"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — For the two dozen migrant children living inside a small church on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, most days go like this: breakfast at 8 a.m., dinner at 6 p.m. and hours of nothing in between.
There is no school, and except for a handful of worn Bibles, there are no books. Dangers abound in the surrounding hills, so most haven’t left the razor-wire-ringed compound in weeks or even months.
“I feel imprisoned,” said 16-year-old Alison Mendoza.
She left Nicaragua with her parents and two younger sisters in March after her father received death threats for demonstrating against President Daniel Ortega, whose government has jailed and killed thousands of dissenters.
The family has been waiting here in Juarez for nearly two months for their chance to request political asylum in the United States. A Trump administration policy allows only a handful of asylum seekers to pass through ports of entry at the U.S. border each day.
Mendoza and her sisters, Sol, 6, and Michele, 11, are among the thousands of migrant children languishing along the border as a result of changing migration trends and White House policies that seek to deter asylum seekers.
They left friends and relatives behind and endured the trials of the migrant trail only to end up stuck in camps, cheap hotels and shelters such as Buen Pastor, which is now home to children and their families from as far away as Ghana and Congo. Pawns in an adult’s dispute, their future is entirely uncertain.
Two recent Trump administration mandates are almost certain to result in even larger numbers of migrant children being stranded here.
One calls for asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are adjudicated. About 3,000 migrant children and their families have been returned to Juarez under that program since April, according to Chihuahua state officials.
A mandate announced this week calls for asylum to be denied to migrants who did not apply for protection in at least one country they passed through while trying to reach the United States.
The rules mean that there is a very strong likelihood that if the Mendozas finally do cross the border to plead their case, they will be sent right back to Juarez.
“What will we do?” said Donald Mendoza, 37, who left behind a good job at a Managua university that would have allowed him to pay for all three girls’ college educations.
The Mexican government has committed to providing schooling to migrants who are returned from the U.S., but Mendoza doesn’t want to raise his girls in notoriously dangerous Juarez, where 10 people were slain on Sunday alone.
“This is not the life I planned for my children,” he said.
Buen Pastor opened its doors about 20 years ago to migrants — back then almost always single men — who passed through Juarez before seeking to sneak across the border.
“They would come, rest for a night or two, and then cross,” said Pastor Juan Fierro Garcia.
But over the last two years, entire families began trudging up the dirt road that leads to the church.
Many had heard that U.S. authorities were releasing migrants as long as they requested asylum and were traveling with children.
“We didn’t know much about the situation, just that families were passing,” said Joseph Venegas, 26, who left Honduras last month with his wife and their two sons.
After crossing into the U.S. illegally last week, and turning themselves in to border authorities, Venegas and his family were held for two days and then released back into Juarez with an order to appear at an asylum hearing in October. A Mexican official told them how to get to Buen Pastor.
Ten-year-old Jose sobbed on the way there. “I want to go back to Honduras,” he wailed.
“We had bad luck,” his father explained. “The law is the law and we have to respect it.”
“We are doing all of this for you,” Venegas added.
Venegas said the family decided to leave because a teachers’ strike meant Jose hadn’t been able to go to school for months.
But now, as he watched Jose sit morosely in one corner of the shelter and his wife nurse their coughing 4-month-old baby on a nearby bench, he wondered whether leaving had been in the best interest of his kids.
“What kind of childhood is this?” he asked.
The experience is a little easier on the younger children, many of whom don’t understand exactly what is happening, and who run around the shelter in a tight pack. The youngsters from Africa speak only a small amount of Spanish, but they still manage to make friends.
The lack of toys means the children entertain themselves around a big table, beating it like a drum until their parents complain or turning it into a fort under which they hide and whisper.
There are several small buildings clustered around the compound — a men’s dormitory, a women’s dormitory and the church sanctuary where families camp out each night on mattresses squeezed between the pews.
The crowded conditions and a constant stream of visitors — nongovernmental organization workers, pro bono lawyers and journalists all asking the same tired questions — mean there is zero privacy. Young women groom themselves and change clothes under the cover of blankets.
A psychologist from the state comes once a week. On a recent morning, she gathered the children around a big round table and led them in breathing exercises.
She asked them to go one by one, saying their names and where they were from.
“I’m Natalia from Honduras,” one girl said.
“I’m Akasia from Congo,” said another.
A thin child from Guatemala declined to speak, burying her head in her arms.
“She is sad,” the 7-year-old boy next to her explained.
“It’s OK,” the psychologist said. “It’s okay to be sad.”
********************
This kind of preventable harm inflicted by an Administration that has declared war on humanity and the rule of law is directly at the feet of three irresponsible Federal Judges of the Ninth Circuit who tanked by vacating the injunction against such gross abuses properly put in place by the U.S. District Judge in Innovation Law Labs v. McAleenan, ostensibly so that their colleagues could “deliberate” (actually “dither”) over a decision that would take responsible judges about 60 minutes to reach!How do guys like this sleep at night?
The issue in Innovation Law Labs involves the bogus “Migrant Protection Protocols,” more accurately described as “Remain in Mexico” or “Die in Mexico” that intentionally violates both Fifth Amendment Due Process and numerous provisions of the INA, including the rights to access to counsel of one’s own choosing, fair notice of hearings, adequate time to prepare and present a case, and the right to assert withholding of removal to a country where one fears persecution or torture.
Failure of privileged Article III Judges to protect the most vulnerable among us from Executive overreach and abuse, in this case clearly racially motivated, has real life adverse consequences, beyond the “judicial ivory tower,” that in many cases are irreversible.
All of us who believe in justice should be outraged by the Ninth Circuit’s dilatory performance in this case! It’s nothing short of child abuse sanctioned by the Federal Judiciary. It must stop!
Molly O’Toole Immigration Reporter LA TimesCarolyn Cole Staff Photojournalist LA Times
Molly O’Toole & Carolyn Cole Report for the LA Times:
A group of roughly 100 Haitians, Africans and South Americans cross the Rio Grande, just shallow enough for adults to wade despite an overnight storm.
As they wait on the muddy bank near Del Rio, Texas, to surrender themselves to the Border Patrol, the voices of children in the group carry across the river to the Mexican side.
There, in the city of Ciudad Acuña, hundreds of migrants have formed an impromptu refugee camp in an ecological park bound on one side by the river. Just outside the park, the official port of entry to the United States sits at the end of a short bridge.
They’ve crossed thousands of miles by foot, boat and bus to seek asylum in the U.S., only to find themselves stalled in a purgatory of soggy tents and overflowing bathrooms. Now, they face an uncertain wait prolonged by Trump administration policy.
The temptation to make the risky and illegal river crossing mounts daily.
“If you see people jumping over the river, it is because they are tired of staying here,” said one resident of the camp, Luis, who declined to give his last name out of fear for the safety of his family back home.
Home for him would be the West African nation of Cameroon, where Luis was vice principal of a school until he fled last fall. He escaped a widening conflict between the country’s English-speaking minority and its Francophone-majority government, which receives security assistance from the U.S.
He was jailed and tortured before escaping to neighboring Nigeria, Luis said. After a trek across three continents, he landed here, where he has waited for six weeks to present himself to U.S. officials at the Del Rio port of entry.
He hopes to join a sister in Ohio.
“At times, it is really disheartening,” he said, “so it is difficult to wait.”
. . . .
*******************************
Read the complete article along with Carolyn’s wonderful photography at the link.
Cruel, “designed to fail” policies and complicit judges who fail to protect the statutory, constitutional, and human rights of others are unlikely to stop the flow of forced migrants in the long run. They will, however, succeed in killing some, torturing others, ruining many lives, and causing permanent damage to large numbers of their fellow human beings, particularly children.
NBC/Reuters just reported on continuing concerns, confusion, and accusations regarding treatment of migrants in Mexico by the National Guard.https://apple.news/APdRhfQFnTneror8AprpRZQ I’m willing to bet that this is just the “tip of the iceberg.” Eventually, the true “body count” and extent of the human rights violations chargeable to Trump, the 9th Circuit, and the Mexican Government will surface. It will be unbelievably ugly.
Future generations will also find it difficult to understand and explain our national complicity, since the facts about the abuses the Trump Administration is heaping on humanity in our name are out in the open for life-tenured judges to ignore at the peril of their lasting reputations. And, too many of them are doing just that.
Ken Cuccinelli immediately stands out in an Administration that values cruelty. What a despicable and heartless thing to say.
Quote Tweet
The Washington Post
@washingtonpost
Jun 28
Ken Cuccinelli, head of citizenship service, blames migrant father for drowning deaths captured in photo (link: https://wapo.st/2NlcWTb) wapo.st/2NlcWTb
Thanks, Don, and well said! I’m proud to have you for our Representative here in Alexandria. You have been a constant voice of decency, common sense, and opposition to the “malicious incompetence” of the Trump Kakistocracy. And those of us in Virginia who survived the “Modern Day Jim Crow Era” of “Cooch Cooch” as Virginia Attorney General know just what a nasty, vile, unqualified, racist hack he has always been and always will be. Heck, even Mitch McConnell can’t stand him, and that says something!
“Cooch Cooch’s” latest despicable act of note comes along with provoking an immediate rebellion among Asylum Officers. As I predicted, “Cooch Cooch” has already distinguished himself as a “lowlife among bottom dwellers.”
U.S. asylum officers slammed President Trump’s policy of forcing migrants to remain in Mexico while they await immigration hearings in the United States, urging a federal appeals court Wednesday to block the administration from continuing the program. The officers, who are directed to implement the policy, said it is threatening migrants’ lives and is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.”
The labor union representing asylum officers filed a friend-of-the-court brief that sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups challenging Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols program, which has sent 12,000 asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico since January. The policy aims to deter migrants from coming to the United States and to keep them out of the country while courts weigh their claims.
The union argued that the policy goes against the nation’s long-standing view that asylum seekers and refugees should have a way to escape persecution in their homelands, with the United States embracing its status as a safe haven since even before it was founded — with the arrival of the Pilgrims in the 17th century. The union said in court papers that the policy is compelling sworn officers to participate in the “widespread violation” of international and federal law — “something that they did not sign up to do when they decided to become asylum and refugee officers for the United States government.”
“Asylum officers are duty bound to protect vulnerable asylum seekers from persecution,” the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924, which represents 2,500 federal workers, including asylum officers, said in a 37-page court filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California. “They should not be forced to honor departmental directives that are fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation and our international and domestic legal obligations.”
The legal filing is an unusual public rebuke of a sitting president by his own employees, and it plunges a highly trained officer corps that typically operates under secrecy into a public legal battle over one of Trump’s most prized immigration policies.
Under Trump, the asylum division has become a target of internal ire, often assailed for approving most initial asylum screenings and sending migrants to immigration court for a full hearing. Trump administration officials say most cases are denied. Last week, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, outraged some asylum officers by sending the staff an email they thought criticized them for approving so many initial screenings.
Trump placed Cuccinelli, an immigration hard-liner and former Virginia attorney general, in the position ostensibly as part of his move to get tough on immigration policy, and the union’s legal filing appears to be directly at odds with that approach.
The policy has been challenged in federal court, with a lower-court judge temporarily halting MPP in April, saying it probably violates federal law. A three-judge appellate panel allowed the program to resume in May while the court considers the policy.
Justice Department lawyers have said in court filings that migrants are filing thousands of sham claims because they virtually guarantee their release into the United States pending a hearing in the backlogged immigration courts. The U.S. government cannot process the migrants’ cases quickly or detain children for long periods, which means some migrants can stay in the country for months or years while waiting for their cases to play out.
Three migrants wait near the border shortly after being returned to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on June 13. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
Ending the program, the government lawyers have said, “would impose immediate, substantial harm on the government’s ability to manage the crisis on our southern border.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on the filing Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the program, did not respond to a request for comment.
The influx of Central American migrants at the southern border has overwhelmed the U.S. immigration system. It also has led to a political fight between congressional Democrats and the White House regarding crowded and unsanitary conditions in border holding facilities amid Trump’s push for heightened enforcement. More than 144,000 migrants were taken into custody in May after crossing the southern border, the largest monthly total in more than a decade, and asylum filings have soared.
Trump administration officials this week have been pleading with Congress to approve emergency funding for the humanitarian crisis at the border. The Senate on Wednesday responded, passing a $4.6 billion emergency spending measure amid debates about treatment of migrants and the risks they face as they try to enter the United States, with a graphic photo of a migrant and his young daughter having drowned in the Rio Grande as the backdrop.
In the federal court filing, the asylum officers say they are enforcing the laws as Congress intended, based on approaches and international treaties shaped after World War II and atrocities connected with the Holocaust. Federal laws hinge on the principle of “non-refoulement” — which means people should not be sent back to countries where they could be harmed or killed. To qualify for asylum, migrants must show that they face harm based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”
The asylum officers say Mexico is too dangerous for Central American asylum seekers, particularly women, people who are gay, lesbian or transgender, and indigenous minority groups. They cited State Department reports showing that gang violence and activity is widespread and that crimes are rarely solved.
“Mexico is simply not safe for Central American asylum seekers,” the filing said, noting that gangs that terrorized migrants in their home countries might easily follow them into Mexico. “And despite professing a commitment to protecting the rights of people seeking asylum, the Mexican government has proven unable to provide this protection.”
Asylum officers say the U.S. asylum system is “not, as the Administration has claimed, fundamentally broken,” and that they could handle more cases quickly without sending people back to Mexico.
ADVERTISEMENT
MPP is “entirely unnecessary, as our immigration system has the foundation and agility necessary to deal with the flow of migrants through our Southern Border,” the officers wrote.
The officers said they fear that MPP is sending asylum seekers back to a country where they are in danger, a violation of federal and international law. The said immigration agents do not ask migrants if they fear persecution or torture in Mexico, and that they only send migrants to asylum officers for screenings if the migrants independently express fear of return.
[Why migrant families are seeking asylum at the border in record numbers]
The latter are granted an initial asylum screening, often by phone or video. But they must prove that they are “more likely than not” going to face persecution in Mexico, a higher bar than in the immigration courts, where migrants are offered safeguards such as access to lawyers, a reading of their rights, and the right to appeal.
“The MPP, however, provides none of these safeguards,” the officers said.
Officials are attempting to extend the program along the nearly 2,000-mile border and are giving Mexico time to expand its shelter capacity, a top official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said.
**********************************
So why do Asylum Officers have the courage and integrity to stand up to what is essentially fraud, abuse, and murder of asylum seekers by the Trump Administration when Article III Judges won’t? U.S. Immigration Judges have so spoken out against
Administration abuses through the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), although a minority of Immigration Judges have contributed to the problem by engaging in unlawful and unconstitutional bias against asylum seekers.
Obviously, we have the wrong type of individuals holding judicial positions in the U.S., something that the next competent and honest Administration should consider before appointing more complicit “go alongs to get alongs” to any type of bench.
It started with the Supreme’s atrocious and cowardly cop out on the Travel Ban case and has continued. Courage and the willingness to stand up against Government abuses are the primary qualifications for judges.
Other than some U.S. District Court Judges, too few Article IIIs have measured up to the task, and innocent people are being harmed, abused, and killed by Trump and his enablers as a result. The Courts of Appeals who have ignored the glaring Constitutional defects and clearly substandard justice in the Immigration Court system for more than a decade are particularly complicit in this unfolding disaster.
Moreover, as I have pointed out before, the lack of understanding of asylum law and unwillingness to stand up for the legal rights of asylum seekers among some Immigration Judges and too many Article III Judges is simply appalling!
To date, the performance of the Article III Judges on the 9th Circuit on the “Remain in Mexico”/“Die in Mexico” atrocity has been so disastrously deficient and incompetent as to make the wheels come off of the entire Government. This is a “rebellion” that should never have been necessary had the irresponsible, incoherent, and clueless three-“judge” panel that let “Die in Mexico” proceed done their jobs.
Hurrah for the Asylum Corps! Boo to the cowardly and unqualified judges who continue to enable Trump’s destruction of America and of human rights! And “double boo” to the career lawyers at the DOJ defending the Administration’s dishonest and illegal policies with lies and false narratives! Whatever happened to ethical standards for Federal Employees? Why do they apply to Asylum Officers, but not to DOJ “judges” and attorneys?
Four toddlers were so severely ill and neglected at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, that lawyers forced the government to hospitalize them last week.
The children, all under age 3 with teenage mothers or guardians, were feverish, coughing, vomiting and had diarrhea, immigration attorneys told HuffPost on Friday. Some of the toddlers and infants were refusing to eat or drink. One 2-year-old’s eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was “completely unresponsive” and limp, according to Toby Gialluca, a Florida-based attorney.
She described seeing terror in the children’s eyes.
“It’s just a cold, fearful look that you should never see in a child of that age,” Gialluca said. “You look at them and you think, ‘What have you seen?’”
Another mother at the same facility had a premature baby, who was “listless” and wrapped in a dirty towel, as HuffPost previously reported.
The lawyers feared that if they had not shown up at the facility, the sick kids would have received zero medical attention and potentially died. The Trump administration has come under fire for its treatment ― and its alleged neglect ― of migrants who have been crossing the southern border in record numbers. The result is overcrowded facilities, slow medical care and in some instances, deaths.
Immigration authorities say they’re overwhelmed; activists say they’re not trying hard enough.
“It’s intentional disregard for the well-being of children,” Gialluca said. “The guards continue to dehumanize these people and treat them worse than we would treat animals.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
The Associated Press reported this week that children in border facilities don’t have adequate access to food, water, soap or showers. On Tuesday, a Justice Department attorney argued in court that the government should not have to provide detained children with soap, toothbrushes or beds.
The AP report is based on interviews a group of lawyers conducted with hundreds of children in three Texas-based Border Patrol stations last week as part of the Flores settlement ― an agreement that outlines conditions for detained children. The lawyers say children are also being held in these facilities for longer than the 72-hour limit the settlement specifies, and in some cases up to three weeks.
Lawyers are particularly concerned about the spread of illness inside Border Patrol facilities, which can sometimes turn fatal. Five children have died in Border Patrol custody since December, some of whom were initially diagnosed with a common cold or the flu. The processing center in McAllen, known as Ursula, recently quarantined three dozen migrants who were sick after a 16-year-old died of the flu at the same facility.
Children and their parents told lawyers that in some cases they didn’t have any access to medical treatment in Border Patrol facilities despite being visibly ill. Gialluca spoke with one 16-year-old mother whose toddler had the flu, but was told by a guard the child “wasn’t sick enough to see a doctor.” She said others also reported being denied medical attention despite having critically sick babies.
Medical experts say that because children have less developed immune and respiratory systems, their symptoms can escalate quickly if they aren’t properly treated.
Dr. Julie Linton, the co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics, previously told HuffPost that children can’t recover from illnesses in Border Patrol facilities. These centers are described as “hieleras” ― Spanish for iceboxes ― because of their freezing temperatures, and migrants describe sleeping on floors under bright lights that shine 24/7, with nothing but Mylar blankets to keep warm.
Gialluca met one 16-year-old mother whose 8-month-old baby was sick with the flu and forced to sleep outside for four days at the McAllen Border Patrol station. The mother said the guards took the clothing off the baby’s back, leaving her in a diaper, and forced them to sleep on concrete without a blanket.
A sick 2-year-old girl was shivering in a T-shirt and had shallow breathing, according to Mike Fassio, a Seattle-based immigration attorney who visited Ursula.
“I was very, very concerned,” he said, adding lawyers spoke with immigrants in a room outside of the facility. “When she left us, I knew she was going back to a place that was cold, crowded and unsanitary.” Fassio noted that guards referred to the children as “bodies.”
Some children were so exhausted they fell asleep during the interviews, said Clara Long, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who spoke with kids at a facility in Clint, Texas. Long met a 3-year-old boy who was dirty with matted hair and was being taken care of by his 11-year-old brother. She said that more than 10 sick children were being quarantined in cells.
While the group of roughly eight lawyers and interpreters at Ursula were supposed to be interviewing children about conditions in the facilities, they also ended up asking guards and government officials to bring kids to the hospital because they were so worried about their state. Gialluca added that she and her colleagues interviewed only a small portion of migrants in the facility, which is the largest processing center in the U.S. and can hold up to 1,000 people. She believes the number of migrants in need of hospitalization is likely much higher.
Government officials have blamed horrific conditions at detention facilities on the fact that Congress has not yet passed an emergency funding package that would include almost $3 billion to help care for unaccompanied migrant children. But Gialluca says border officials shouldn’t need more resources to treat immigrants like human beings.
“Money isn’t keeping guards from allowing people to access toilets,” she said. “Money isn’t causing guards to take clothing and medicine away from children.”
********************************************
Nicole Goodkind Political Reporter, Newsweek
Here’s Another report from Nicole Goodkind at Newsweek on the “malicious incompetence” and intentional misallocation of resources by Trump and his DHS sycophants that is willfully endangering kids’ lives as part of a cheap White Nationalist political stunt:
8-YEAR-OLD MIGRANTS BEING FORCED TO CARE FOR TODDLERS IN DETENTION CAMPS
A team of lawyers conducted 60 interviews with migrant children being held in an El Paso, Texas, detention camp and found conditions to be dismal.
Fifteen of those in the holding center had the flu and 10 more are quarantined with illness, according to the lawyers, who first gave the data to the Associated Press. Three infants are being detained alongside their teenage mothers, and many children are under the age of 12.
“A Border Patrol agent came in our room with a 2-year-old boy and asked us, ‘Who wants to take care of this little boy?’ Another girl said she would take care of him, but she lost interest after a few hours and so I started taking care of him yesterday,” one teenaged girl told the lawyers in an interview. The boy was not wearing a diaper and his shirt was covered in mucus, she said.
Law professor Warren Binford, who aided in the interviews, said she witnessed an 8-year-old girl caring for a 4-year-old child who was very dirty, the girl was unable to get the boy to take a shower. She also described the children she interviewed as sleep-deprived, often falling asleep while speaking with her.
“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” said Holly Cooper, co-director of the University of California, Davis’ Immigration Law Clinic, to the AP.
The lawyers were inspecting the facility as part of the Flores agreement, which resulted from a landmark 1985 case that established that facilities where minor migrants are held must be kept “safe and sanitary.”
A representative of the Trump administration, the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian, argued Tuesday that safe and sanitary conditions don’t necessarily have to include toothbrushes, soap or towels for children.
Nicole Goodkind is a political reporter at Newsweek. You can reach her on Twitter @NicoleGoodkind or by email, N.Goodkind@newsweek.com.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS MAJOR ICE RAIDS FOR SUNDAY
U.S. immigration authorities plan to raid Miami, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities. They intend to arrest up to 2,000 families, three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans told The Washington Post. The orders reportedly come directly from President Donald Trump.
On Monday, the president tweeted: “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”
Officials told The Washington Post that the Department of Homeland Security agency plans to hold families in hotel rooms until they are deported. Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan is allegedly targeting families that have completely dropped out of the court process, but has warned that the operation could lead to further cases of families being separated.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore confirmed the raids on Friday, saying that about 140 families in southern California will be targeted in pre-dawn raids early next week. The chief also made clear that the raids are done on a federal level and that the police department will not be involved.
On Thursday, Carla Provost, chief of the United States Border Patrol argued that the Department of Homeland Security was not receiving enough money to properly care for migrants on the southern border, and that was leading to terrible conditions in detention centers. On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed to $4.6 billion in emergency funds for what the Trump administration has referred to as a “border crisis.”
Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro questioned how the agency could afford mass raids while asking for more money Friday. “The Trump Administration says it needs more money (supplemental bill) for the situation at the border yet they may be starting massive immigration raids next week. So how do you have the money for that if you’re running out of money ICE?” he tweeted.
“These potential raids are a disgusting political ploy to stoke fear and rile up Trump’s base for 2020,” wrote Sandra Cordero, Director of Families Belong Together, an immigration advocacy group, in a statement. “Past raids have left children alone and afraid in empty homes, praying they won’t be left to care for younger siblings by themselves, with no idea if they’ll see their parents again. This is yet another flagrant disregard for the welfare of children on behalf of a cruel administration bent on fomenting fear and creating chaos.”
********************************
Come on, Carla, cut the BS and butt covering. The “mix” of arrivals at the Southern Border began to shift to refugee families from the Northern Triangle back in the summer of 2014. So, CBP and DHS have had five years to prepare for this “change” which is actually “old news.”
More “old news” is the increased flow of asylum seekers with kids which began back before Thanksgiving. Plenty of time for CBP and DHS to bring back retired asylum officers and adjudicators and reassign other adjudicative personnel to the border to insure prompt, orderly, safe, and efficient processing of asylum applicants at ports of entry, thus eliminating the incentive (or necessity) for folks to turn themselves in after crossing the border between ports.
Also, plenty of time to work with NGOs, pro bono groups, states, and communities to insure representation and proper placement of family groups in various locations throughout the country without panic or “dumping.”
Another bogus claim spread by Trump, Provost, and the rest of the sycophants: that the prevalence of kids among new asylum arrivals is somehow totally a response to the Flores settlement (which actually has been in effect for decades).
Undoubtedly, with the Trump Administration’s active assistance, unscrupulous smugglers and coyotes are encouraging some folks to bring children as the only way to have a shot at fair processing under the tilted U.S. asylum system promoted by Trump. Indeed, as I have observed before, the Trump Administrations has consistently been a “best friend” to gangs, smugglers, traffickers, cartels, and druggies seeking to “jack up” profits by further exploiting the human misery caused by the Trump Administration’s “maliciously incompetent “ approach to immigration, effective law enforcement, and humanity generally. https://apple.news/AFQw_eqcHSZCYxUznmP0wpQ
Undoubtedly, some of these unscrupulous individuals are telling families to travel with kids. But, the truth is that according to the UNHCR, over one-half of today’s refugees are children. https://www.unhcr.org/children-49c3646c1e8.html.
So, the prevalence of children among new arrivals should properly been seen as part of a sad worldwide trend that Trump and his cronies disgustingly have done everything possible to encourage, exploit, and aggravate. It most certainly is not primarily caused by the Flores settlement or by giving soap, toothbrushes, blankets, or medical care to children being abused in the “DHS Gulag” administered in part by disingenuous folks like Provost.
Any honest observer of what’s going on knows that the majority of the asylum applications that passed credible fear probably could have been granted (or given protection under the Convention Against Torture — “CAT”) by the Asylum Office without even going to Immigration Court under the proper generous interpretation of our asylum laws, an honest interpretation of CAT that reflects the true conditions in the Northern Triangle, and a very “doable” change in procedures.
Only dishonest fools in the Trump Administration (and a few from the Obama Administration) would maintain that gender isn’t a social group subject to widespread persecution in the Northern Triangle, deny that gangs have assumed the role of quasi-governmental entities thus making most of the harm they inflict on resisters “political persecution,” and make the beyond ludicrous claim that the corrupt failed states of the Northern Triangle have either the ability or much real interest in protecting those subject to persecution.
And, Carla, why aren’t you out there today registering a public protest of the waste of time and funds in ICE going after families with ridiculously inappropriate “raids” when everyresource could and should be focused instead on providing humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers arriving at the Southern Border?
This racist-inspired “Sunday Morning Reign of Terror” directed at U.S. ethnic communities is specifically designed to return helpless families to the very dangerous countries from which they originally fled! Thus, Trump and his phony DHS are intentionally feeding “fresh meat” to gangs and cartels and insuring that the cycle of northward migration, no matter how dangerous, will continue until everyone who needs to leave its either gone or dead (the latter apparently the “solution” favored by Provost, Trump, Morgan, McAleenan, Miller, and others).
Provost, McAleenan, Morgan, and their co-conspirators are all participants in a cynical scheme to intentionally “crash” the asylum system, rather than competently administering it. They are intentionally endangering the lives of children and other vulnerable asylum seekers, many entitled to legal protections, to promote, along with GOP restrictionists, totally bogus, dishonest, and completely unnecessary and unwarranted restrictions of the precious, life-saving right of refugees to seek asylum in the U.S.
It’s an unbelievably dishonest and cowardly scheme, and a complete breach of both oaths of office and public trust. It might be that those who long ago abandoned American values will lap up this insult to human values and human dignity.
But, there are plenty of us out here who know and understand exactly what you are doing. We will not only resist it, but will be historical witnesses to your cruel, inhuman, and unlawful schemes and gimmicks to “abuse and kill the innocent.” And, we’ll be keeping count.
Kirk Semple Reporter, NY TimesPaulina Villegas Reporter, NY Times
By Kirk Semple and Paulina Villegas
MEXICO CITY — The Mexican authorities are investigating the death of a teenage migrant from El Salvador who was shot and killed after the truck she was in ran a government checkpoint.
Witnesses have told investigators in the state of Veracruz, where the shooting happened last Friday, that a truck carrying the 19-year-old woman and other migrants bound for the United States border passed through a government checkpoint and that people wearing police uniforms gave chase in a police car and shot at the truck, said Jorge Winckler Ortiz, the attorney general of Veracruz.
Two other migrants in the truck were wounded in the shooting, officials said.
The incident occurred amid a Mexican government deployment of security forces to assert greater control of migration toward the United States, part of a dealthat President Andrés Manuel López Obrador struck with President Trump earlier this month to fend off a threat of tariffs.
The possibility that the Mexican police may have killed the teenager has reaffirmed the fears of migrants’ advocates and human rights experts, who worry that the security forces, being rushed into migration control, are ill-prepared for the task.
Trump admin considers temporary courts along the southern border
5:44 PM EDT June 17, 2019
Washington
The Trump administration is considering building temporary courts along the southern border as part of an effort to expand its policy of returning some asylum seekers to Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings, according to two administration officials.
The US recently struck an agreement with Mexico that included expanding the policy, which, the administration argues, serves as a deterrent since it keeps migrants waiting in Mexico, instead of within the US.
Site assessments have been completed for almost all the ports of entry to determine where such temporary immigration courts, described by sources as “soft-sided,” would be needed, according to an administration official.
The facilities could be used to conduct hearings via video teleconference, which has previously been used by immigration courts elsewhere in the country, the official said.
The deal to expand the “Remain in Mexico” program across the border earlier this month came amid threats to impose tariffs on Mexico if it didn’t bolster enforcement.
Mexico, the joint declaration said, would authorize the entrance of asylum seekers, and offer jobs, health care and education to those individuals. In return, the US must expedite the asylum adjudication process. Consideration to erect immigration courts, which are overseen by the Justice Department, appears to be a step in that direction.
Migrants who are sent to Mexico to await their court hearings return to the US through a port of entry along the southern border to then be transported to their hearing. The temporary courts would allow migrants to have their hearings near or at the port, rather than being bussed miles away, said the official.
It also would likely help alleviate the caseload at San Diego and El Paso immigration courts, which have been taking these cases.
The Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review referred questions about the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols program to the Department of Homeland Security. A DHS official confirmed that the temporary structures are being considered, adding that the crisis has strained the immigration courts along the border. The administration has repeatedly requested additional immigration judges to chip away at a massive backlog that’s led to cases being scheduled years down the road.
The “Remain in Mexico” policy began in January and immediately received pushback back from immigrant advocates and lawyers who argue that it puts migrants who are predominantly from Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador and seeking asylum in the US in harm’s way.
As of May, the US had returned around 6,000 people to Mexico to await their court hearings. The number of migrants falling under the policy appears to be doubling over time, but it is unclear how many additional people have been added to the program since the agreement with Mexico was struck.
One of the locations actively working toward implementing the program is the Rio Grande Valley region in Texas, the busiest sector for arrests of people illegally crossing the border, a senior Border Patrol official told CNN.
Before the program can get underway in the region, officials need to first have the infrastructure in place, including logistics for court hearings. The US also needs to engage with Mexico and ensure its government is willing to receive migrants across the border, said the official.
Like other administration immigration policies, returning migrants to Mexico has also been challenged in court.
In May, a federal appeals court allowed the Trump administration to continue returning some asylum seekers to Mexico for the time being. A panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, while split on some issues, listed a number of factors that went into the decision, including risk of injury in Mexico and negotiations between the US and Mexico.
Not surprisingly, no mention of guaranteeing attorney access, effective notice, or reasonable access to legal resources for those retuned to Mexico. Trump is emboldened by a dysfunctional Congress under Mitch McConnell and complicit Article III Courts like the 9th Circuit, unwilling to put an end to this grotesque perversion of our statutory laws, our Constitution, and human rights. It’s also a recipe for more “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and bigger backlogs in Immigration Courts. But undoubtedly, Trump will blame others for the problems he has created.
Kate Morrissey reports for the San Diego Union-Tribune and LA Times:
Judge orders U.S. to hold asylum seeker
Doubtful about his mental state, jurist prevents migrant from being sent to Mexico.
By Kate Morrissey
SAN DIEGO — An immigration judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to keep a Honduran asylum seeker in the United States while he waits for his court proceedings, instead of returning him to Mexico again under a Trump administration program.
Judge Scott Simpson said that after evaluating the man’s mental competence in a special hearing on Friday, he found that the man would need safeguards in his case to ensure due process. He ordered one put in place immediately: to remove the man from a program known officially as Migrant Protection Protocols and more widely as “Remain in Mexico.”
“I find that he lacks a rational and factual understanding of the nature of the proceedings,” Simpson said in issuing his order.
This is the first time that a judge has made such a ruling since the program was implemented in January, according to advocates who have been monitoring immigration court proceedings.
The program requires certain asylum seekers from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to wait in Mexico while their cases progress in immigration court. The man has been waiting in Tijuana as part of the program for several months.
A Customs and Border Protection guide for officials implementing the program says that migrants with known physical or mental health issues should not be included.
“It’s a big deal that a judge recognized that there was a predatory nature to having put this person in the ‘Migrant Persecution Protocols,’ ” said Ian Philabaum of Innovation Law Lab, calling the program a name used by some immigrant rights advocates. “He wasn’t going to have a chance, and now he gets a chance.”
At the man’s first hearing in March, Simpson quickly became concerned that the man might have a mental competency issue that would make him ineligible for the program or require other protections. He ordered DHS to evaluate the man’s mental state.
Simpson asked government attorneys at each hearing after that whether the man’s mental state had been evaluated and whether the government believed he should continue to be included in the program.
Each time, the government attorney responded that the man should continue in MPP.
Still skeptical, Simpson told Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney Dan Hua to be prepared to give details Friday about DHS’s evaluation of the man before he was returned to Mexico. When the judge came into court Friday morning, Hua was not able to answer that question.
“The government’s inability to provide that information is simply not excusable,” Simpson said. He gave Hua 30 minutes to find out answers.
Hua said immigration officials at the port of entry had evaluated the man each time he’d come to court, meaning that as of Friday, he’d been evaluated four times.
The attorney could not produce evidence showing what the evaluation observed or what standard it used when the judge pressed for more details.
Philabaum said that fact was significant.
“That assessment of the mental competency was performed on four different occasions, and on four different occasions, according to the U.S. government attorney, their assessment was he was perfectly competent to proceed with his immigration case representing himself,” Philabaum said. But in the man’s “first hearing, it took the immigration judge approximately two minutes to realize there was an issue of competency here.
“Whatever type of standard that CBP has instituted to assess the competency of an individual to be eligible, according to the immigration judge today, it has failed.”
DHS officials, CBP officials and Department of Justice officials did respond to a request for comment.
Simpson decided to do his own evaluation of the man’s mental state under an immigration court precedent known as the Matter of MAM.
He listed the rights that the man has, such as the right to present evidence and the right to question witnesses. He asked if the man understood his rights.
“Um, yes. I need more,” said the man through a Spanish interpreter. “I need more because here I only have some letters, some birth certificates. They’re not translated into English yet.”
“Sir, I’m the immigration judge in your case. It’s my job to decide whether you can stay in the United States,” Simpson said. “In your own words, tell me who am I and what’s my job.”
“I cannot understand you,” the man responded.
In the end, the man was only able to appropriately respond to simple questions such as the date and what city he was in. He told the judge he had not had much schooling and couldn’t read or write.
ICE later confirmed the man is pending transfer to the agency’s custody. He could be taken to an immigration detention facility or released “on parole” into the U.S. to a sponsor while he waits for his next hearing.
Simpson said that depending which option the government chooses, other safeguards may be necessary, including providing an attorney for him if he’s detained.
Morrissey writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
*********************************
Every day the human carnage mounts as the 9th Circuit continues to “sponsor” Trump’s illegal, deadly, and unconstitutional “Remain in Mexico Program.” Interesting how a few non-life-tenured Immigration Judges in San Diego and one courageous U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of California seem to be the only Federal officials interested in either the rule of law or the Due Process Clause of our Constitution. Go figure!
Congrats to Judge Scott Simpson for standing up for the rule of law and the rights of the most vulnerable in the face of massive dereliction of duty by those higher up the line.
Sadly, unlike the 9th Circuit, Judge Simpson lacks authority to enjoin further violations of the law and human rights by the Trump Administration. How many more human beings will suffer, be wronged, and perhaps die as a result of the 9th Circuit’s complicity in scofflaw behavior having little or nothing to do with protecting our borders or any other legitimate policy end and everything to do with punishing and dehumanizing those who seek justice under our laws.?
(Reuters) – Over two hours on June 1, a Honduran teenager named Tania pleaded with a U.S. official not to be returned to Mexico.
Immigration authorities had allowed her mother and younger sisters into the United States two months earlier to pursue claims for asylum in U.S. immigration court. But they sent Tania back to Tijuana on her own, with no money and no place to stay.
The 18-year-old said she told the U.S. official she had seen people on the streets of Tijuana linked to the Honduran gang that had terrorized her family. She explained that she did not feel safe there.
After the interview, meant to assess her fear of return to Mexico, she hoped to be reunited with her family in California, she said. Instead, she was sent back to Mexico under a Trump administration policy called the “Migrant Protection Protocols”(MPP), which has forced more than 11,000 asylum seekers to wait on the Mexican side of the border for their U.S. court cases to be completed. That process can take months.
Tania’s is not an unusual case. Once asylum seekers are ordered to wait in Mexico, their chances of getting that decision reversed on safety grounds – allowing them to wait out their proceedings in the United States – are exceedingly small, a Reuters analysis of U.S. immigration court data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) shows.
. . . .
*********************************
Read the full description of the Trump Administration’s judicially enabled all out assault on the legal, Constitutional, and human rights of vulnerable asylum seekers at the above link.
It’s worth noting that almost every “ameliorating exception” described in the first paragraph of the panel’s opinion is demonstrably untrue — children and those clearly in danger are being returned and the “discretionary parole” is largely a fraud that seldom is granted — according to the Government’s own data (which likely is also falsified or manipulated to some extent to mask or distort abuses). In other words, a “three-reporter panel” of Reuters is more interested and capable of getting to truth than a panel of life-tenured judges.
Oh, that it could be these judges’ kids or grandkids separated from family and sent to live on the mean streets of Tijuana while pursuing their legal rights under US law. Really, how do these child abusers and human rights scofflaws hiding in judicial robes sleep at night?
Guess the can’t hear the screams and moans of those whose rights they are failing to protect and whose human dignity they reject. I’ve heard eyewitness accounts and seen video evidence from the pro bono lawyers courageously (and sometimes at the risk of their own health and safety) trying to protect the lives and rights of asylum seekers at the Southern Border from these abuses of human rights that are enabled by “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a the disingenuously named “Migrant Protection Protocols”). The truth is no secret for those who actually seek it rather than to ignore it.
Complicit Article III Judges and Government lawyers are keys to Trump’s “dehumanization” program. History must hold them accountable for their abuses of humanity.
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego immigration court has been overwhelmed by the number of cases judges are hearing under a Trump administration program that returns asylum seekers to Mexico while they wait for hearings in the U.S.
Normally, asylum seekers coming to the California border would be distributed to immigration courts across the country, either because they would be held somewhere in the federal government’s national immigration detention system or because they would be released to reunite with family and friends already in the U.S.
Now, the increasing number of people picked for the administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, known widely as the Remain in Mexico program, across the California border are all being sent to immigration court in downtown San Diego.
“Other than wallow through it, I don’t know what we can do,” said Immigration Judge Lee O’Connor shortly before walking out of his courtroom at 6:21 p.m. one evening last week after hearing a string of MPP cases. Court staff, including security, had left the building long before.
Immigration judges are already working under performance quotas set by the Trump administration to reduce the immigration court backlog, which has grown nationally to nearly 900,000 cases, according to data from the Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University.
The San Diego court has more than 5,700 cases pending, up from 4,692 cases in fiscal 2018, a 22.4% increase. Nationally, the backlog has grown about 16.2% in fiscal 2019.
“This is a reflection of the constant doublespeak we’ve been highlighting. The agency has internally conflicting priorities,” said Ashley Tabaddor, speaking in her capacity as head of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges. “It creates chaos.”
On a given day, three of San Diego’s seven judges generally have afternoons full of MPP cases. On a recent Tuesday afternoon, 82 people were scheduled to appear before three judges, 28 of those before O’Connor.
“The judges have no control in terms of how many cases are being scheduled,” Tabaddor said.
Border officials who initially receive migrants either requesting protection at a port of entry or after they’re apprehended crossing illegally are responsible for scheduling the first court appearance for returnees.
Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security was unable to respond to questions in time for publication.
Several of the judges assigned to hear cases in San Diego have pushed back on the government for a laundry list of issues that could be violations of the government’s due process responsibilities under immigration law.
Tabaddor said she’s heard a number of concerns from her union members who are trying to make sure “all of the T’s are crossed and all of the i’s are dotted” in implementation of the new program. “That’s what the oath of office is,” Tabaddor said. “You’re supposed to make sure all the rules are followed.”
One that has come up over and over again is the address put down initially on each asylum seeker’s case documents by border officials. Along the California border, Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol have written some version of “Domicilio conocido,” or “known address.”
Some have “Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.” Others simply say “Baja California” without the city or the country noted.
Having an accurate address on file is key to showing that immigrants were given proper notice of their court hearings. That proof of notice is a crucial part of a judge’s decision to proceed “in absentia” and order a person deported if he or she doesn’t show up for a hearing.
“This whole program, I don’t understand it,” said Immigration Judge Jesús Clemente on his first day of hearing MPP cases. “How are we ever going to tell this person that he has a hearing?”
Similarly, when an government attorney suggested that it was the asylum seeker’s responsibility to provide an accurate address, Immigration Judge Scott Simpson responded with incredulity. “Are you saying the respondent provided this address?” he asked, referring to the asylum seeker. “Are you saying every respondent in the MPP program provided this address?”
“I can’t speak to that,” the attorney representing ICE responded. “In my experience, the address the respondent provides is what is put down.”
“That’s how it usually works,” Simpson replied. “But I’m not convinced that’s what’s happening now.”
When asked about the address issue recently, San Ysidro Port of Entry Director Sidney Aki said that migrants don’t often know where they will be staying when they’re first returned.
To prevent any miscommunication, Aki said, they’re told to return to the port of entry at a particular date and time.
Normally, if a judge believes that the government violated an asylum seeker’s due process rights, the judge can terminate immigration proceedings against that person, said attorney Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Then the asylum seeker can apply for protection outside of immigration court in a process that is less adversarial.
For returnees who are ultimately hoping for asylum in the U.S., termination won’t help them because they’ll be returned to Mexico with no access to the U.S. asylum system, she said.
“It essentially removes their ability to vindicate their due process rights,” Toczylowski said.
Among other issues, the dates on instructions given to returnees that explain when to come back to the San Ysidro Port of Entry to be taken to court don’t always match the dates on their hearing notices. Or, the government fails to file the preliminary paperwork in the case and the immigration court doesn’t have a hearing scheduled for the person when he or she shows up.
“I’m sure you’re frustrated,” Simpson said to a man whose paperwork had not properly been filed by the government, resulting in a delay in the start of his case. “I share your frustration.”
Asylum cases typically have several preliminary hearings, known as “master calendar hearings,” before the “merits hearing,” where evidence is presented for the judge to make a decision on the person’s claim. During those master calendar hearings, asylum seekers are given time to look for attorneys, are told their rights in immigration court, and are given applications to fill out and submit.
Juan, a doctor who fled Honduras after facing threats for his participation in political protest, filed his asylum application in mid-May. His merits hearing was scheduled for November.
Where to live and how to sustain themselves in Tijuana is becoming a larger and larger issue as more asylum seekers are returned. Despite its promises at the program’s outset, Mexico has not given many of the returnees permission to work while they wait.
Tijuana’s migrant shelters are already at or near capacity, and most of the people staying in them are not returnees from the program.
One returnee who had become homeless and tried crossing illegally only to be returned again to Tijuana said he was planning on going back to his country in the coming days. It would be better to die there, he said, than to continue living as he’s been living in Tijuana.
Juan is one of the lucky ones. He is staying at a shelter near the border. Still, he’s worried about the long wait ahead.
“The policy’s name is migrant protection, but they send you to the most dangerous city in Mexico,” he said.
Morrissey writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
****************************************
The Ninth Circuit had an opportunity to put at least a temporary halt to this blatant denial of the statutory right to counsel and the constitutional right to adequate notice and Due Process. They “swallowed the whistle.” Eventually, these feckless and complicit Article III courts will find their own dockets overwhelmed with the results of their inaction in the face of a Due Process, operational, and human rights disaster of gargantuan proportions in the U.S. Immigration Courts as mal-administered by the DOJ.
Of course, the real culprit is Congress, which has failed to act to require an independent, constitutional U.S. Immigration Court. But, the word “feckless” doesn’t begin to describe a body that under Mitch McConnell has intentionally ceded its constitutional power to govern and oversee in the overall public interest to an unqualified, scofflaw President who respects neither democratic institutions nor the rule of law.
PANEL: O’SCANNLAIN, W. FLETCHER, and WATFORD, Circuit Judges.
OPINION: Per Curiam with Concurring Opinions by Judges Watford & Fletcher
**********************************
Lots of impenetrable legal gobbledegook. Pretty hard to see how Judges Fletcher and Watford concurred in a decision (which appears to have been “ghosted” by Judge O’Scannlain) they really didn’t agree with. But, hey, it’s only human lives at stake here.
Bottom line:Trump wins, asylum seekers with a credible fear of persecution lose. Big Time!
But, in the end, it’s likely to be America and human values that lose here.
Lisa Speckhard Pasque writes in the Madison Capital Times:
Erin Barbato is the director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.MICHELLE STOCKER
In October 2018, law professor Erin Barbato and her students represented a Cuban man in a political asylum case.
He was “beaten, detained (and) threatened with disappearance by the Cuban authorities twice,” said Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He fled when his wife was eight months pregnant because he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit and knew he didn’t have any other options. He traveled to South America and walked all the way to the border.
He was granted asylum.
Barbato and her students want to help with even more cases like this, but due to shifting asylum policies at the border, they haven’t been able to, Barbato said. She’s also seen firsthand how these changes have limited access to justice and due process for asylum seekers.
“These policies are really affecting the work I do, and the way we teach and the way that we can serve,” she said.
Arriving undocumented immigrants used to present themselves at the southern border and tell a customs and border patrol officer they’d like to apply for asylum, Barbato said. They needed to then pass a “credible fear” interview, giving the reasons they believed they would qualify for asylum.
Those who passed the interview could be released on bond or transported to detention centers throughout the U.S., like Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, to await their court hearing.
That’s where Barbato and her students found them. They regularly represented clients from Dodge seeking asylum like the Cuban man. It’s a great chance for students to learn and participate in a humanitarian effort, Barbato said.
After the Cuban man was granted asylum, the judge said he would allow IJC to defend asylum cases in Chicago via telephonic appearance, which would let IJC take more cases.
“I think it’s easier for (the judge) when the individual seeking asylum is represented and the government’s represented,” Barbato said. “And so we left there and we’re like, ‘Wow, maybe we can do more.’”
So when they went back to Dodge a few weeks after that successful case, they prepared to take two asylum cases. But there weren’t any asylum seekers at Dodge, which was “really curious,” Barbato said.
And there haven’t been any since, Barbato said. That’s because many asylum seekers aren’t being allowed into the U.S. after passing a credible fear interview. Instead, even after passing the interview, they have to wait in Mexico for their court hearing, she said.
Barbato witnessed this in action this March when she went to Tijuana to serve with a binational legal services organization called Al Otro Lado. While there, she saw several other immigration trends she considers troubling.
Asylum seekers in Tijuana go through a process called “metering,” which began several years ago. Even if a migrant makes it to customs and border patrol, they are directed back to Mexico, where they are then put on a list in a notebook reportedly managed by another asylum seeker, and given a number. They wait in Tijuana for 30 to 40 days for their number to come up before they can present themselves to CBP, Barbato said. A Mexican immigration organization called Grupos Beta is thought to be responsible for managing the number of migrants who can present themselves for asylum on any day.
And the migrants don’t necessarily have anywhere to stay in Tijuana while they wait to present themselves for asylum, Barbato said.
“Many of the shelters are full, and they’re not very safe because most of these people are fleeing gang violence,” Barbato said.
Once a person’s number comes up a month later, the migrant gets in line once again, where humanitarian volunteers hand out sweaters and socks because the person is headed into a holding facility (called “hielera” or “ice box,” for its frigid temperatures) for seven to 10 days as they await their credible fear interview.
“There’s effectively no way for unaccompanied minors to present themselves lawfully for asylum,” Barbarto said.
Barbato met with a 16-year-old girl who fled after her father sold her to a 25-year-old gang leader, and she was beaten, raped and falsely imprisoned for two years.
Now in Tijuana, the girl’s options were all bad: to wait at the one children’s shelter in Tijuana, where she “felt really alone and unsafe,” try to enter illegally where she would be subject to trafficking or the elements, or present herself to Grupos Beta and risk deportation, in which case she would “be most likely murdered because she fled the gang and disobeyed her husband.”
Barbato encouraged those who are concerned to go volunteer themselves in Tijuana, and “speak out on behalf of these children that are stranded in Tijuana.”
“The bottom line is, we can’t save everybody. Not everyone is going to qualify for asylum, that’s just not it. But at least how our laws stand right now, everyone has the right to at least seek those protections,” Barbato said. “And if our government wants to change those laws, they have to go through Congress to do so, they can’t just change these laws through policies.”
*****************************************
Thanks, Erin, for all that you and your “band of Due Process heroes” do for the New Due Process Army and the never-ending battle to bring Due Process, fundamental fairness, and equal justice for all to the U.S. Immigration Courts. You make me proud to be a U.W. Law alum! And thanks so much for giving us a slice of what’s “really” happening at the border as opposed to the Administration’s fictionalized version:
\“There’s effectively no way for unaccompanied minors to present themselves lawfully for asylum,” Barbarto said.
Barbato met with a 16-year-old girl who fled after her father sold her to a 25-year-old gang leader, and she was beaten, raped and falsely imprisoned for two years.
Now in Tijuana, the girl’s options were all bad: to wait at the one children’s shelter in Tijuana, where she “felt really alone and unsafe,” try to enter illegally where she would be subject to trafficking or the elements, or present herself to Grupos Beta and risk deportation, in which case she would “be most likely murdered because she fled the gang and disobeyed her husband.
Yes, this is what our country is doing to our fellow human beings who seek nothing more than to apply for legal protection supposedly guaranteed by international treaties, our statutes, and our Constitution. Is the Trump Administration’s dishonesty, cruelty, and scofflaw behavior really the way we want to be remembered by future generations? Actions have consequences, and failing to stand up for the legal, Constitutional, and human rights of “the most vulnerable among us” will have adversely affect the future of our nation and of humanity. At the same time, Erin and her courageous students are setting examples that will uplift and inspire future generations.
Like most law school clinics and pro bono organizations, Erin and her clinic operate on a “shoestring budget.” Compare that with the waste, fraud, and abuse of the Administration’s squandering of huge sums money on walls, prisons, and defense of patently illegal programs to strip migrants of their few remaining rights. Think what we could do as a nation if we devoted just a modest amount of additional resources to making the laws and the immigration adjudication system work, rather than funding “built to fail” schemes and gimmicks to evade and violate the laws?
So much for the disingenuously named “Migrant Protection Protocols” (a/k/a/ “Stay in Mexico”). As I had predicted, they are actually “Migrant Rejection Protocols,” which was the intent all along.
A federal appeals court said Friday that the Trump administration could temporarily continue to force migrants seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico while their cases are decided.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a stay of a lower-court ruling four days earlier that blocked the administration’s protocol. The appeals court will consider next week whether to extend that stay — and allow the Trump administration policy to remain in effect for longer.
The administration in December announced its new policy, called the migration protection protocols, arguing that it would help stop people from using the asylum process to enter the country and remain there illegally. President Trump has long been angered by so-called catch and release policies, under which asylum seekers are temporarily allowed in the United States while they wait for their court hearings.
On Monday, Judge Richard Seeborg of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an injunction against Mr. Trump’s new protocols, saying that the president did not have the power to enforce them and that they violated immigration laws.
A federal judge on Monday blocked an experimental Trump administration policy that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases make their way through the immigration court system, a major blow to President Trump as border crossings have surged to their highest point in more than a decade.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco enjoined the Migrant Protection Protocols policy days after outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pledged to expand the program. The policy began in January.
Trump has justified blocking asylum seekers from entering the United States by claiming that many asylum seekers are trying to carry out a scam — that they are coached to file false asylum claims knowing that they will be released into the country because of a lack of detention bed space. The administration had hoped to keep more asylum seekers in Mexico — and off U.S. soil — while they await court hearings on their claims.
Migrants who reach U.S. soil — including areas that are outside U.S. border barriers but inside U.S. territory — have the legal right to seek asylum. They generally are either held in detention facilities to await rulings in their cases or are released into the United States.
The policy had been one idea to stem the flow of migrants into the country, but Seeborg said his order ending the policy will take effect at 5 p.m. on April 12. Within two days, he said, the 11 migrants named in the lawsuit must be allowed to enter the United States, and the administration may not implement or expand the program.
The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, hailed the ruling as a “very important decision” on an “unpredecented” attempt to block asylum seekers from setting foot on U.S. soil.
“What it will mean is that nobody else can be sent to Mexico,” said Judy Rabinovitz, an ACLU lawyer. “They can’t enforce this policy.”
Prior to this year, I had never been on a college spring break trip. I had never experienced the stereotypical American “Cancun trip” full of debauchery, innocentfun and the fantasy MTV sold me in the early 2000s. Part of this was due to financial considerations, the other part was that I always had some kind of commitment whenever this season came upon me. This year, I finally got to go on a spring break trip with some of my law school peers. But the Mexico I saw was far from a carefree oasis for the inebriated and the carefree.
This past March, I along with my Asylum clinic professor and four New York Law School classmates volunteered in Tijuana for a week at an organization called Al Otro Lado, Spanish for “On the Other Side.” Al Otro Lado (“or AOL”) is a not for profit organization run almost exclusively by volunteers. AOL provides free legal and medical services to migrants both in Tijuana and San Diego and is currently in the process of suing the U.S. government for its recently adopted border policies. AOL is composed of volunteers from all walks of life. Some are attorneys, others doctors or nurse practitioners. Most, though, are concerned U.S. citizens who wanted to see for themselves the humanitarian crisis occurring in our country. They come from all walks of life, ages, races and socioeconomic backgrounds. But for that week, our collective problems and biases were set aside due to the more pressing concerns facing the people we were seeking to assist.
During my week volunteering with AOL in Tijuana, my classmates and I utilized our studies in immigration and asylum law to educate asylum seekers as to the process that awaits them. I met with over a dozen migrants, one-on-one, and heard their stories of plight and fear. I didn’t tell them what to say, instead I explained to them that asylum is a narrowly applied form of relief. That in order to be granted asylum in the U.S. that they had to essentially prove 1. They have suffered a harm or credible fear of harm. 2. This fear or harm is based on an immutable trait (such as race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership to a particular social group) 3. They cannot relocate to another area of their country because their government either cannot or refuses to help them. 4. They tried to go to the police or couldn’t due to inefficacy or corruption. Many of the folks I spoke with had no idea what asylum was or what exactly were its requirements. At times, I would find out that the family I was speaking to was crossing that same day meaning that I had 5 minutes to explain to them what a “credible fear interview” was.
My favorite part of my week though, was when I got to conduct the Charla slang for “a talk.” The Charla is a know your rights workshop where AOL explains the asylum procedure, the illegal “list” number system currently being conducted by the U.S. and Mexican government, and what possibilities await them after their credible fear interviews. Currently, if you arrive in Tijuana and want to plead for asylum in the U.S. you can’t just go and present yourself to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. The Mexican government has security keeping you from being able to speak to U.S. CBP. Mexican officials, though, do not want to take on this responsibility either, so the idea somehow came about of having the migrants themselves keep a list or a queue amongst themselves. The way it works is that every morning at El Chaparral, one of the ports of entry between Tijuana and San Diego, a table with a composition notebook is set up. In that notebook is a list usually somewhere in the several thousands. For each number, up to ten people can be listed and in order to sign up and receive a number you have to show some form of identification. Once you have a number, the average wait time is about 4-5 weeks. Sometimes families and people disappear as their persecutors come to Tijuana and seek them out. Every morning at El ChaparralI would see families lined up either to receive a number or to hopefully hear their number be called. Best of all, right next to the migrants who would be managing “the list” would be Grupo Betas, a Mexican “humanitarian” agency who aids in the siphoning of migrants to the U.S.
If and when your number is called, you’re shuttled off to U.S. CBP officials who will likely put you inLa Hieleras or “The Iceboxes.” Migrants named them as such because they are purposely cold rooms where migrants are kept for days or weeks until their credible fear interviews. Here, families can be separated either due to gender or for no reason given at all. Migrants who had been to La Hieleras would tell me that they were given those aluminum-like, thermal blankets marathon runners often get. They state how they are stripped down to their layer of clothing closest to the skin and crammed into a jail like cell with no windows and lights perpetually on. After La Hieleras, a U.S. immigration official will conduct a credible fear interview. The purpose of this interview is for the U.S. to see if this permission has a credible asylum claim. If you fail this interview your chances of being granted asylum become slim to none. If you pass three possibilities await you. First, you might be released to someone in the U.S. who can sponsor you, so long as that person has legal status and can afford to pay for your transport. The second, and newest, is that you might be rereleased and told to wait for your court date in Tijuana. And the last is indefinite detention somewhere within the U.S.
As I would inform families of the future that awaited them, I felt embarrassed of my country. I felt anger at the fact that we are telling folks who are fleeing cartel, gang and military violence to grab a number and wait in line for four to five weeks. That I had to help mothers and fathers write their information on their babies in case they were separated. It broke my heart to have to tell a mother that her pain and suffering just couldn’t be pigeon holed into “race, religion, nationality, political opinion or a particular social group.” Thank you, try again. I feel like after this trip I have more questions than answers. That the work volunteer work I was doing was more triage than anything else. That even if I graduate law school and become an attorney at most I would be putting a band aid on a gunshot wound and never really addressing the disease.
It’s easy to feel defeated. It’s much more difficult to work towards a solution. I’m not an expert on any of these subjects. But I know that xenophobia and racism have no place in international police or immigration practices. I know that the folks I encountered during my time at the border were families fleeing not criminals scheming. I know that I may not have all the solutions but we should begin by instilling empathy, humanity and altruism into how we speak of asylum seekers and immigrants in general. That not much separates me, an American citizen, from the people I met in Tijuana. I may not have the answers to the turmoil I saw at the border but I’m determined to giving the rest of my life to figuring it out.
************************************
Thanks, Amín!
He is one of the students of NY Law School Clinical Professor Claire Thomas who went to the border to “fight for the New Due Process Army” following the Asylum and Immigration Law Conference at New York Law School. Putting knowledge into practice! Saving lives!
Two really important points to remember from Amín’s moving account. First, because of BIA and AG interpretations intentionally skewed against asylum seekers from Latin America, many of whom should fit squarely within the “refugee” definition if properly interpreted, many refugees from the Northern Triangle intentionally are “left out in the cold.” That, plus lack of representation and intentionally poor treatment by DHS meant to discourage or coerce individuals results in unrealistically “depressed” asylum grant rates. Many who have been to the border report that a majority of those arriving should fit within asylum law if fairly and properly interpreted.
Second, many of those who don’t fit the asylum definition are both highly credible and have a very legitimate fear of deadly harm upon return. They merely fail to fit one of the “legal pigeon holes” known as “nexus” in bureaucratic terms. The BIA and this Administration have gone to great lengths to pervert the normal laws of causation and the legal concept of “mixed motive” to use “nexus” as an often highly contrived means to deny asylum to those genuinely in danger. A better and more humane Administration might devise some type of prosecutorial discretion or temporary humanitarian relief as an alternative to knowingly and intentionally sending endangered individuals and their families back into “danger zones.”
What clearly is bogus is the disingenuous narrative from Kirstjen Nielsen and other Administration officials that these are “frivolous” applications. What is frivolous is our Government’s cavalier and often illegal and inhumane treatment of forced migrants who seek nothing more than a fair chance to save their lives and those of their loved ones.
Whether they “fit” our arcane and intentionally overly restrictive interpretations, they are not criminals and they are not threats to our security. They deserve fair and humane treatment in accordance with our laws on protection and Due Process under our Constitution. What they are finding is something quite different: a rich and powerful (even if diminishing before our eyes) country that mocks its own laws and bullies, dehumanizes, and mistreats those in need.
