Dean
U.C. Davis Law
Dean Kevin Johnson @ ImmigrationProf Blog reports:
Thursday, August 6, 2020
Fourth Circuit Vacates Injunction Against Public Charge Immigration Rule
By Immigration Prof
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Courthouse News Service reports that the Fourth Circuit yesterday ruled 2-1 (opinion by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, with Judge Robert B. King dissenting) in favor of a Trump administration policy that makes it more difficult for noncitizens to become lawful permanent residents if they have received public benefits.
The ruling does not, however, change an injunction issued last week by a federal judge in New York barring enforcement of the so-called public charge rule.
The Second Circuit affirmed the injunction but limited its scope to New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The appeals court found the government’s justification for the rule is “unmoored from the nuanced views of Congress.”
KJ
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Judge Wilkinson’s racially insensitive judging recently was publicly “called out” by Fourth Circuit Chief Judge Roger Gregory in a remarkably honest and incisive opinion. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/07/16/%e2%9a%96%ef%b8%8fcalling-out-white-nationalist-judging-in-a-remarkable-opinion-4th-cir-chief-judge-roger-gregory-blasts-colleagues-retrograde-views-on-race-judging-policing-communiti/
Perhaps, dissenting Judge Robert B. King best sums up his colleagues’ willingness to distort the law and pervert rationality in support of the regime’s racist-driven, White Nationalist Immigration agenda:
In the face of the extensive history accompanying the term “public charge,” to conclude that the DHS Rule’s definition of “public charge” is reasonable makes a mockery of the term “public charge,” “does violence to the English language and the statutory context,” and disrespects the choice — made consistently by Congress over the last century and a quarter — to retain the term in our immigration laws. See Cook Cty., 962 F.3d at 229. For those reasons, the Rule’s “public charge” definition ventures far beyond any ambiguity inherent in the meaning of the term “public charge,” as used in the Public Charge Statute, and thus fails at Chevron’s second step. In light of the foregoing, the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Rule is unlawful, and the majority is wrong to conclude otherwise.
Equal justice for all, due process, reasonableness, and non-racist judging aren’t “rocket science.” That’s why Wilkinson had to cloak his anti-immigrant bias with 71 pages of irrational nonsense and legal gobbledygook.
Just another example of the U.S. District Judge “getting it right” only to be undermined by bad judging from higher Federal Courts. Unwillingness of the Federal Judiciary to take a unified strand for equal justice and against institutionalized racism and the White Nationalist agenda of the Trump regime is literally ripping our nation apart as well as showing the fatal weakness of the Federal Judiciary as a protector of our democracy and our individual rights.
Folks like Wilkinson and Niemeyer are what they are. But, we have the power to elect a President and a Senate who will appoint judges who actually believe in Constitutional due process and equal justice for all, regardless of color or status. Judges who will “tell it like it is,” “just say no” to “Dred Scottification” of “the other,” and courageously stand up for an unbiased interpretation the law and for simple human decency, rather than pretzeling themselves to defend an indefensible Executive agenda of unbridled White Nationalism and racism.
This November vote like your life and the future of our nation depend on it. Because they do.
PWS
08-06-20