioned has said anything to suggest that was true. At each milestone of the crisis, European leaders have been taken aback by Trump’s lack of consultation with them – when he suspended travel to the US from Europe on 12 March without warning Brussels, for example. A week later, politicians in Berlin accused Trump of an “unfriendly act” for offering “large sums of money” to get a German company developing a vaccine to move its research wing to the US.
People gather to protest the stay-at-home orders outside the state capitol building in Sacramento, California, this month. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
The president’s abrupt decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization last month also came as a shock. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, wrote on Twitter: “There is no reason justifying this move at a moment when their efforts are needed more than ever to help contain & mitigate the coronavirus pandemic.”
A poll in France last week found Merkel to be far and away the most trusted world leader. Just 2% had confidence Trump was leading the world in the right direction. Only Boris Johnson and Xi Jinping inspired less faith.
A survey this week by the British Foreign Policy Group found 28% of Britons trusted the US to act responsibly on the world stage, a drop of 13 percentage points since January, with the biggest drop in confidence coming among Conservative voters.
Dacian Cioloș, a former prime minister of Romania who now leads the Renew Europe group in the European parliament, captured a general European view this week as the latest statistics on deaths in the US were reported.
“Post-truth communication techniques used by rightwing populism movements simply do not work to beat Covid-19,” he told the Guardian. “And we see that populism cost lives.”
Around the globe, the “America first” response pursued by the Trump administration has alienated close allies. In Canada, it was the White House order in April to halt shipments of critical N95 protective masks to Canadian hospitals that was the breaking point.
The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, who had previously spoken out in support of Trump on several occasions, said the decision was like letting a family member “starve” during a crisis.
‘It will disappear’: the disinformation Trump spread about the coronavirus – timeline
“When the cards are down, you see who your friends are,” said Ford. “And I think it’s been very clear over the last couple of days who our friends are.”
In countries known for chronic problems of governance, there has been a sense of wonder that the US appears to have joined their ranks.
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Read the full article at the above link.
Are we still “to be feared,” even if no longer admired or respected?Good question!
Probably, insofar as our collapse would take down a chunk of the world’s economy with it, leave a leadership vacuum, and change the balance of power, perhaps in favor of China, Russia, South Korea, Canada, and India. We also still have a big military and lots of sophisticated weapons, although modern terrorism has shown that sophistication in expensive weaponry is not always the “be all and end all” either for winning wars or causing mass disorder, death, and mayhem.
Still, as our civil governance and international influence disintegrates, what happens with and to our military is a huge concern and a “big X factor.” Will the tradition of “civilian control over the military” also fall victim to the kakistocracy and the failure of civilian governing institutions? What’s happened to our intelligence community under the Trump kakistocracy is likely a bad omen.
Who would have thought that Trump could do so much permanent or at least long-term damage in such a short period of time? And who would have believed that our centuries-old constitutional and democratic institutions, meant to protect individual rights, enforce the rule of law, and check unrestrained abuses of power by a megalomaniac, yet highly incompetent, dishonest, dangerous, and evil Executive would have crumbled so quickly and performed so haplessly when confronted by a President and an unscrupulous, corrupt, authoritarian regime and party of toadies perfectly willing to press aggressively inane and illegal policies and false narratives to destroy the nation and everyone in it as a means of pillaging and enhancing their own power?
Yet, here we are! Much of the rest of the world appears to “get” it. Yet tens of millions of Americans who continue to support and enable the kakistocracy don’t, or they simply don’t care about our nation and the common good.
This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!
For the foregoing reasons, in the absence of clear and convincing evidence that his release would endanger the public or that he is a flight risk, coupled with the known risks associated with the presence of COVID-19 at Pulaski, this Court concludes that Galan-Reyes’ continued indefinite detention violates his Fifth Amendment right to due process. The government’s interests in continuing his detention must therefore yield to his liberty and safety interests.6
Disposition
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Petition for writ of habeas corpus is GRANTED.
Respondents are ORDERED to IMMEDIATELY RELEASE Omar Galan-Reyes, pursuant to the following conditions:
1. Petitioner will reside at a certain residence, will provide his address and telephone contact information to Respondents, and will quarantine there for at least the first 14 days of his release;
2. If Department of Homeland Security (DHS) determines that Petitioner is an appropriate candidate for Alternatives to Detention (ATD), then Petitioner will comply with DHS instructions as to any ATD conditions;
3. Petitioner will comply with national, state, and local guidance regarding staying at home, sheltering in place, and social distancing and shall be placed on home detention;
4. The Court’s order for release from detention shall be revoked should Petitioner fail to comply with this order of release;
5. This Order does not prevent Respondents from taking Petitioner back into custody should Petitioner commit any crimes that render him a threat to public safety or otherwise violate the terms of release;
6. Petitioner will be transported from Pulaski County Detention Center to his home by identified third persons;
7. Petitioner will not violate any federal, state, or local laws; and
8. At the discretion of DHS and/or ICE, to enforce the above restrictions, Petitioner’s whereabouts will be monitored by telephonic and/or electronic and/or GPS monitoring and/or location verification system and/or an automated identification system.
The Clerk of Court is DIRECTED to close this case and enter judgment accordingly.
6 In light of the Court’s conclusion on Petitioner’s due process claim, it is not necessary to address his Administrative Procedures Act claim.
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Many thanks to Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis for passing this along. And congrats to NDPA members A. Ross Cunningham, Esquire, and Jake Briskman, Esquire, for their representation of the prisoner rotting in the New American Gulag (“NAG”) in this case!
This decision reads like an indictment of the entire badly failed and fundamentally unfair DHS Enforcement and Immigration Court systems as mismanaged, weaponized, and politicized by the Trump regime Politicos and their toadies:
Abuse of detention system by detaining non-dangerous individuals who are not flight risks;
Uselessness of bond determinations by Immigration Judges who are functioning like enforcement officers, not independent judicial decision-makers;
Extraordinarily poor judgment by DHS Detention officials;
Delays caused by backlogged dockets driven by failure of DHS Enforcement to exercise prioritization and reasonable prosecutorial discretion compounded by the Immigration Judges who lack the authority, and in some cases the will, to control their dockets — dockets structured by politicos for political, rather than practical or legal, reasons (see, e.g., “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” or “ADR”);
Adangerously useless BIA that fails to set reasonable national bond criteria and fails to properly and competently consider Due Process interests in bond cases;
The importance of placing the burden of proof in bond cases where it constitutionally belongs: on DHS, rather than on the individual as is done in Immigration Court;
In this case, the US District Judge had to do the careful analytical work of individual decision making that should have been done by the Immigration Court, and which the Immigration Court should have, but has failed to, require DHS to adopt;
Leaving the big question: Why have Immigration Courts at all if the meaningful work has to be done by the U.S. Courts and U.S. Magistrates?
Why not “cut out the useless middleman” and just have U.S. Magistrate Judges under the supervision of U.S. District Judges conduct all removal and bond proceedings in accordance with the law, Due Process, and the Eighth Amendment until Congress replaces the current constitutionally flawed Immigration Courts with an independent immigration judiciary that can do the job and that functions as a “real court” rather than an arm of DHS Enforcement thinly disguised as a “court?”
