Sanctuary Cities – Page 10 – immigrationcourtside.com

TRUMP SCOFFLAWS STUFFED AGAIN BY COURT ON “SANCTUARY” ISSUES: Trump Keeps Trying To “Punish” Jurisdictions For Acting Legally!

https://apple.news/A47vetrPUSg2Xm8cqHJuFlQ

Sophie Weiner reports for Splinter:

Yet again the Trump administration has had one of their cruel immigration policies smacked down byfederal judges. This time, it was the administration’s attempt to prevent California from carrying out sanctuary laws which protect undocumented immigrants in the state, according to Bloomberg.

A three judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration’s attempt to shut down California sanctuary policies. The panel affirmed a previous decision by a federal judge in Sacramento, who ruled that a 2017 immigrant sanctuary regulation, which restricts local police’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities, doesn’t conflict with constitutional law.

From Bloomberg:

The appeals court concluded that while Congress may have expected cooperation between state and federal authorities on immigration enforcement, Washington doesn’t have the constitutional power to require California’s assistance.

The decision regarded the California law SB 54, also known as the California Values Act, which was signed by former Governor Jerry Brown in 2017.

“SB 54 may well frustrate the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts,” the court panel wrote. “However, whatever the wisdom of the underlying policy adopted by California, that frustration is permissible, because California has the right, pursuant to the anticommandeering rule, to refrain from assisting with federal efforts.”

The panel also upheld a state law that requires employers to inform workers before workplace inspections by federal immigration authorities, and told a lower court judge to take another look at a law that “authorizes the state attorney general to inspect facilities that house immigrants not detained for criminal offenses,” according to Bloomberg.

Many of the Trump administration’s attempts to harden immigration policy have met resistance in the courts. Most recently, the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed, was blocked by a federal judge. Since then, the decision has been temporarily reversed.

It’s somewhat ironic that this decision would come down now, the week after it was made public that the Trump administration considered dumping undocumented people in these so-called “sanctuary cities.” After the absurd and cruel suggested policy was publicized, Trump threatened to do something similar, suggesting that immigrants who were caught crossing the border but couldn’t be detained should be sent to liberal cities with sanctuary laws like San Francisco.

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In addition to being really stupid (you’re not going to get much useful cooperation from states and cities by suing them) this litigation borders on Constitutionally frivolous. It’s wasting the time of the Federal Courts.

Undoubtedly, a competent Administration with rational immigration enforcement priorities could have reached accommodations with most jurisdictions on genuine law enforcement issues (not the mindless “deport anyone who is here without documents” program).

There was a time when professionals with some backbone at the DOJ and in the Solicitor General’s Office would have “just said no” to this type of “garbage litigation” being pushed by White House politicos. But, not today’s DOJ and today’s Solicitor General who see themselves as Trump’s sycophantic lawyers rather than upholding their oaths of office and serving the American people (who, after all, pay their salaries, not Trump — who apparently doesn’t even pay taxes). (Sessions’s downfall was that he saw himself more as an instrument of hate, racism, and xenophobia than as a personal protector of the Trumps.)

The Trump Kakistocracy has destroyed the remaining integrity of the DOJ and forced many of its best lawyers to leave, “go underground,” or become “hall walkers” to survive. That’s going to be bad for America long after Trump finally leaves office.

PWS

04-19-19

ERIC LEVITZ @ NY MAG: Trump Is A Scofflaw Fraud, Particularly On Immigration — “It is abundantly clear, then, that the Trump administration’s fanatical opposition to illegal immigration is not rooted in a commitment to upholding U.S. law but rather in some other concern it does not wish to speak in public.”

https://apple.news/A1erR6RRPRnyc6GVYdS2PAw

Eric Levitz writes in NY Magazine:

PRESIDENT TRUMP

Trump Wants America to Stop Enforcing Its Immigration Laws

Donald Trump has nothing against “lawful immigrants” — in fact, he believes they “enrich our society and contribute to our nation.” And the president certainly has no investment in maintaining the United States as a majority-white nation; he is, after all, “the least racist person you have ever met.”

The left might try to defame this White House by insisting its hard-line immigration policies are motivated by nativism or even white-nationalist sympathies. But the administration has made its true motives perfectly clear: It has not adopted a “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants out of animus for foreign people but simply out of reverence for American law.

“In a Trump administration, all immigration laws will be enforced,” Trump promised a crowd in Phoenix two months before his election. “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation — that is what it means to have laws and to have a country.”

Trump has repeatedly invoked this absolutist commitment to the law when seeking to justify unpopular immigration policies. The president never offered an affirmative argument for canceling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provided temporary work permits to 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children. To the contrary, almost immediately after terminating DACA, the president claimed he supported protections for Dreamers in principle and implored Congress to write such protections into legislation. He didn’t want to hurt Dreamers — or use them as bargaining chips in negotiations with Democrats — he just felt the Executive branch did not have the authority to make immigration policy unilaterally. Sure, past Republican presidents (and the federal courts) might have considered deferred action to be within the Executive branch’s purview. But Trump was a stickler about the Constitution’s separation of powers. We are a nation of laws, not men. On such grounds, the president would later justify making America into the kind of nation that punishes migrant mothers by separating them from their children.

Of course, the white-collar-criminal-in-chief’s professed devotion to law and order was always a transparent fraud (this is a man who has publicly insisted that the attorney general’s job is to subordinate the law to the president’s personal interests). But even by this administration’s standards, its latest efforts to crack down on “illegal immigration” are gobsmacking in their hypocrisy.

Last week, the White House purged many of its own appointees from the Department of Homeland Security, suggesting that the president was looking to go in a “tougher” direction. Subsequent reporting has clarified that tougher was a euphemism for “lawless.”

Under U.S. law, any foreign national who sets foot on our nation’s soil has a legal right to seek asylum from persecution or violence in that person’s home country — if he or she can pass an initial screening conducted by asylum officials. And Congress designed such screenings with an eye toward minimizing the number of genuinely endangered people whom America sends back into harm’s way (rather than minimizing the number of economic migrants whom our asylum courts are forced to process). As a result, about 90 percent of those who claim asylum make it past the initial screening.

As violence and instability in Central America have sent hundreds of thousands of migrant families to our border, this law has created logistical problems for the Trump administration. Litigating asylum claims can take months, even years. And the United States does not have the resources to detain every asylum seeker who makes it past the initial test. Thus the White House finds itself in the position of releasing asylum seekers into the United States, likely allowing some number to slip into the country and thereby become undocumented immigrants.

For whatever reason, this administration cares more about curbing such immigration (even though undocumented immigration is associated with reductions in crime, and the U.S. has an acute need for more “low skill” labor) than it does about enforcing all of America’s immigration laws. As the New York Times explains:

In a separate conversation, President Trump implored then–DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to ban migrants from seeking asylum.

It is abundantly clear, then, that the Trump administration’s fanatical opposition to illegal immigration is not rooted in a commitment to upholding U.S. law but rather in some other concern it does not wish to speak in public.

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Duh!

Like policies driven by White Nationalism and racism. Or, maybe “malicious incompetence.” That’s why it’s important for Dems not to be hoodwinked into abandoning or wrongly watering down (under the guise of a bogus “compromise”) the laws that offer refugees and migrants at least some legal protections in response to Trump’s self-created crisis that doesn’t threaten U.S. security but does threaten the lives and rights of refugees and other migrants.

Indeed, the best short-term solution to the Southern Border would be to work in a competent, cooperative, and good faith manner to fairly administer the asylum and other protection laws that we currently have on the books.

But, a fair and efficient administration of the laws already on the books undoubtedly would result in more refugees from Central America (and elsewhere) being granted asylum or some other form of protection. And, since that could be done by adjudication and judicial officials, the Border Patrol could go back to protecting the borders from real threats.

But, that’s the result that Trump and his White Nationalist cronies don’t want. That’s why they are working so hard to make the mess worse while shifting blame to the victims. Pretty much the definition of official bullying and cowardice.

PWS

04-19-19

EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: Trump’s Invented Border Crisis Channels Jim Crow: “The real crisis is that we have a president who wants to put up a “No Vacancies” sign for nonwhite immigrants — just like the “No Coloreds” signs I used to see in the Jim Crow South.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-invented-an-immigration-crisis-to-further-his-most-consistent-goal/2019/04/15/b2049ba0-5fbd-11e9-9ff2-abc984dc9eec_story.html

The Trump administration has manufactured and exacerbated an immigration “crisis” to further the president’s most consistent goal: to Make America White Again.

Tens of thousands of Central American asylum seekers, even hundreds of thousands, do not constitute a serious crisis — not for a continent-spanning nation of 330 million, a nation built through successive waves of immigration. The migrants have severely taxed and at times overwhelmed the systems at the border that must process and adjudicate their claims for refuge, but this is a simple matter of resources. We need more border agents, more immigration judges, more housing.

President Trump, however, treats the migrant surge like an existential threat. “We can’t take you anymore. We can’t take you. Our country is full,” he said this month at the border in California. But, of course, our vast nation is anything but full. Instead of “can’t,” what Trump really means is “won’t.”

On almost any issue you can think of, Trump is all over the map. But there is one position on which he has never wavered: antipathy toward nonwhite immigration. From his campaign charge that Mexican immigrants are “rapists,” to his fruitless quest to get funding for a border wall, to his gratuitously cruel policy of family separations, to his declaration of a national emergency, Trump has left not an iota of doubt about how he feels.

To be sure, sometimes the president uses anti-immigration rhetoric to inflame his base. But unlike with other issues, Trump seems actually to believe his demagoguery about would-be Latino migrants.

The administration acts as if it considers the asylum seekers to be less than human. What other conclusion can be drawn, after thousands of young children were taken from their parents and shipped to detention centers far away, as a deterrent to others who might seek entry? How else can anyone characterize the notion — now under active consideration, according to the White House — of transporting migrants hundreds or thousands of miles, not out of necessity but simply so they can be released in “sanctuary cities” and the districts of Trump’s political opponents?

Trump threatened to close the border. Here’s what could happen if he did

President Trump has pivoted from closing the southern border to imposing new tariffs on Mexico. But who will be the most affected? (Luis Velarde/The Washington Post)

That last Bond-villain idea is apparently the brainchild of White House adviser Stephen Miller, who seems to be the closest thing Trump has to an operational chief of staff — someone who shares his vision, however warped, and will move heaven and earth to bring it to life.

Miller’s history as an anti-immigration zealot goes back to his time as an aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) , who became Trump’s first attorney general. It is no exaggeration to say that Sessions, both in the Senate and in the Cabinet, was obsessed with reducing immigration, legal as well as illegal. Sessions is gone from the administration, but Miller remains, and clearly he has Trump’s ear.

Trump has said that the countries from which asylum seekers and economic migrants are fleeing are not sending “their best” people, and that entry should be based on “merit,” not on family connections. That would be a complete departure from the immigration policies that allowed Trump’s and Miller’s forebears to come to this country, but it sounds debatable — until you take into account Trump’s other remarks. He has reportedly disparaged nonwhite countries with a vulgar epithet and expressed a preference for immigrants from places like Norway, which happens to be one of the whitest countries on the planet. In the context of immigration policy, he has regaled crowds with the story — likely apocryphal — of his friend “Jim,” who used to go to Paris all the time but doesn’t anymore because “Paris is no longer Paris.”

Trump isn’t talking about gridlocked traffic on the Boulevard Peripherique. He’s talking about the black and brown immigrants who are changing the city’s complexion.

Does Trump seek political gain by stoking white Americans’ fears of the “browning” of the United States due to Latino immigration? Absolutely. But if his racism were purely situational — like his professed commitment to fiscal responsibility, or his supposed social conservatism — he would depart from it occasionally. And he doesn’t.

He might at least feign compassion for men, women and children who risk their lives to flee deadly violence at home. Instead, Trump cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the countries from which most of the asylum seekers are coming. He does not comfort or embrace. He seeks only to punish.

The real crisis is that we have a president who wants to put up a “No Vacancies” sign for nonwhite immigrants — just like the “No Coloreds” signs I used to see in the Jim Crow South.

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Yup!

MAWA can’t possibly work. But, it could destroy America!

PWS

04-18-19

INSIDE THE KAKISTOCRACY: Stephen Miller “repeatedly demanded implementation of policies that were legally questionable, impractical, unethical or unreasonable.” — Only Some Courageous Private Lawyers & Federal Judges Stand Between Us & A Racist Debacle! — Law Proving An Obstacle To Scofflaw White Nationalists!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/us/politics/trump-immigration-stephen-miller.html

Eileen Sullivan and Michael D. Shear report for the NY Times

WASHINGTON — Stephen Miller was furious — again.

The architect of President Trump’s immigration agenda, Mr. Miller was presiding last month over a meeting in the White House Situation Room when he demanded to know why the administration officials gathered there were taking so long to carry out his plans.

A regulation to deny welfare benefits to legal immigrants — a change Mr. Miller repeatedly predicted would be “transformative” — was still plodding through the approval process after more than two years, he complained. So were the new rules that would overturn court-ordered protections for migrant children. They were still not finished, he added, berating Ronald D. Vitiello, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“You ought to be working on this regulation all day every day,” he shouted, as recounted by two participants at the meeting. “It should be the first thought you have when you wake up. And it should be the last thought you have before you go to bed. And sometimes you shouldn’t go to bed.”

A few weeks after that meeting, the consequences of Mr. Miller’s frustration and the president he was channeling have played out in striking fashion.

Mr. Trump has withdrawn Mr. Vitiello’s nomination to permanently lead ICE and pushed out Kirstjen Nielsen, his homeland security secretary. The department’s acting deputy secretary, Claire Grady, and the Secret Service director, Randolph D. Alles, are departing as well. And the White House has made it clear that others, including L. Francis Cissna, the head of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and John Mitnick, the department’s general counsel, are likely to go soon.

Mr. Trump insisted in a tweet on Saturday that he was “not frustrated” by the situation at the border, where for months he has said there is a crisis that threatens the nation’s security. But unable to deliver on his central promise of the 2016 campaign, he has targeted his administration’s highest-ranking immigration officials.

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And behind that purge is Mr. Miller, the 33-year-old White House senior adviser. While immigration is the issue that has dominated Mr. Trump’s time in office, the president has little interest or understanding about how to turn his gut instincts into reality. So it is Mr. Miller, a fierce ideologue who was a congressional spokesman before joining the Trump campaign, who has shaped policy, infuriated civil liberties groups and provoked a bitter struggle within the administration.

White House officials insisted to reporters last week that they had no choice but to move against administration officials unwilling or unable to make their agencies produce results. One senior administration official at the White House, who requested anonymity to discuss what he called a sensitive topic, said many of the administration’s core priorities have been “either moving too slowly or moving in the wrong direction.”

But current and former officials from those agencies, who also requested anonymity to discuss contentious relations with the White House, describe a different reality.

The purge, they said, was the culmination of months of clashes with Mr. Miller and others around the president who have repeatedly demanded implementation of policies that were legally questionable, impractical, unethical or unreasonable. And when officials explained why, it further infuriated a White House set on making quick, sweeping changes to decades-old laws.

In a twist, many of the officials who have clashed with the White House were the president’s own political appointees, who share his broad goal of limiting immigration into the United States. To that end, they have already succeeded in lowering the number of refugees allowed into the United States, imposing a travel ban on entry from mostly Muslim nations, speeding up denaturalization proceedings, slowing asylum processing at ports of entry and developing proposals to limit work permits for spouses of high-tech workers.

“I don’t think the president’s really cleaning house,” said Thomas D. Homan, a former acting ICE director and strong supporter of the president’s immigration agenda. “I think he’s setting the reset button.”

A White House spokesman declined a request for comment. But even several of the most right-wing, anti-immigration groups have had a mixed reaction to the treatment of the immigration officials Mr. Trump and Mr. Miller have targeted.

The Center for Immigration Studies tweeted that “Nielsen got tough at the end of her tenure, but it was largely too little, too late.” The Federation for American Immigration Reform wrote: “Under Francis Cissna’s leadership, USCIS has issued a steady stream of policy changes and regulations that are firmly in line with President Trump’s immigration agenda. Removing him would be a huge mistake.”

But it has not been enough for Mr. Miller and his allies in the White House feeling the constant pressure from Mr. Trump.

Perhaps the greatest point of contention within the administration has been the asylum laws that are the root cause of the most vivid manifestation of the immigration issue: the hundreds of thousands of migrant families from Central America who have surged toward the southwestern border, fleeing violence and poverty.

In a Tuesday afternoon “deputies” conference call last year with about 50 or 60 officials from across government, Mr. Miller demanded to know why nearly all of the families seeking asylum were passing the first hurdle — a screening interview to determine whether they have a “credible fear” of persecution if they were returned to their home countries.

Mr. Miller and others in the White House were outraged that 90 percent or more of the applicants passed the first screening, a concern during the Bush administration, as well. Immigration judges ultimately deny all but about 20 percent of the asylum requests, but because of a backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases, many asylum seekers wait years for their case to be heard for the second time, giving them the chance to gain work permits, build roots and disappear in the United States.

To Mr. Miller, the asylum process was a giant loophole that needed to be plugged. And he faulted the asylum officers at Citizenship and Immigration Services who were conducting the screenings for having a cultural bias that made them overly sympathetic to the asylum seekers. “You need to tighten up,” Miller insisted.

Immigration officials on the conference call did not disagree that too many migrants were granted asylum in the initial “credible fear” screening. But the rules for conducting the screenings were written into law by Congress and designed to be generous so that persecuted people had a real opportunity to seek asylum. It was unclear, the officials said, what else the agency could do.

A Border Patrol vehicle near the border fence in Sunland Park, N.M. White House officials recently pushed to have Border Patrol agents, instead of asylum officers, conduct initial screenings of asylum seekers.CreditJose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

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A Border Patrol vehicle near the border fence in Sunland Park, N.M. White House officials recently pushed to have Border Patrol agents, instead of asylum officers, conduct initial screenings of asylum seekers.CreditJose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

Listening to Mr. Miller continue to hammer the issue, two people on the call recalled, it was almost as if Mr. Miller wanted asylum officers to ignore the law. At one point during the call, Mr. Cissna erupted in frustration.

“Enough. Enough. Stand down!” he said.

But such pressure from the White House was hardly unique, according to officials from multiple agencies.

For instance, a federal judge last week ruled that the White House early in the administration had improperly pressured officials at Citizenship and Immigration Services to terminate an immigration program for Haiti called Temporary Protected Status.

The judge said the decision in 2017 to end the program was contrary to the statute and indicated that the White House had strongly influenced the department.

More recently, White House officials pushed during one of the Tuesday afternoon conference calls to have Border Patrol agents, instead of asylum officers, conduct “credible fear” interviews. The notion, they said, was that the Border Patrol agents could process interviews quickly and cut out the several-day wait to schedule a meeting with an asylum officer.

Many of the immigration officials recoiled at the idea. Assigning agents to interview duty would pull them from their primary roles at the ports and along the border. Even worse, asylum laws require interviewers to undergo up to two months of training that would strain the already understaffed Border Patrol stations.

But even if they could be trained, officials told the White House, the logistics would be a nightmare. Cramped Border Patrol stations — many of which look like small, rural police stations — were not set up to conduct scores of two-hour interviews with hundreds of migrants flooding into border communities each day.

When the idea leaked out in early April, immigrant rights advocates accused the Trump administration of trying to prevent migrants from having a real chance at asylum.

“Border Patrol officers are simply not qualified to do this,” said Eleanor Acer, the director of the refugee program at Human Rights First. “This will put unfit, untrained and unqualified agents in charge of determining who warrants potentially lifesaving protection in the United States.”

To Mr. Miller and other White House officials, it was another instance in which the law and machinations of government were getting in the way of needed changes. And they think there are many others.

In November, as Mr. Trump railed publicly about the dangers of migrant caravans from Central America, a top White House domestic policy adviser floated the idea of taking migrants who had been apprehended to so-called sanctuary cities represented by Democrats. Homeland security officials, who saw the idea as political retribution, resisted.

In an email, Matthew Albence, the acting deputy director of ICE, said that it would create “an unnecessary operational burden” and that transporting the migrants to a different location was not “a justified expenditure.” Lawyers at the Department of Homeland Security, including Mr. Mitnick, also questioned the idea’s legality.

The idea was dropped until last week, when news stories about the rejected proposal prompted Mr. Trump to say his administration was still considering the option.

Mr. Trump has also not given up on the idea of shutting down the southern border, a move economists have said would be catastrophic and halt nearly $1.7 billion of goods and services that flow across the border each day.

Even as Mr. Trump retreated publicly and said he would give Mexico a year to do more to prevent migrants from reaching the southern border of the United States, he has made it clear to his advisers privately that the closing was still on the table.

His insistence increased the friction with his top immigration officials, especially Ms. Nielsen, who tried to talk him out of closing the ports of entry and refusing to grant asylum. Ms. Nielsen explained why she could not do that, citing economic and legal issues — banning migrants from seeking asylum would be against the law.

When Ms. Nielsen did not give the president the answer he sought, he turned to Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, and asked him to stop migrants from entering the country. Mr. Trump told Mr. McAleenan that he would pardon him if he ran into any legal problems, according to officials familiar with the conversation — though he denied it in a tweet Saturday night.

Ms. Nielsen’s refusal to shut down the southern border appeared to be the final straw for Mr. Trump. After forcing her resignation, he named Mr. McAleenan the acting secretary of the department.

But Mr. Miller remains unsatisfied. Lately, he has made clear to immigration officials and others in the White House that he remains frustrated with the still-pending regulation on welfare benefits for immigrants. After nearly two years of painstaking work and more than 200,000 public comments, the 447-page rule is on track to eventually be published.

And it is not clear that the political bloodletting is over. Mr. Cissna and Mr. Mitnick remain in bureaucratic limbo, having received neither their walking papers nor an explicit stay of execution. While Mr. McAleenan is now the acting secretary of homeland security, rumors persist that Mr. Trump may want someone else to be the permanent head of the department.

Inside the immigration agencies, there is a persistent rumor that Mr. Trump may yet name an immigration czar to better coordinate — or, some believe, control — the sprawling immigration bureaucracy.

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Good thing we have the New Due Process Army to fight against Miller and his forces of evil out to destroy American democracy.

PWS

04-15-19

THE HILL: Nolan On Pelosi’s Reaction To Trump’s “Sanctuary Cities” Threats — PLUS, “Bonus Coverage” From Tal @ SF Chron!

Family Pictures

Bizarro world: Pelosi angry over Trump plan to send illegal crossers to sanctuary cities. By Nolan Rappaport

Apparently, President Donald Trump is about to make life much easier for aliens with children who are apprehended after making an illegal entry.

The Flores Settlement Agreement prevents him from detaining, for more than 20 days, children apprehended after making an illegal crossing into the United States. And because all Hell broke loose when he separated the children from their parents, he is now releasing their parents, too.

But according to his tweets on Friday, that isn’t all he is going to do for them.

I’m sure he was being sarcastic when he said this should make them very happy, but it really should make the Democrats very happy. The government would be providing these families with free transportation to places that are welcoming undocumented aliens, i.e. the sanctuary cities.

In fact, many of them are headed for sanctuary cities anyway. In 2014, California, which is a sanctuary state, was home to between 2.35 million and 2.6 million undocumented immigrants. Nearly a quarter of the nation’s undocumented immigrants lived there. Roughly one in ten California workers was an undocumented immigrant. And the population of undocumented aliens in California has gotten even largersince then.

But it turns out that Trump was right: The Democrats are upset.

I was astonished to see an article entitled, “Pelosi fumes over White House plan to release immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities.”

Read more at https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/438742-trump-proposes-transporting-illegal-crossers-to-sanctuary-cities-and

Published on The Hill.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.

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It’s always difficult to take anything Trump says seriously, particularly about immigration.

I think Pelosi was reacting to 1) the tone of Trump’s threat; 2) his use of human lives as pawns and bargaining chips (something he has done before with the Dreamers); 3) his continuing threats to misuse Presidential power to “punish enemies;” and 4) the lack of any serious coordination that would accompany a good faith plan.

On the other hand, as shown in this article by Tal Kopan of the SF Chronicle, California and San Francisco officials appear ready to welcome and help any migrants sent their way or who are released and choose to settle in California.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Trump-s-idea-to-take-immigrants-to-sanctuary-13763811.php?t=29edb0e3ff

PWS

04-15-19

9TH CIR. TEMPORARILY STAYS ORDER BARRING “REMAIN IN MEXICO”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/us/trump-asylum-seekers-mexico.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Mihir Zaveri reports for the NY Times:

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.

Judge Seeborg said in his ruling that the protocols did not include “sufficient safeguards” to comply with the Department of Homeland Security’s obligation against returning migrants to places where their “life or freedom would be threatened.”

On Friday, as Judge Seeborg’s injunction was set to go into effect, a three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit issued the temporary stay.

In a tweet late Friday night, President Trump wrote: “Finally, great news at the Border!” He has previously criticized the Ninth Circuit, which is based in San Francisco, saying that the court always ruled against him. While that is not always true, the administration’s track record in the circuit has been poor.

The Justice Department, which appealed Judge Seeborg’s decision, argued that the injunction would “impose immediate, substantial harm on the United States, including by diminishing the executive branch’s ability to work effectively with Mexico to manage the crisis on our shared border.”

The Ninth Circuit will consider next week whether to keep the stay — and Mr. Trump’s protocols — in place during the appeal.

Judy Rabinovitz, the deputy director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case, said she expected that decision to come next week.

“The question will be, can the government continue to implement the policy while it appeals it to the Ninth Circuit,” she said. “Obviously, we don’t think it should be able to.”

She called the policy unlawful and cruel.

“We think it should be stopped,” she said.

Lawyers for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The appeals court’s decision comes as the nation’s immigration system may have reached a breaking pointas migrants increasingly arrive at the country’s southwestern border with Mexico.

The flow of migrant families has reached record levels, with February totals 560 percent above those for the same period last year. Many are seeking asylum, in which they have the burden to show evidence of past persecution or testimony that establishes the “well-founded” fear that they would face danger if they return home.

The Trump administration’s migration protection protocols were an attempt to deter migrants. Mexico’s government reluctantly agreed to house the migrants in December.

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No dull moments. Stay tuned.

PWS

04-13-19

CHANGING THE NARRATIVE BY REJECTING THE POLITICS OF HATE & RACISM: Cities Can Embrace Asylum Applicants, Help Them Win Status, & Reach Full Potential!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/seattle-isnt-afraid-of-immigrants-mr-trump/2019/04/12/f26c370e-5d5e-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html

By Jenny A. Durkan

April 12 at 7:05 PM

Jenny A. Durkan, a Democrat, is mayor of Seattle.

Here’s a message to President Trump: Seattle is not afraid of immigrants and refugees. In fact, we have always welcomed people who have faced tremendous hardships around the world. Immigrants and refugees are part of Seattle’s heritage, and they will continue to make us the city of the future.

What does scare us? A president and federal government that would seek to weaponize a law enforcement agency to punish perceived political enemies. A would-be despot who thinks the rule of law does not apply to him.

On Friday, Trump took to Twitter to confirm a Post report that the White House wants to place detained immigrants in so-called sanctuary cities represented by Democrats.

In doing so, he trotted out his favorite playbook: He is demonizing immigrants and refugees to incite fear and to distract the American public from his own failures. Despite his party having control of the whole federal government for two years, Trump has utterly failed to fix our immigration system, to provide real opportunity for middle America or to improve the lives of the Americans in the places that supported him.

It’s clear he hates the fact that the very cities he scorns are engines of innovation, opportunity and economic power. But we will not be deterred. The president’s threats won’t intimidate me as a mayor of a city with an open door, as a former federal prosecutor or as the granddaughter of a teenager who fled a war-torn, starving and impoverished country only to be welcomed in America.

This president believes that immigrants and refugees burden our country and burden cities like ours. But he could not be more wrong.

In Seattle, we know that our immigrant and refugee communities make our city a stronger, more vibrant place. Our immigrant neighbors make up more than 18 percent of our population, and 21 percent of our population speaks a language other than English at home. They create businesses and jobs. They create art and culture. They help teach our kids, serve in law enforcement and the military, and lead our places of faith.

Our immigrant and refugee neighbors have helped Seattle become the fastest-growing big city in the country and become home to some of the world’s most iconic companies. And we know that today’s immigrants are tomorrow’s U.S. citizens who should have the chance to contribute to the economic, cultural and civic life of Seattle — and our nation.

Contrary to what this president thinks, in Seattle, we have strong American values of inclusiveness and opportunity. Instead of threatening immigrant families and the cities that welcome them, this president should spend a little bit more time trying to learn from us.

In Seattle, we have started to provide tuition-free college for our public high school graduates, regardless of a young person’s immigration status. We’re expanding internship and apprenticeships opportunities to connect all our young people with the jobs and opportunities of the future. We’re working to help tens of thousands of legal permanent residents become U.S. citizens as part of the New Citizen Campaign and our other citizenship programs. Our Ready to Work program connects people with case managers and English language education to help our immigrant and refugee neighbors gain the skills necessary to enter our booming jobs market.

We will not allow a president who continues to threaten our shared values of inclusion, opportunity and diversity to jeopardize the health and safety of our communities. That’s why, shortly after taking office, I issued a mayoral directive strengthening Seattle’s “Welcoming City” laws that make clear that our city will not ask about — or improperly divulge information about — a resident’s immigration status. And our police officers will continue to focus on local law enforcement — not serve as federal immigration enforcement officials. This is what the president means when he uses the term “sanctuary city.”

Our city has already taken on this president and won. When Trump and the Justice Department threatened to withhold federal funding over our policies, we beat him in court. When he announced his cruel plan to separate children and families, Democratic mayors stood up to say we are better than this as a country.

So if this president wants to send immigrants and refugees to Seattle and other welcoming cities, let me be clear: We will do what we have always done, and we will be stronger for it. And it will only strengthen our commitment to fighting for the dignity of every person. We will not allow any administration to use the power of America to destroy the promise of America.

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

Well said, Mayor Durkin!

Many, probably the majority, of these families legally seeking asylum are forced migrants. Out of detention, with access to counsel, community support, time to prepare, and without being regulated to “detention center judges,” many of whom are notoriously biased against asylum seekers, the asylum grant rates should go up substantially.

In fact, it’s quite possible that a majority will succeed, because we know that representation generally increases success rates by 4X with a much greater differential for women and children. Those who are unfairly denied will also have a chance to pursue appeals up to the “real” Article III Courts.

It’s a great opportunity for Democrats to put an end to the Trump Administration’s lies about forced migrants “gaming” the system and to strengthen local communities and economies by bringing into the legal immigration system many courageous, talented, determined individuals who seek only survival and a better life and will be grateful for the opportunities given them.

Here’s another article from Philip Bump in the Washington Post about how the Democrats can “call Trump’s bluff,” save lives, and really make America great just by doing the right thing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/12/white-house-wanted-send-migrants-cities-with-lot-immigrants/

PWS

04-12-19

TRUMP SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: Even As Lawless Prez & His Band Of Brigands Considers More Illegal Retaliatory Political Action, U.S. District Judge Slams Termination Of Haitian TPS: “Trump administration . . . being motivated by politics and not facts!” – So, What Else Is New In World Of White Nationalism & Fabricated “Facts?”

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article229151574.html

Jacqueline Charles reports for the Miami Herald:

Accusing the Trump administration of being motivated by politics and not facts, a second U.S. federal judge is blocking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from forcing tens of thousands of Haitians to return to Haiti by ending their temporary legal protection.

In a 145-page federal ruling, U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz of the Eastern District of New York issued a nationwide temporary injunction preventing DHS from terminating Temporary Protected Status, TPS, for Haitians. Kuntz said 50,000 to 60,000 Haitians and their U.S.-born children would suffer “irreparable harm” if the legal protection ended and they were forced to return to a country that is not safe.

Kuntz’s detailed ruling came out of a lawsuit filed by Haitians in Florida and New York, challenging the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS granted to Haiti by the Obama administration after its 2010 devastating earthquake. The administration has rescinded the protection for Central America and some African nations as well, sparking several lawsuits around the country.

“It’s a sweeping indictment of the political manner in which the Trump administration at the very highest levels of the government illegally terminated Protected Status for Haitians,” said Miami immigration attorney Ira Kurzban, one of several lawyers who filed the lawsuit.

In October, a federal judge in California granted a temporary injunction blocking the administration from deporting Haitian TPS holders and others as their termination deadlines approach. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen granted the temporary injunction as part of a California lawsuit filed by lawyers on behalf of TPS recipients from Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan who have U.S.-born children. The decision is being appealed by the government.

Kurzban noted that unlike the California case, which had not yet gone to trial when Chen issued his decision, Kuntz’s decision is the result of a full-blown trial. The New York lawsuit was the first of the five to go to trial.

“It’s far more detailed in its reasoning in respect to why what the government did was completely illegal,” Kurzban said of Kuntz’s decision. “It found findings on discrimination. … It found very clearly that the government’s decision was not only an arbitrary decision, but they violated their own procedures in reaching the conclusion that they reached.

“This is a direct and very detailed account of how the government acted in a completely arbitrary way,” he added.

During the trial, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that then-Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke violated procedures and TPS holders’ due process when she ended the program for Haiti. They also cited emails and other internal government documents, including Duke’s handwritten November 2017 notes, to bolster the plaintiffs’ argument: that the White House was not interested in the facts about conditions in Haiti as DHS officials mulled over whether to continue to shield up to 60,000 Haitians from deportations, and Duke was under repeated pressure to terminate the program.

The decision, the suit alleged, was also rooted in the president’s “racially discriminatory attitude toward all brown and black people.”

“Clearly political motivations influenced Secretary Duke’s decision to terminate TPS for Haiti,” Kuntz said in his findings. “A TPS termination should not be a political decision made to carry out political motivations. Ultimately, the potential political ramifications should not have factored into the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS.”

Kuntz said he could not issue a final injunction, only a temporary one, because Haiti’s TPS designation, which was supposed to end on July 22 but was recently extended by DHS until January 2020 due to the legal challenges, has not yet expired.

Steve Forester, an immigration advocate who has been championing the rights of Haitians enrolled in the TPS program, said it was “a victory demonstrating the government’s unlawful and unconstitutional behavior in reaching its decision to terminate Haiti TPS.”

“It’s a resounding condemnation of unlawful government behavior,” added Forester, who works as policy coordinator for the Boston-based Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.

The government is expected to appeal.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article229151574.html#storylink=cpy

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The Trump Administration plans to tie up the Federal Courts with more frivolous litigation based on their knowingly and intentionally unlawful actions. That’s even as today, Trump refuted reports that he had discarded the idea of unlawfully “dumping” asylum applicants on so-called “sanctuary cities” as punishment to Democrats who have opposed his lawless regime. The Administration’s own lawyers say what Trump wants to do is illegal.

The lies come so fast and furious from Trump and his cronies that the White House “flacks” can’t even keep their fictional “cover stories” straight.

Fraud, waste, and abuse right in plain sight.

PWS

04-12-19

TRUMP’S LATEST IMMIGRATION SHENANIGANS: Scofflaw White House Politicos Considered Illegal Scheme To “Dump” Asylum Applicants In Cities That Lawfully Resisted White Nationalist Overreach!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/white-house-proposed-releasing-immigrant-detainees-in-sanctuary-cities-targeting-political-foes/2019/04/11/72839bc8-5c68-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html?utm_term=.25b4f6c577aa

Rachel Bade and Nick Miroff report for WashPost:

White House officials have tried to pressure U.S. immigration authorities to release detainees onto the streets of “sanctuary cities” to retaliate against President Trump’s political adversaries, according to Department of Homeland Security officials and email messages reviewed by The Washington Post.

Trump administration officials have proposed transporting detained immigrants to sanctuary cities at least twice in the past six months — once in November, as a migrant caravan approached the U.S. southern border, and again in February, amid a standoff with Democrats over funding for Trump’s border wall.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco was among those the White House wanted to target, according to DHS officials. The administration also considered releasing detainees in other Democratic strongholds.

White House officials first broached the plan in a Nov. 16 email, asking officials at several agencies whether members of the caravan could be arrested at the border and then bused “to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities,” places where local authorities have refused to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.

[Trump administration considers revised version of family separation tactic]

The White House told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the plan was intended to alleviate a shortage of detention space but also served to send a message to Democrats. The attempt at political retribution raised alarm within ICE, with a top official responding that it was rife with budgetary and liability concerns, and noting that “there are PR risks as well.”

After the White House pressed again in February, ICE’s legal department rejected the idea as inappropriate and rebuffed the administration.

A White House official and a spokesman for DHS sent nearly identical statements to The Post on Thursday, indicating that the proposal is no longer under consideration.

“This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion,” the White House statement said.

Protesters hold up signs outside a courthouse in San Francisco in April 2017, arguing against tough immigration enforcement efforts. (Haven Daley/AP)

Pelosi’s office blasted the plan.

“The extent of this administration’s cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated,” said Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne. “Using human beings — including little children — as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable.”

President Trump has made immigration a central aspect of his administration, and he has grown increasingly frustrated at the influx of migrants from Central America. He often casts them as killers and criminals who threaten U.S. security, pointing to cases in which immigrants have killed U.S. citizens — including a notable case on a San Francisco pier in 2015. And he has railed against liberal sanctuary-city policies, saying they endanger Americans.

“These outrageous sanctuary cities are grave threats to public safety and national security,” Trump said in a speech to the Safe Neighborhoods Conference in Kansas City, Mo., on Dec. 7, less than a month after the White House asked ICE about moving detainees to such cities. “Each year, sanctuary cities release thousands of known criminal aliens from their custody and right back into the community. So they put them in, and they have them, and they let them go, and it drives you people a little bit crazy, doesn’t it, huh?”

Anti-sanctuary law protesters rally outside of the Los Alamitos City Hall, before a vote on whether to comply with the “sanctuary state” law in Los Alamitos, Calif., in April 2018. (Philip Cheung for The Washington Post)

The White House believed it could punish Democrats — including Pelosi — by busing ICE detainees into their districts before their release, according to two DHS whistleblowers who independently reported the busing plan to Congress. One of the whistleblowers spoke with The Washington Post, and several DHS officials confirmed the accounts. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller discussed the proposal with ICE, according to two DHS officials. Matthew Albence, who is ICE’s acting deputy director, immediately questioned the proposal in November and later circulated the idea within his agency when it resurfaced in February, seeking the legal review that ultimately doomed the proposal. Miller and Albence declined to comment Thursday.

Miller’s name did not appear on any of the documents reviewed by The Post. But as he is White House senior adviser on immigration policy, officials at ICE understood that he was pressing the plan.

Presidential adviser Stephen Miller attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Aug. 16. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Trump has been demanding aggressive action to deal with the surge of migrants, and many of his administration’s proposals have been blocked in federal court or, like the family separation policy last year, have backfired as public relations disasters.

Homeland Security officials said the sanctuary city request was unnerving, and it underscores the political pressure Trump and Miller have put on ICE and other DHS agencies at a time when the president is furious about the biggest border surge in more than a decade.

“It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out,” said one congressional investigator who has spoken to one of the whistleblowers. “What happened here is that Stephen Miller called people at ICE, said if they’re going to cut funding, you’ve got to make sure you’re releasing people in Pelosi’s district and other congressional districts.” The investigator spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the whistleblower.

The idea of releasing immigrants into sanctuary cities was not presented to Ronald Vitiello, the agency’s acting director, according to one DHS official familiar with the plan. Last week, the White House rescinded Vitiello’s nomination to lead ICE, giving no explanation, and Vitiello submitted his resignation Wednesday, ending his 30-year-career.

Trump praises Sessions’s work to shut down sanctuary cities

President Trump said on March 8 that the Justice Department is doing a “fantastic job” to get rid of sanctuary city policies. (The Washington Post)

The day after Vitiello’s nomination was rescinded, President Trump told reporters he wanted to put someone “tougher” at ICE. DHS officials said they do not know whether ICE’s refusal to adopt the White House’s plan contributed to Vitiello’s removal. His departure puts Albence in charge of the agency as of Friday.

The White House proposal reached ICE first in November as a highly publicized migrant caravan was approaching the United States. May Davis, deputy assistant to the president and deputy White House policy coordinator, wrote to officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security with the subject line: “Sanctuary City Proposal.”

“The idea has been raised by 1-2 principals that, if we are unable to build sufficient temporary housing, that caravan members be bussed to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities,” Davis wrote, seeking responses to the idea’s operational and legal viability. “There is NOT a White House decision on this.”

Albence replied that such a plan “would create an unnecessary operational burden” on an already strained organization and raised concerns about its appropriateness, writing: “Not sure how paying to transport aliens to another location to release them — when they can be released on the spot — is a justified expenditure. Not to mention the liability should there be an accident along the way.”

Matthew Albence, ICE acting deputy director, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2018. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

The White House pushed the issue a second time in the midst of the budget standoff in mid-February, according to DHS officials, and on the heels of a bitterly partisan 35-day government shutdown over Trump’s border wall plan. The White House discussed the immigrant release idea as a way to punish Democrats standing in the way of funding additional detention beds.

ICE detainees with violent criminal records are not typically released on bond or other “alternatives to detention” while they await a hearing with an immigration judge, but there have been instances of such detainees being released.

The White House urged ICE to channel releases to sanctuary districts, regardless of whether immigrants had any ties to those places.

“It was retaliation, to show them, ‘Your lack of cooperation has impacts,’ ” said one of the DHS officials, summarizing the rationale. “I think they thought it would put pressure on those communities to understand, I guess, a different perspective on why you need more immigration money for detention beds.”

Senior officials at ICE did not take the proposal seriously at first, but as the White House exerted pressure, ICE’s legal advisers were asked to weigh in, DHS officials said.

A formal legal review was never completed, according to two DHS officials familiar with the events, but senior ICE attorneys told Albence and others that the plan was inappropriate and lacked a legal basis.

“If we would have done that, we would have had to expend transportation resources, and make a decision that we’re going to use buses, planes, etc., to send these aliens to a place for whatever reason,” a senior DHS official said. “We had to come up with a reason, and we did not have one.”

The proposal faded when House Democrats ultimately relented on their demand for a decrease in the number of detention beds, a final sticking point in budget talks between the White House and House Democrats.

An immigration detainee stands near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement grievance box in the high-security unit at the Theo Lacy Facility, a county jail that also houses immigration detainees in Orange, Calif. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

The number of immigrant detainees in ICE custody has approached 50,000 in recent months, an all-time high that has further strained the agency’s budget. Those include immigrants arrested in the U.S. interior, as well as recent border-crossers transferred from U.S. Border Patrol. With unauthorized migration at a 12-year high, the vast majority of recent migrants — and especially those with children — are quickly processed and released with a notice to appear in court, a system that Trump has derided as “catch and release.”

The process has left Trump seething, convinced that immigration officials and DHS more broadly should adopt a harsher approach.

Vitiello’s removal from ICE last week was followed Sunday by the ouster of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who lost favor with Trump and Miller by repeatedly warning the White House that the administration’s policy ideas were unworkable and likely to be blocked by federal courts.

The sanctuary city proposal ran contrary to ICE policy guidelines, as well as legal counsel. ICE officials balked at the notion of moving migrants to detention facilities in different areas, insisting that Congress only authorizes the agency to deport immigrants, not relocate them internally, according to DHS officials.

The plan to retaliate against sanctuary cities came just after Trump agreed to reopen the government in late January, following a five-week shutdown over wall funding. The president gave lawmakers three weeks to come up with a plan to secure the border before a second fiscal deadline in mid-February.

During the talks, Republicans and Democrats sparred over the number of detention beds, with House Democrats pressing for a lower number amid pressure from their left flank.

It was during that mid-February standoff that one whistleblower went to Congress alleging that the White House was considering a plan to punish Democrats if they did not relent on ICE funding for beds. A second official independently came forward after that.

According to both, there were at least two versions of the plan being considered. One was to move migrants who were already in ICE detention to the districts of Democratic opponents. The second option was to bus migrants apprehended at the border to sanctuary cities, such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer monitors a demonstration outside of the San Francisco ICE office on June 19, 2018. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.

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

Notwithstanding Trump’s “law-free” views, his Administration’s attempts to “punish” so-called “sanctuary cities,” led by scofflaw former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, were uniformly held unlawful by Federal Courts.

If this report is true, Stephen Miller and other White House officials involved may have committed crimes by conspiring to urge the improper spending of Government funds for political retaliation. If nothing else, it shows how willing the Trump Administration is to waste taxpayer money on various White Nationalist schemes to further a bogus racist-inspired anti-migrant narrative rather than using our money prudently to solve problems.

PWS

04-11-19

TAL @ SF CHRON: Dems Start Talking Specifics On Immigration For 2020

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/2020-Democrats-grapple-with-immigration-message-13746205.php

2020 Democrats grapple with immigration message as border crossings surge

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — Democrats credit their 2018 midterm success to focusing on pocketbook issues and avoiding engaging with President Trump on immigration They may not have that luxury in 2020.

The U.S. is on pace to receive more migrants at the southern border — many of whom are seeking asylum — in fiscal year 2019 than in any year in over a decade. At current rates, more than 750,000 migrants would either be caught trying to cross the border illegally or show up at a valid crossing without authorization to enter. The Trump administration says it is unable to handle the influx, and photos of migrants held in pens under a bridge in El Paso last month made national headlines.

But aside from condemning Trump’s immigration policies as cruel contributors to the problem, Democrats have largely avoided talking about border-security ideas. Most of the party’s presidential candidates have focused on expanding access to health care and other economic measures intended to boost the middle class, and have touched on immigration only in broad strokes.

But that could change very soon — and should, some experts say.

“Trump wants to turn the 2020 election into a debate between GOP border hawks and Democratic open borders-types,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice. “Democrats would be wise to turn the debate into Trump’s cruelty and incompetence versus Democrats’ practical solutions. … I think it’s a time for serious people to step up with serious ideas.”

Trump threatened to close the U.S. border with Mexico before backing away from the idea last week. But he’s made clear that just as they were in 2016, immigration issues will be at the center of his 2020 campaign. On Friday, the Trump campaign released a video consisting of comments from Democratic presidential contenders downplaying the situation at the border, with text declaring, “Democrats do not want to keep Americans safe.”

Democrats consistently attack Trump’s immigration comments and agenda, but tend to limit discussion of their own policies to promoting paths to citizenship for sympathetic populations of undocumented migrants. Some worry that if they don’t have a clear plan to address the increasing numbers of asylum seekers at the border, Trump could ride the issue to victory again.

“This is going to be the cannon fodder for the Trump campaign and for Republicans in general,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., a senior member of Congress’ Progressive Caucus and Hispanic Caucus. “I think that we need to be proactive. … The hard edge is going to want nothing but Trump’s policy, of which there is none. I think the vast middle are looking for somebody taking the lead to try to solve the issue, as opposed to continuing to use it” politically.

Two of former President Barack Obama’s top communications strategists agreed.

“We need to go on offense as soon as humanly possible,” former Obama national security spokesman Tommy Vietor said last week on the “Pod Save America” podcast. “We can’t sit back and say just, ‘No wall, no fence,’ and let him hammer us until (the) election.”

Former Obama chief speechwriter Jon Favreau added, “The point that Democrats don’t make enough is, we always say that his immigration policy is cruel, which it is, but it’s also dumb. It just doesn’t work.”

Although Grijalva has not endorsed any of the Democratic candidates for president, he praised former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro for releasing a formal immigration policy last week, making him the first candidate to do so.

Castro’s proposal includes the Democratic staples of offering a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers” — young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors — as well as the broader undocumented population. It would rescind many Trump administration policies, including the ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries and other nations, and pour money and diplomatic resources into the Central American nations that many of the migrants are fleeing.

Castro also proposes progressive positions like breaking up Immigration and Customs Enforcement and redistributing its functions. He also would make it no longer a crime to cross the border illegally, leaving it up to immigration courts to handle the civil offenses related to being in the country without authorization.

Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke comes from the border city of El Paso, but when he served in the House, he played no leadership role in immigration debates. O’Rourke wrote a Medium post last week on the issue and offered a set of 10 proposals that included expanding legal immigration and investing in border infrastructure and Central America.

Other candidates have also spoken up about immigration, without making it a central theme of their campaigns. The Chronicle reached out to the major declared candidates for their policies, and all the ones who responded supported a pathway to citizenship for at least some undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. But none offered many specifics about what they would do at the southern border, other than encouraging aid to Central America.

California’s Kamala Harris has engaged on the issue as a senator, questioning the Department of Homeland Security on its policies and being an outspoken advocate of Dreamers. Last week, she introduced a bill that would allow Dreamers who are temporarily protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act to be paid for work in congressional offices. She frequently cites her own life story as the child of two immigrants. But as a candidate, Harris has said little about her border policy proposals and has made economic issues her signature.

A spokeswoman for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said he would reform the immigration system while “enforcing our laws and securing our borders in ways consistent with our values.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wants a “humane and secure” system that “dismantles inhumane deportation programs,” restructures ICE and puts “the sanctity of families at the forefront,” according to his campaign.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren supports comprehensive immigration reform, reversing cuts in aid to Central America and “making sure we provide the support needed so mamas don’t have to flee with their babies for their lives,” according to an aide.

The lack of engagement by the presidential field is indicative of broader soul-searching within the party, including in the House. Progressive Caucus co-chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said she is part of a group working on “principles” for the party. O’Rourke’s successor in his House seat, Rep. Veronica Escobar, said she spoke to the Democratic caucus during a recent closed-door meeting about the need to come up with a plan.

“The Trump administration does everything it can to fuel the flames of fear and discord and xenophobia, and we have to demonstrate an alternative to that,” Escobar said. “So I do think presidential candidates need to lean in.”

But not every Democrat thinks going on offense on immigration would be wise. Swing district Democrats largely avoided the issue in the 2018 midterms — they were “queasy” at the idea of getting near it, Grijalva said — and some Democrats hope to repeat their success by side-stepping it again, at least for now.

“We had a 35-day national conversation about border security, and it ended with Donald Trump engaging in an unconditional surrender,” said New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a member of party leadership, referring to the partial government shutdown over border wall funding. “The 116th Congress, from the perspective of House Democrats, will continue to be about lowering health care costs and enacting a real infrastructure plan, and trying to do those two things in a bipartisan fashion.”

He said Democrats’ focus in the presidential race should be distinguishing themselves in the primary. “It’s not necessarily clear to me that in that context there’s a lot of daylight on immigration,” Jeffries said. “Once somebody emerges as a Democratic nominee, then there will be an opportunity to lay out a contrasting vision with the xenophobe-in-chief Donald Trump.”

Hillary Clinton’s former campaign press secretary, Brian Fallon, who now runs the left-aligned advocacy group Demand Justice, argued that Democrats should avoid debating on Trump’s terms.

“In 2020, Donald Trump can be expected to do the same thing that he did leading up to the 2018 midterms, which is try to manufacture political controversies on his issues,” Fallon said. “Getting wrapped around the axle on the terrain that he wants to fight on is a losing strategy, and he would love the first, second, and third issue in October of 2020 to be immigration. And if we are trying to choose our preferred issue, it should be health care.”

A senior aide for Trump’s re-election campaign confirmed that Trump would again be running on a border security message.

“He’s made that a cornerstone of his campaign since Day One — that’s not going to change,” said the aide, who requested anonymity to speak more freely. “Democrats are denying the crisis at the border. They want to see who can go the furthest left as they try and not address the issue at hand. They want to abolish ICE, they want to tear down existing barriers, they want to decriminalize border crossings. At what point are we addressing what is a true crisis at the southern border?”

One risk for Democrats is letting the loudest and most progressive voices define the issue for the party, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the moderate immigration advocacy group the National Immigration Forum. Many progressives, for example, want to abolish ICE, a proposal that could be unpopular with swing voters.

“I think the challenge for the party writ large, whether it’s the presidential candidates or Congress, is the perception that Democrats are just against whatever Trump is for on immigration, and a lot of the political conversation is sucked up by the progressive element in the House,” Noorani said.

The 2020 candidates should quickly articulate their own vision on the issue, he added. “Otherwise, Trump will define the Democrats’ position for them.”

Some Republicans join Democrats in believing Trump has left room in the middle with his aggressive immigration agenda. GOP strategist Kevin Madden, a veteran of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, said Trump’s immigration message hurt Republicans with suburban swing voters in the midterms, and that “pragmatism” would sell.

“It can’t just be reflexive opposition,” Madden said. “If you know this debate is going to take place, why would you wait until the president starts attacking you to come up with your plan and your message? You have to have an anticipatory self-defense on this so you have a greater opportunity to win the middle.”

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan

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A rational, humane, generous immigration policy that benefits the economy while rejecting the politics of bombast, hate, racism, and ignorance should be a winner in 2022 just like it was in 2018. That’s particularly true because Trump and the GOP have self destructed on health care, another winning issue for the Dems.

As I mentioned last week, I think the immigration policy agenda offered by Julian Castro is where America must go sooner or later to survive and prosper. He might not be the candidate, but his common-sense, fact-based proposal could be the “winning ticket.”

PWS

04-07-19

TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!

TRUMP’S MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE IS THE REAL “SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS” — AND, A GENUINE HUMAN TRAGEDY — The Legal Tools To Address The Crisis In The Northern Triangle Causing A Refugee Flow Exist; This Administration Stubbornly Refuses To Use Them!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judges (Retired)

In short, families are coming to ports of entry and crossing the border to turn themselves in to be screened for credible fear and apply for asylum under our existing laws. That’s not a “border crisis;” it’s a humanitarian tragedy. It won’t be solved by more law enforcement or harsher measures; we’re actually quite fortunate that folks still believe in the system enough to voluntarily subject themselves to it.

Most don’t present any particular “danger” to the U.S. They are just trying to apply for legal protection under our laws. That’s something that has been denied them abroad because we don’t have a refugee program for the Northern Triangle. This Administration actually eliminated the already inadequate one we had under Obama.

Certainly, we have enough intelligence to know that these flows were coming. They aren’t secret. There was plenty of time to plan.

What could and should have been done is to increase the number of Asylum Officers and POE Inspectors by hiring retired Asylum Officers, Inspectors, adjudicators, and temps from the NGO sector who worked in the refugee field, but no longer have anything to do overseas since this Administration has basically dismantled the overseas refugee program.

A more competent DOJ could also have developed a corps of retired Immigration Judges (and perhaps other types of retired judges who could do bond setting and other functions common to many judicial systems) who already “know the ropes” and could have volunteered to go to the border and other places with overloads.

Also, working closely with and coordinating with the NGOs and the pro bono bar would have helped the credible fear process to go faster, be fairer, the Immigration Courts to function more fairly and efficiently, and would have screened out some of the “non viable” cases.

For some, staying in Mexico is probably a better and safer option, but folks don’t understand. Pro bono counsel can, and do, explain that.

By treating it as a humanitarian tragedy, which it is, rather than a “fake law enforcement crisis,” the Administration could have united the private sector, border states, communities, and Congress in supporting the effort; instead they sowed division, opposition, and unnecessary litigation. I’m actually sure that most of the teams of brilliant “Big Law” lawyers helping “Our Gang of Retired Judges” and other to file amicus briefs pro bono would just as soon be working on helping individuals through the system.

A timely, orderly, and fair system for screening, adjudicating, and recognizing refugee rights under our existing laws would have allowed the Administration to channel arrivals to various ports of entry.

I think that the result of such a system would have been that most families would have passed credible fear and the majority of those would have been granted asylum, withholding, or CAT.

Certainly, others think the result would have been mostly rejections (But, I note even in the “Trump Era” merits approval rates for Northern Triangle countries are in the 18-23% range — by no means an insignificant success rate). But, assuming “the rejectionists” are right, then they have the “timely rejection deterrent” that they so desire without stomping on anyone’s rights. (Although my experience over decades has been that rejections, detention, prosecutions, and harsh rhetoric are ineffective as deterrents).

No matter who is right about the ultimate results of fair asylum adjudication, under my system the Border Patrol could go back to their job of tracking down smugglers, drug traffickers, criminals, and the few suspected terrorists who seek to cross the border. While this might not satisfy anyone’s political agenda, it would be an effective and efficient use of law enforcement resources and sound administration of migrant protection and immigration laws. That’s certainly not what’s happening now.

PWS

04-06-19

JULIAN CASTRO: A Democrat With A Sane & Sound Immigration Plan!

https://www.julianforthefuture.com/news-events/people-first-immigration-policy/

People First Immigration Policy

By Julián Castro on April 2, 2019

People First Immigration Policy

Immigration Policy Summary

1. Reforming our Immigration System

Establish an inclusive roadmap to citizenship for undocumented individuals and families who do not have a current pathway to legal status, but who live, work, and raise families in communities throughout the United States.

Provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and those under Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure, through the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, and defend DACA and TPS protections during the legislative process.

Revamp the visa system and strengthen family reunification through the Reuniting Families Act, reducing the number of people who are waiting to reunite with their families but are stuck in the bureaucratic backlog.

Terminate the three and ten year bars, which require undocumented individuals—who otherwise qualify for legal status—to leave the United States and their families behind for years before becoming citizens.

Rescind Trump’s discriminatory Muslim and Refugee Ban, other harmful immigration-related executive orders, racial profiling of minority communities, and expanded use of denaturalization as a frequently used course of action through the USCIS Denaturalization Task Force.

Increase refugee admissions, reversing cuts under Trump, and restoring our nation to its historic position as a moral leader providing a safe haven for those fleeing persecution, violence, disaster, and despair. Adapt these programs to account for new global challenges like climate change.

End cooperation agreements under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and other such agreements between federal immigration enforcement agencies and state and local entities that erode trust between communities and local police.

Allow all deported veterans who honorably served in the armed forces of the United States to return to the United States and end the practice of deporting such veterans.

Strengthen labor protections for skilled and unskilled guest workers and end exploitative practices which hurt residents and guest workers, provide work authorization to spouses of participating individuals, and ensured skilled and unskilled guest workers have a fair opportunity to become residents and citizens through the Agricultural Worker Program Act.

Protect victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, ensuring these individuals are not subject to detention, deportation, or legal reprisal following their reporting these incidents.

2. Creating a Humane Border Policy

Repeal Section 1325 of Immigration and Nationality Act, which applies a criminal, rather than civil, violation to people apprehended when entering the United States. This provision has allowed for separation of children and families at our border, the large scale detention of tens of thousands of families, and has deterred migrants from turning themselves in to an immigration official within our borders. The widespread detention of these individuals and families at our border has overburdened our justice system, been ineffective at deterring migration, and has cost our government billions of dollars.

Effectively end the use of detention in conducting immigration enforcement, except in serious cases.Utilize cost-effective and more humane alternatives to detention, which draw on the successes of prior efforts like the Family Case Management Program. Ensure all individuals have access to a bond hearing and that vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant women, and members of the LGBTQ community are not placed in civil detention.

Eliminate the for-profit immigration detention and prison industry, which monetizes the detention of migrants and children.

End immigration enforcement raids at or near sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals, churches, and courthouses.

Reconstitute the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) by splitting the agency in half and re-assigning enforcement functions within the Enforcement and Removal Operations to other agencies, including the Department of Justice. There must be a thorough investigation of ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and the Department of Justice’s role in family separation policies instituted by the Trump administration.

Reprioritize Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to focus its efforts on border-related activities including drug and human trafficking, rather than law enforcement activities in the interior of the United States. Extend Department of Justice civil rights jurisdiction to CBP, and adopt best practices employed in law enforcement, including body-worn cameras and strong accountability policies.

End wasteful, ineffective and invasive border wall construction and consult with border communities about repairing environmental and other damage already done.
Properly equip our ports of entry, investing in infrastructure, staff, and technology to process claims and prevent human and drug trafficking.

End asylum “metering” and the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, ensuring all asylum seekers are able to present their claims to U.S.officials.

Create a well-resourced and independent immigration court system under Article 1 of the Constitution, outside the Department of Justice, to increase the hiring and retention of independent judges to adjudicate immigration claims faster.

Increase access to legal assistance for individuals and families presenting asylum claims, ensuring individuals understand their rights and are able to make an informed and accurate request for asylum. Guarantee counsel for all children in the immigration enforcement system.

Protect victims of domestic and gang violence, by reversing guidance by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that prohibited asylum claims on the basis of credible fear stemming from domestic or gang violence.

3. Establishing a 21st Century ‘Marshall Plan’ for Central America

Prioritize high-level diplomacy with our neighbors in Latin America, a region where challenges in governance and economic development have consequences to migration to the United States, U.S. economic growth, and regional instability.

Ensure higher standards of governance, transparency, rule-of-law, and anti-corruption practice as the heart of U.S. engagement with Central America, rejecting the idea that regional stability requires overlooking authoritarian actions.

Enlist all actors in Central America to be part of the solution by restoring U.S. credibility on corruption and transparency and encouraging private sector, civil society, and local governments to work together – rather than at cross purposes – to build sustainable, equitable societies.

Bolster economic development, superior labor rights, and environmentally sustainable jobs, allowing individuals to build a life in their communities rather than make a dangerous journey leaving their homes.

Ensure regional partners are part of the solution by working with countries in the Western Hemisphere to channel resources to address development challenges in Central America, including through a newly constituted multilateral development fund focused on sustainable and inclusive economic growth in Central America.

Target illicit networks and transnational criminal organizations through law enforcement actions and sanctions mechanisms to eliminate their ability to raise revenue from illegal activities like human and drug trafficking and public corruption.

Re-establish the Central American Minors program, which allows individuals in the United States to petition for their minor children residing in Central America to apply for resettlement in the U.S. while their applications are pending.

Increase funding for bottom-up development and violence prevention programs, including the Inter-American Foundation, to spur initiatives that prevent violence at the local level, support public health and nutrition, and partner with the private sector to create jobs.

Finally a thoughtful, empirically-based, plan that stops wasting money, harming people, and limiting America’s future: Moving us forward rather than “doubling down” on all of the worst failures and most dismal mistakes of the past.

Castro’s plan echoes many of the ideas I have been promoting on immigrationcourtside.com and reflects the “battle plan” of the “New Due Process Army.” Most important, it establishes an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court, the key to making any reforms effective and bringing back the essential emphasis on fulfilling our Constitutional requirement to “guarantee fairness and Due Process for all.”

While stopping short of recommending “universal representation,” something I would favor, Castro does:

Recognize the importance of increasing, rather than intentionally limiting access to counsel;
Promote “know your rights” presentations that help individuals understand the system, its requirements, their responsibilities, and to make informed decisions about how to proceed; and
Universal representation for children in Immigration Court (thus, finally ending one of the most grotesque “Due Process Farces” in modern U.S. legal history).

So far, Castro remains “below the radar” in the overcrowded race to be the 2020 Democratic standard-bearer. But, even if his presidential campaign fails to “catch fire” his thoughtful, humane, practical, and forward-looking immigration agenda deserves attention and emulation.

Many thanks to Nolan Rappaport for passing this along.

PWS

04-03-19

TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICIES APPEAR TO BE ENCOURAGING ILLEGAL ENTRIES!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=d5c94949-b401-4f6b-9302-b19af62066b3

Wendy Fry reports in the LA Times/San Diego Times-Union:

SAN DIEGO — Three months into the Department of Homeland Security’s program that requires asylum-seeking migrants to wait in Mexico until their U.S. immigration hearings, observers said Friday that the policy may actually be encouraging illegal border crossings.

Last week, migrants rushed the border at least four times at Playas de Tijuana, many of them saying they were motivated by not wanting to wait in Mexico.

A Customs and Border Protection official said migrants who cross the border illegally are not being returned to Mexico while they seek asylum. Instead, they are taken into custody, where they eventually get to wait in the United States, sometimes up to three or four years until their asylum hearings before an American immigration judge.

“Why would I spend three years here in Tijuana when I could be in the United States?” asked Jeydi Fuentes Lopez Montes, a 29-year-old mother from Honduras traveling with a 1-year-old child. “I know there is work here in Tijuana, but isn’t the work better over there?”

Fuentes said she went to Tijuana planning to wait in line to ask for asylum, but she said that when she learned the list to get an initial appointment with U.S. officials could take several months, she decided to try to find another way into the U.S.

Legal experts say a judge is not allowed to deny a person’s asylum request based solely on whether he or she entered the country legally or illegally.

Samuel Rodriguez Guzman, from El Salvador, arrived in Tijuana this month. He said he went to the beach Thursday after hearing about more people successfully entering the U.S. illegally, and seeing on the news people getting through the border infrastructure at Playas.

“I’m trying whatever way I can to immigrate to the United States,” Rodriguez said. “I had problems with the gangs in my country and my father did, too. They want to kill us. When we get there to the United States, they have to respect our human rights to ask for asylum, right?”

Alan Bersin, the former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said there is no coordinated system between the Mexican government and the U.S. to accept large numbers of migrants returned to Tijuana.

So far, fewer than 300 people have been returned to Mexico under the program.

“It’s an incompetent program,” said Bersin, adding that people who cross illegally should be returned to Mexico in the same numbers as those who wait for months in line for their turn to cross legally.

“This policy has a chance of succeeding as a deterrent,” he said. “But [Mexican President Andres Manuel] Lopez Obrador is trying to avoid a fight with Trump so he says yes to everything but does nothing.”

This month, migrants have been climbing through holes in border fencing at Playas or climbing over the 15-foot-high fence.

On March 13, some people slipped through a hole in the border fencing near the beach. One of the men, who was seen in a video running down the beach carrying a small child while a border agent chased him, provided updates via WhatsApp to several people in his group and some witnesses. He said he was not apprehended and made it to Los Angeles.

A group of about 60 people who crossed on March 14 included men, women and children, most of whom said they were from Honduras. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio said 52 people from that group were arrested.

Border officials also arrested 23 people from Honduras and one from Guatemala on Tuesday after they scaled the fence near the beach.

Then Thursday, activity at the border intensified as border agents and migrants clashed.

Two migrants and several witnesses said agents shot pepper spray across the fence and into their eyes. During the incident, one man climbed the fence and dropped into the U.S. before he was detained by border agents.

DeSio said Customs and Border Protection is averaging 167 arrests a day in the San Diego County area of responsibility, which stretches east to past Jacumba.

“Every arrest in San Diego Sector is investigated. Every breach in San Diego County is a concern whether it’s near Imperial Beach or in Jacumba,” DeSio said in a written statement. “Compromises in our fence are common due to our aging infrastructure. Efforts are made to repair breaches or compromises in a timely manner.”

On Friday, another hole big enough for people to climb through was visible at the base of the border fence at Playas.

“Really, we’re tired of fighting because we just want to cross and ask for asylum…. We’re not rude. We are allowed to come here and ask for asylum,” said Jose Reinera, a Honduran migrant who climbed up on top of the fence at Las Playas on Thursday.

Reinera said he turned back and climbed back down on the Mexican side of the border when he realized his wife and children would not be able to make the climb.

Fry writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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

Up until now, the Administration has been fortunate that their cruel, sometimes illegal, and always incompetent policies haven’t made things even worse.

Fact is, most individuals applying for asylum still turn themselves in either at legal ports of entry or shortly after crossing the border to apply for asylum. They can be logged in, fingerprinted, screened for criminal records and credible fear. Those who can’t demonstrate credible fear can be expeditiously returned.

Those who pass, become part of the legal system. If given an opportunity to understand the asylum system, obtain legal a representation (we know that represented asylum applicants succeed at a rate of 4X to 17X those who are forced to proceed without representation) and fairly present their cases, most will show up in Immigration Court. Many of those who are represented and treated fairly will qualify for asylum, withholding of removal, or relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), even in today’s administrative system which has been intentionally and unfairly skewed against them and their claims.

Those who don’t qualify will be subject to removal, although many will nevertheless face very real and legitimate harm (not fitting within our legalistic and often arcane asylum system) that a more prudent and humane Administration might use to fashion some type of temporary or long-term respite from removal.

But, if the Administration succeeds in it’s mindless plan to destroy the legal asylum and Immigration Court systems, forced migrants, who come of necessity not choice, will simply stop using it. With the help of smugglers, and paying higher prices and taking more deadly risks, many will simply be smuggled into the interior of our country. There, they will lose themselves in our huge country with a diverse population and an insatiable need for labor at all levels.

No screening, no registration, no taxes, etc. — some will undoubtedly be caught and removed. But the vast majority will remain “in the underground” until 1) we legalize them; 2) they decide that conditions have changed so it is their best interests to return to their native lands, or 3) they eventually get old and die. Not to mention that by forcing them into the “immigration black market” we deprive them of their human dignity and a chance to contribute their full potential to our country, while we lose the many benefits of having them do so.

Sounds like a bad system. But, it’s the type of mindless, White Nationalist, “lose, lose, lose” restrictionism that this Administration loves to feed to its “political base.” A bigger “immigration underground” means more folks to hate, loathe, blame, and run against.

PWS

03-26-19

“DOJ MISMANAGEMENT CENTRAL:” In Failing U.S. Immigration Courts, Political Interference & Idiotic Quotas Push 1.1 Million Plus Case Backlog Higher!

https://apple.news/ASsFWST9rQTSnqDmrVtuZ2Q

Immigration judges say quotas will increase backlog of cases

LOS ANGELES — Immigration judges say a new quota system threatens to increase an already overwhelming backlog of cases in U.S. immigration courts.

The system pushes for judges to close 700 cases a year and calls for them to be evaluated on that quota.

Immigration Judge Ashley Tabaddor said in a March 12 letter to lawmakers that the change would create a perception of government interference in the handling of cases that will lead more immigrants to file appeals.

Tabaddor, who heads the National Association of Immigration Judges, says the move could also flood federal courts with cases.

It can take years to get a decision in the immigration courts, which have more than 800,000 pending cases.

The letter followed testimony last week before a House subcommittee by James McHenry, who oversees the nation’s immigration courts.

A message sent to immigration court officials was not immediately returned.

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

Apparently, it’s going to take a complete collapse of not only the U.S. Immigration Courts but the entire Federal Judicial System (certainly on the horizon as the Immigration Courts’ systematic failure to provide expertise, impartial decision-making, Due Process, and fundamental fairness is pushing more and more cases into the Article III Courts). Unfortunately, to date, both Congress and the Article IIIs seem largely willing to watch disaster unfold, rather than taking the bold remedial action required to wrest the Immigration Court System out of the clutches of a spectacularly unqualified Department of Justice and reconstitute them as an independent court system where the standards of Due Process are taught, applied, and enforced!

In the meantime, lives are being needlessly, sometimes intentionally, endangered each day by our failure to live up to the U.S. Constitution!

PWS

03-14-19

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

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

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

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

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

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

PWS

03-10-19

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People First Immigration Policy

Immigration Policy Summary

1. Reforming our Immigration System

2. Creating a Humane Border Policy

3. Establishing a 21st Century ‘Marshall Plan’ for Central America

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