Podcaster
American Refugee
Listen to Sam on “American Refugee” here:
- LISTEN on the Web – https://odaction.com/americanrefugee-ep03/
- LISTEN on Apple devices (Apple Podcasts) – https://pcr.apple.com/id1494027429
- LISTEN on Android devices (Spotify) – https://spoti.fi/30r4Efi
In the days leading up to the coronavirus shutdown I journeyed into a shadow part of our justice system, a courtroom rarely seen by the public.
Detained immigration court is a place where lawyers aren’t provided for the defense, where judges and prosecutors are on the same team, where guilty is presumed and the all-too-often verdict a different kind of death.
Who are these immigration judges? What exactly is detained court? And how is it able to get away with operating outside of what we might call normal law?
Get ready because you’re about to go there, to see the injustice that isn’t being shut down.
This is American Refugee.
Written, Engineered & Produced: Sam Graber
Music: Rare Medium, Punk Funk Metropolis, New Sound Underground
Recorded: Minneapolis, MN
Original Release: March 2020
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Disturbing and infuriating as Sam’s podcast is, I urge everyone to listen, even if you think you know what “really happens” in this godforsaken and deadly “darkest corner of the American ‘justice’ system.” Is this really the way we want to be remembered by generations that follow? As a country with so little collective courage and integrity that we allowed our fellow human beings to be treated this way? Think about it!
Even in this grimmest of worlds, their are true heroes. First and foremost, of course, are the dedicated attorneys of the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”), many working pro bono or “low bono” to vindicate essential legal, constitutional, and human rights in a system designed to grind them into dust and “dehumanize and demonize the other.”
Sound familiar? It should to anyone who studied Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. By and large, it wasn’t the “Brown Shirts” and the party faithful who enabled his rule. It was judges, lawyers, ministers, priests, businessmen, doctors, corporate moguls, and the average German who “facilitated” his annihilation of millions.
And, it started gradually, with laws stripping Jews of citizenship, property, and all legal rights and judges who enthusiastically enforced them, even against their own former judicial colleagues. Once people aren’t “humans” any more (Hitler liked the term “subhumans”) or “persons” before the law, there is no limit to what can be done, particularly when complicit judges join in the “fun and games.”
Among the other heroes are two “Courtside regulars:” Round Table Member Judge (Ret.) Ilyce Shugall and NAIJ President Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor.
U.S. Immigraton Judge (Retired)
Director, Immigrant Legal Defense Program, Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco.
President, National
Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”)
At a time when too many with knowledge of the travesty of what’s going on in our “Star Chambers” have chosen to look the other way or “go along to get along,” Ilyce and Ashley have consistently “spoken truth to power” in the face of a regime that often abuses its authority by punishing truth, honesty, and decency. Indeed, Billy Barr’s highly unethical move to “decertify” the NAIJ is a blatant attempt to punish and silence Ashley for revealing the truth.
One minor correction. Sam says that the Immigration Judges and the prosecutors both work for the DOJ. Actually, the prosecutors work for DHS. But, it’s largely a “distinction without difference” because the agenda at both DOJ and DHS is set by Trump, Miller, and the rest of the White Nationalist nativist cabal.
Indeed, former AG Sessions told Immigration Judges they were “partners” with the DHS prosecutors in enforcing immigration laws. So, the observation that in many Immigration Courtrooms migrants, including the unrepresented and children, face “two prosecutors” — the “judge” and the DHS Assistant Chief Counsel is accurate. The podcast relates how in some courts the “judge speaks for the prosecution,” the Assistant Chief Counsel is a “potted plant,” and nobody speaks for justice or the rights of the migrants. What’s missing: The impartial “neutral decisionmaker” required by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
Thanks Ashley and Ilyce for all you do! You are true superstars!
As my friend, Professor Ayo Gansallo says on her e-mail profile:
Vote like your rights depend upon it!
“A country is not only what it does…it is also what it tolerates.”
Kurt Tucholsky
Due Process Forever! Star Chambers Never!
PWS
03-29-20