"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday that the order President Trump signed earlier in the day suspending,with some exceptions for health care and other “essential workers,” certain temporary work visas through the end of the year will have a “chilling effect” on the nation’s economic recovery amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“This decision, in my view, will have a chilling effect on our economic recovery at a time we should be doing all we can to restore the economy,” Graham said in a series of tweets.
. . . .
************************
Read Rebecca’s full article at the above link.
Of course, if Graham, Mitch, and their GOP buddies in the Senate and House really wanted to rein in Trump they could. Just get together with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and pass by veto-proof margins legislation countermanding or amending Trump’s order.
But, that would require action, not just babbling.
In the meantime, Trump has succeeded in totally destroying the U.S. legal immigration and refugee system that has taken decades to build.And, the institutions that could and should have stopped him failed.
In a statement provided to CNN, a senior White House official said the move to place the transcript in the system came at the direction of National Security Council attorneys.
“NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately,” the senior White House official said.
White House officials say the transcript was already classified so it did nothing wrong by moving it to another system.
The admission lends further credibility to the whistleblower complaint description of how the July 25 transcript with the Ukrainian president, among others, were kept out of wider circulation by using a system for highly sensitive documents.
But the statement did not explain whether anyone else in the White House was part of the decision to put the the Ukraine transcript in the more restrictive system.
Nor did it delve into an accusation in the complaint that other phone call transcripts were handled in a similar fashion.
The suggestion that officials sought to conceal the content of the phone call — during which Trump suggested to his Ukrainian counterpart that he order an investigation into Joe Biden and his son — has led to accusations of a cover-up. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or his son.
The transcript of the Ukraine phone call — which the White House released publicly on Wednesday — did not contain information like intelligence secrets or military plans that might ordinarily merit moving it to a highly classified system.
Officials familiar with the matter say Trump and others at the White House sought to restrict access to phone calls with foreign leaders after embarrassing leaks early in the administration.
The White House’s statement on Friday indicates an effort to paint the practice as sanctioned by lawyers and overseen by the National Security Council, rather than a politically motivated attempt to keep Trump’s conversations from becoming public.
Trump himself lashed out against the whistleblower on Thursday for revealing information about his phone call to relevant authorities.
“I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,” Trump said during a private event in New York. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
This is further proof of what I said yesterday. The facts here are actually much clearer than they are in any “normal” investigation of wrongdoing. Trump acted inappropriately, broke the law, endangered national security, lied about it, and the GOP is trying to help him “cover-up” (hard to do, since the damning facts are public) or “obfuscate” to maintain their minority political power. In other words, the “Trump Doctrine” of corruption, unbridled greed, and selfishness, driven to a large degree by racism, taken to its logical conclusion.
To me, it doesn‘t look like both the Trump Presidency and our nation can survive in the long run. Our next election will be about what we really want as a people: a Constitutional Republic committed to humane values and the rule of law; or a corrupt, selfish, cowardly racist charlatan who seeks to seeks to replace that republic with a “Cult of Personality.”
Felicia Sonmez National Political Reporter WAshington PostMike DeBonis Congressional Reporter Washington Post
Felicia Sonmez & Mike DeBonis report for the Washington Post:
President Trump said Sunday that four minority, liberal congresswomen who have been critical of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” prompting other Democrats — including Pelosi — to leap to their defense.
Pelosi denounced Trump’s tweets as “xenophobic comments meant to divide our nation,” while the four congresswomen promised to continue fighting Trump’s agenda and accused him of seeking to appeal to white nationalists.
Trump’s remark swiftly united a House Democratic caucus that had been torn apart in recent days by infighting between Pelosi and the four freshman women of color — Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.). It also comes as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are preparing to round up migrant families that have received deportation orders across the country.
Trump kicked off the furor with a string of tweets before heading to his golf club in Sterling, Va., on Sunday morning.
“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Trump tweeted.
Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Tlaib was born in Detroit and Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York — about 20 miles from where Trump was born. Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia; her family fled the country amid civil war when she was a child, and she became a U.S. citizen as a teenager.
All four women won election to Congress in 2018.
In a follow-up tweet, Trump suggested that the four Democrats should leave Washington.
“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” he said. “Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Trump’s tweets prompted a sharp response from Pelosi, who described them as racist and divisive.
Scenes from the third year of Trump’s presidency
“When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again,” she said in a tweet. “Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power.”
The four Democratic lawmakers also fired back at Trump on Twitter. Omar wrote that “As Members of Congress, the only country we swear an oath to is the United States.”
Trump was “stoking white nationalism,” she argued, out of anger that she and other women of color are fighting in Congress against his “hate-filled agenda.”
Pressley shared a screenshot of Trump’s tweets and stated, “THIS is what racism looks like. WE are what democracy looks like. And we’re not going anywhere. Except back to DC to fight for the families you marginalize and vilify everyday.”
Tlaib warned Trump, “I am fighting corruption in OUR country. . . . Keep talking, you’ll be out of the WH soon.”
And Ocasio-Cortez sent a string of tweets defiantly addressing the president. “You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us,” she said. “You rely on a frightened America for your plunder.”
Mr. President, the country I “come from,” & the country we all swear to, is the United States.
But given how you’ve destroyed our border with inhumane camps, all at a benefit to you & the corps who profit off them, you are absolutely right about the corruption laid at your feet.
Trump’s tweet came after House Democrats spent the prior week locked in internal tumult over whether Pelosi and House leaders have unfairly marginalized the four liberal freshmen. The firestorm reignited late Friday when the official House Democratic Caucus Twitter account attacked Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff for suggesting that Democrats had voted to “enable a racist system.” And on Saturday, Pressley made comments at the annual Netroots Nation conference that seemed to add to the conflagration.
But within a few hours on Sunday, Democratic lawmakers were united in defending their colleagues against Trump’s attack.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to bring everybody together — I think the president just did that for us,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said. “Nobody in our caucus is going to tolerate that kind of hatred. They’re not going to tolerate xenophobia, and they’re not going to tolerate racism. . . . This puts it all in perspective.”
Dingell, whose suburban Detroit constituency includes one of the largest Muslim American populations of any House district, said she was “furious” at Trump’s tweet and said it represented a direct attack on her community.
“It’s just stark hatred,” she said. “It’s absolute total hatred. He doesn’t know what he does to a community like the one that I live in when he does something like that. . . . It reinforces the fear of so many people in this country.”
Even lawmakers who have butted heads with the quartet of freshmen stood up for them on Sunday. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), co-chair of the centrist Problem Solvers Caucus and a frequent critic of the four, said in a tweet that Trump’s comments about them were “totally unacceptable and wrong.”
Some lawmakers pointed out Trump’s history of “birtherism” as well as the fact that the president’s wife, Melania, had immigrated to the United States. Melania Trump emigrated from Slovenia in 1996 for her modeling career.
“3 of 4 are American born and other is a citizen,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said of the four Democratic lawmakers in a tweet. “They are all ‘more’ American than 2 of Trumps wives (he seems partial to foreign women) and his grandparents.” Trump’s first wife, Ivana Trump, was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, and Trump’s grandparents and mother were born in Europe.
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) responded to Trump by recounting how, despite being born in the United States, he was repeatedly told to “go back to Mexico” from childhood through adulthood, regardless of his service in the Marine Corps or how well he did in school.
“To people like Trump I will never be American enough,” Gallego said in a tweet. “So if you wonder why I give no inch to these racists, now you know. Nothing will ever satisfy them, all we can do is stop them.”
Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said on “Fox News Sunday” that Trump’s tweet was “racist” and “wrong.”
“Telling people to go back where they came from? These are American citizens elected by voters in the United States of America to serve in one of the most distinguished bodies in the U.S. House of Representatives,” said Luján, who is assistant House speaker.
For years, Trump repeatedly raised doubts about former president Barack Obama’s birth certificate, making the issue part of his 2016 presidential run. He finally acknowledged in September 2016 that Obama was born in the United States — but falsely accused the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton of being the source of the rumor.
“Trump is now turning the same birtherism he directed at President Obama against women of color serving in Congress,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said. “Everyone should call this what it is: racism.”
Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), a vocal Trump critic who recently left the Republican Party, also defended the four Democratic lawmakers.
“To tell these American citizens (most of whom were born here) to ‘go back’ to the ‘crime infested places from which they came’ is racist and disgusting,” Amash said in a tweet.
By late Sunday afternoon, at least 27 congressional Democrats, plus Amash, had used the words “racist” or “racism” on their Twitter accounts to describe Trump’s tweets.
Some Democrats went even further. “This is white nationalism,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who is running for president.
Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, were largely silent Sunday. In television appearances, several Trump administration officials declined to defend the president’s tweets.
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper asked Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, whether he knew whom the president was talking about in his tweets.
“I don’t. I don’t,” Cuccinelli said.
Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, also declined to weigh in. “I think that you need to talk to the president about his specific tweets,” Morgan said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
Jeh Johnson, who was homeland security secretary during the Obama administration, said Morgan had “ducked” the question. Johnson argued that by sending the inflammatory tweets, Trump was undermining his own administration’s efforts on a bipartisan immigration reform deal.
“I cannot believe a president of the United States would make a statement about foreign-born members of Congress, suggesting they go back from where they came from. … Americans should not become numb to this kind of language and offensive statements,” Johnson said on “Face the Nation.
****************************************
Trump continues to demonstrate why he is unfit for any public office, let alone the one he holds. And that goes for the anti-American Republicans who continue to support this vile, disgusting, and dangerous clown who desires nothing less than the destruction of America for his own amusement.
A-lso worth’s noting how “fellow Trumpeters” Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli and Mark Morgan ducked the question when an immediate and unqualified condemnation would have been in order.
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.”
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.
*************************************
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.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) claims that “Democrats are committed to border security,” but the Democrats have opposed President Donald Trump’s efforts to do that.
Congress appears unlikely to override the veto, so the fate of the declaration probably will be decided by the same Ninth Circuit Courts that flouted precedent to block Trump’s travel ban, which almost certainly will result in another lower court defeat for Trump. The Supreme Court, however, may reverse the lower courts, as it did in the travel ban case. But that could take quite some time.
The Catch-22 at the heart of the matter
During the Bill Clinton administration the government entered into a settlement agreement that makes it difficult to remove aliens who bring their children with them when they make an illegal border crossing.
This became apparent last May, when Trump announced a zero-tolerance border security enforcement policy. Illegal entries are a crime: The first offense is a misdemeanor and subsequent offenses are felonies. Trump tried to use a no exceptions threat of a criminal prosecution as a deterrent. “If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” he said — no exceptions for aliens who bring their children with them.
The problem was prosecution of an alien who has his child with him requires the government either to detain the child with him while he is being prosecuted or separate him from his child.
Go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s complete article.
Seems like the Government’s best bet would be to work cooperatively with NGOs and pro bono groups to link families who pass credible fear or who have court challenges pending to pro bono attorneys and to charitable organizations who can aid in temporary resettlement. In those situations, represented families almost always show up for their court hearings and keep the courts, DHS, and the lawyers properly informed of their whereabouts.
If the Government deems it a “priority” to move these cases to the “front of the court line” then they can remove some of the cases that are more than three years old and do not involve individuals with crimes from the already overcrowded Immigration Court dockets. The hundreds of thousands of pending and moribund “Non-Lawful Permanent Resident Cancellation of Removal Cases” would be fairly easily identifiable and logical candidates.
That will allow the Immigration Courts to concentrate on fair and timely adjudications of the more recent asylum claims without contributing to the overwhelming backlog. Some fair precedents by the Article III Courts (under this DOJ, the is no chance of fair asylum precedents being issued administratively) as to what claims do and do not properly qualify for asylum and relief under the CAT would eventually help provide meaningful guidance to Asylum Officers, Immigration Judges, BIA Appellate Judges, and the private bar, and well as DHS Attorneys. This in turn, would help minimize the court time spent on cases that either were “slam dunk grants” or had “no chance” even under the most favorable view of the facts for the applicant. Both the DHS and the private bar would thus be motivated to spend time on the cases that really needed to be litigated in Immigration Court.
Additionally, greater predictability in the U.S. asylum system might also assist human rights groups working with individuals in the Northern Triangle and in Mexico to make better, more informed, and more realistic decisions as to whether to pursue humanitarian resettlement opportunities in Mexico and other countries in the hemisphere that might offer such.
If Congress were going to act, the most helpful changes would be 1) establishing an independent Article I immigration Court to replace the dysfunctional mess that has been created over the past several Administrations but severely and unnecessarily aggravated by this Administration; 2) amend the Act’s definition of “asylum” to make it clear that “gender” is a subset of “particular social group” persecution; 3) authorizing some type of “universal representation program” for asylum applicants in Immigration Court; and 4) requiring the Administration to reinstitute a meaningful “outside the U.S.” refugee processing program for Latin America in conjunction with the UNHCR;
No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. Nothing will. But, it would certainly put an end to some of the Administration’s wasteful and bad faith “gimmicks” and unnecessary litigation that now clog our justice system. That’s at least the beginning of a better future and a better use of resources.
A coalition of 16 states filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block President Trump’s plan to build a border wall without permission from Congress, arguing that the president’s decision to declare a national emergency is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, brought by states with Democratic governors — except one, Maryland — seeks a preliminary injunction that would prevent the president from acting on his emergency declaration while the case plays out in the courts.
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a San Francisco-based court whose judges have ruled against an array of other Trump administration policies, including on immigration and the environment.
Accusing the president of “an unconstitutional and unlawful scheme,” the suit says the states are trying “to protect their residents, natural resources, and economic interests from President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.”
. . . .
Read the rest of Amy’s article at the above link.
******************************
But, over at TheHill, Nolan Rappaport predicts that Trump ultimately will prevail:
Family Pictures
Nolan writes:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumerclaim that President Donald Trump’s Southern Border National Emergency Proclamation is an unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist, and that it steals from urgently needed defense funds — that it is a power grab by a disappointed president who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve through the constitutional legislative process.
In fact, this isn’t about the Constitution or the bounds of the law, and — in fact — there is a very real crisis at the border, though not necessarily what Trump often describes. It helps to understand a bit of the history of “national emergencies.”
As of 1973, congress had passed more than 470 statutes granting national emergency powers to the president. National emergency declarations under those statutes were rarely challenged in court.
n Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, which was decided in 1952, the Supreme Court overturned President Harry S. Truman’s proclamation seizing privately owned steel mills to preempt a national steelworker strike during the Korean War. But Truman didn’t have congressional authority to declare a national emergency. He relied on inherent powers which were not spelled out in the Constitution.
Trump, however, is using specific statutory authority that congress created for the president.
In 1976, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (NEA), which permits the president to declare a national emergency when he considers it appropriate to do so. The NEA does not provide any specific emergency authorities. It relies on emergency authorities provided in other statutes. The declaration must specifically identify the authorities that it is activating.
We’ll see what happens. While the arguments made by Trump in support of his “Bogus National Emergency” were totally frivolous (and, perhaps, intentionally so), the points made by Rappaport, Hemel, Shane, and Lithwick aren’t. That could spell big trouble for our country’s future!
Trump doesn’t have a “sure fire legal winner” here; he might or might not have the majority of the Supremes “in his pocket” as he often arrogantly and disrespectfully claims. Nevertheless, there may be a better legal defense for the national emergency than his opponents had counted on.
Certainly, Trump is likely to benefit from having a “real lawyer,” AG Bill Barr, advancing his White Nationalist agenda at the “Justice” Department rather than the transparently biased and incompetent Sessions. While Barr might be “Sessions at heart,” unlike Sessions he certainly had the high-level professional legal skills, respect, and the “human face” necessary to prosper in the Big Law/Corporate world for decades.
Big Law/Corporate America isn’t necessarily the most diverse place, even today. Nevertheless, during my 7-year tenure there decades ago I saw that overt racism and xenophobia generally were frowned upon as being “bad for business.” That’s particularly true if the “business” included representing some of the largest multinational corporations in the world.
Who knows, Barr might even choose to advance the Trump agenda without explicitly ordering the DOJ to use the demeaning, and dehumanizing term “illegals” to refer to fellow human beings, many of them actually here with Government permission, seeking to attain legal status, and often to save their own lives and those of family members, through our legal system.
Many of them perform relatively thankless, yet essential, jobs that are key to our national economic success. Indeed, it’s no exaggeration to say that like the Trump Family and recently exposed former U.N Ambassador nominee Heather Nauert, almost all of us privileged and lucky enough to be U.S. citizens who have prospered from an expanding economy have been doing so on the backs of immigrants, both documented and undocumented. Additionally, migrants are some of the dwindling number of individuals in our country who actually believe in and trust the system to be fair and “do the right thing.”
But, a change in tone, even if welcome, should never be confused with a change in policy or actually respecting the due process rights of others and the rule of law as applied to those seeking legally available benefits in our immigration system. That’s just not part of the White Nationalist agenda that Barr so eagerly signed up to defend and advance
It’s likely to a long time, if ever, before “justice” reasserts itself in the mission of the Department of Justice.
PWS
02-19-19
NOTE: An earlier version of this post contained the wrong article from Dahlia Lithwick. Sorry for any confusion.
Kristina Peterson & Louise Radnofsky report for the WSJ:
WASHINGTON—House Democratic leaders held firm through the five-week government shutdown that ended last month. Still, the party’s liberal wing is keeping up pressure on leadership as negotiations over a border-security deal heat up.
A group of liberal House Democrats and advocacy groups are urging Democrats in a bipartisan negotiating committee to refuse further funding for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the border with Mexico. The group’s 17 lawmakers have less than two weeks to reach a deal before government funding expires again.
Congressional leaders have been optimistic the group of House and Senate lawmakers can reach an agreement, but any bipartisan deal is unlikely to appease some in the party’s left wing.
A letter to House Democrats, written by freshman Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and signed by at least three others, criticizes Homeland Security for practices including prosecution and detention of immigrants.
The department and its frontline enforcement units—Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection—have become high-profile targets as they implement the Trump administration’s attempts to step up deportations and the zero-tolerance policy that last year resulted in family separations at the border.
“These agencies have promulgated an agenda driven by hate—not strategy,” the lawmakers wrote. They argue that the agencies’ ability to shift funds makes it impossible to prevent money from being used for policies that Democrats generally oppose.
Refusing funding for the agency housing the president’s top political priority isn’t going to draw Republican support, a House Democratic aide said, which the committee would need to produce a deal.
“It’s totally unrealistic,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.), who is in the negotiating group, said of the Democratic letter. “That basically says you don’t want to secure the border.”
Democrats overall say they favor border security, just not Mr. Trump’s border wall, and immigration advocates said their task is to counter the president.
. . . .
******************************************
Read the complete WSJ report from these “emerging stars on the immigration beat.”
There hasn’t been any meaningful oversight of DHS or the mess DOJ politicos have created at EOIR in two years. So, while there certainly should not be additional funding for DHS’s already overused and abused detention system, for now, Democrats should probably work with DHS as the “only game in town” on the Southern Border.
Over the next year, DHS and DOJ politicos should be required to testify and should be held accountable for the absolute, largely avoidable, chaos and inefficiency they have intentionally, incompetently, or maliciously created in immigration enforcement, our Immigration Courts, the refugee and asylum system, and the system for granting immigration benefits.
Then, based on the record, make rational, fact-based proposals for needed improvements in immigration enforcement, administration, and adjudication for the next budget cycle.
The GOP has nothing but contempt for our country, our Government, our workers, and the collective intelligence of our people
Together, Trump and the GOP are the biggest threat to our nation since the Civil War
We’re not ”back to ground zero;” Trump has inflicted perhaps irreparable damage on America
America’s greatness is based heavily on the basic honesty, professionalism, dedication, and competence of its civil servants; Trump has broken, perhaps irrevocably, the bond of trust and respect with civil servants
Our survival as a nation over the next two years will largely depend on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s political skills in limiting the damage Trump and the GOP can inflict on our country
I understand the Dems reluctance to enable Trump’s “hostage taking” strategy. But, I doubt they can solve that with Trump and the GOP controlling two of the three political arms of Government.
Indeed, a better idea would be for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell to get together “when the smoke clears” and see what they can do jointly to take back and fix the bipartisan Congressional budget process and protect it from overreach by Executives of both parties. For two of the major legislative “gurus” of our age in the twilight of their careers, that would be a great “bipartisan legacy.”
But, for the time being, folks are suffering, and lives are in danger: Government employees, those that depend on Government, asylum applicants, Dreamers, TPSers, those in Immigration Court, and the families of all of the foregoing. So, I think the Dems should make a “robust” counterproposal that gives Trump at least part of his “Wall,” but also includes other important reforms and improvements that will diminish the impact of border migration issues in the future. Most important, almost everything in this proposal would save or improve some human lives and benefit America in the short and long run.
So, here’s my outline of the “SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019”
SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019
Federal Employees
Restart the Government
Retroactive pay raise
Enhanced Border Security
Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
Anything else in the Senate Bill that both parties agree upon
Humanitarian Assistance
Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
Prohibit family separation
Funding for alternatives to detention
Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle
Asylum Process
Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”
Immigration Court Improvements
Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
Vacate Matter of Castro-Tumand reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB
International Cooperation
Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle
**********************************************
No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!
Minority caucuses wield power in Nancy Pelosi’s House majority
Tal Kopan
WASHINGTON — Nearly every night last year, sometimes nearing midnight, Michelle Lujan Grisham’s phone would ring late. On the line would be Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
Sometimes, the San Francisco Democrat would call again at 6 a.m. to update Lujan Grisham, a New Mexico Democrat who was then the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, on House negotiations involving immigration and border security.
“Really,” said Lujan Grisham, now the governor of New Mexico. “To her credit.”
The calls were a reflection of how seriously Pelosi, now the House speaker, and other Democratic leaders take the influence of the Hispanic caucus and two counterpart groups that represent black and Asian Pacific American lawmakers. Pelosi’s No. 2, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., even helped Lujan Grisham crash an immigration meeting with President Trump, taking her to the White House unannounced as part of his entourage.
It’s a relationship that Pelosi will need to maintain as she presides over the Democratic House majority this year. After all, as Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, a former representative and member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, put it: “Nancy knows how to count.”
More than 100 of 235 Democratic members in the new House, many from California, belong to one of the three affinity groups known collectively as the Tri-Caucus. It will arguably be the most powerful voting bloc for the Democratic majority.
The growth in the groups’ membership — in the last Congress, the Tri-Caucus had roughly 90 core House members — reflects the diverse lineup of Democrats who won election in the November midterms. It also signals that their influence will be wide-ranging.
Among the Tri-Caucus members will be eight committee chairs, leading panels ranging from environmental issues to homeland security to small business. They will have representatives in the No. 3, 4 and 5 spots in Democratic leadership. Lobbying firms in Washington are hiring staff with connections to the Tri-Caucus, a signal of their importance.
The groups’ chairs, two of whom represent California districts, said in interviews that they plan to work together to shape legislation, speak up for often-overlooked communities and show people of color that there is a place for them in Washington.
“We’re going to be active on just about every policy area that this House of Representatives will concern itself with,” said Rep. Joaquín Castro, D-Texas, now chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Pelosi has already committed to convene weekly meetings between leadership and the chairs of the Tri-Caucus groups. During her successful campaign to reclaim the speaker’s gavel, Pelosi sat down with each of the groups — and made promises to them.
She told the Hispanic caucus that she would call for a vote on the Dream Act, which would make permanent the protections that young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors were granted under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. That bill is also a priority for the Asian Pacific American Caucus.
Pelosi said the House would vote quickly on legislation to reinstate some provisions of the Voting Rights Act that were negated in a 2013 Supreme Court decision, a priority of the black caucus. She also has backed Tri-Caucus members for leadership and selective committee spots.
The groups that make up the Tri-Caucus have solidified their cooperation the past two years in response to Trump administration policies on immigration and civil rights issues. A key moment came in January 2018 when Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., convened a conference call to sell fellow Hispanic caucus members on a Senate-negotiated DACA-border security deal. It would have extended protection for DACA recipients and incorporated some White House demands for limits on two vehicles for legal immigration — a “diversity lottery” for entrance to the U.S. from countries with few immigrants, and restrictions on immigrants’ ability to sponsor relatives for U.S. entry.
Those were particularly sensitive proposals for the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American caucus. The diversity lottery is the main source of migration to the U.S. from sub-Saharan Africa and a major driver of immigration from Asia, and family visas are also extensively used by Asian immigrants. But at stake were protections for DACA recipients — a priority for the Hispanic caucus.
“Accepting any element of that truly would have pitted one of our groups against the other,” said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park (Los Angeles County), chairwoman of the Asian Pacific American caucus.
Strict enforcement of employer sanctions could create chaos within California’s employer class, the kind of personal and financial turmoil that elected representatives are expected to fix — and which puts them in bad odour if they don’t.
Instead of putting Trump in a position where he has to resort to such drastic action, Pelosi could offer him border wall funding in exchange for immigration reform legislation, such as a legalization program for DACA participants.
Previous negotiations with Trump on DACA legislation seemed promising when he offered a legalization program for 1.8 million DACA participants in his Framework on Immigration Reform & Border Security, but the Democrats would not agree to the concessions he was demanding.
The deal killer was a demand to end chain migration, but there is a way to compromise on that demand. Instead of a creating a regular legalization program for the DACA participants, create a place for them in the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) program.
This little-known humanitarian program makes lawful permanent resident status available to undocumented alien children who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected by a parent and should not be returned to their own countries.
The SIJ provisions do not permit a participant to confer immigration benefits on his parents. INA §101(a)(27)(J)(iii)(II) states that, “no natural parent or prior adoptive parent of any alien provided special immigrant status under this subparagraph shall thereafter, by virtue of such parentage, be accorded any right, privilege, or status under this Act.”
I think that Nolan is on the right track for a compromise solution to end the shutdown: robust border security plus Dreamer relief seems like a logical package. But, as with everything in Washington, the Devil is in the details. And, Trump is always a “Wild Card” (in more ways than one).
If anyone can figure out a way to broker an agreement with Trump and Leader McConnell, it would be Speaker Pelosi. Whether you are a fan or not, she clearly will go down as one of the most effective and skilled legislators of her generation. Interestingly, Colby Itkowitz of the WashPost’s “The Fix” observed that Trump seems to have an unusual (and perhaps healthy) respect for Pelosi. https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/423320-pelosi-could-get-tinkle-all-over-her-if-she-blocks-funding-for-trumps
