Tag: Supreme Court

JRUBE @ WASHPOST: Misogynists Rule, Propped Up By Their Women!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/10/07/they-left-no-doubt-what-they-think-of-women/

Jennifer Rubin writes in the WashPost:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) barked at female sex-crime victims, “Grow up!” He called Christine Blasey Ford a “pleasing” witness. He shooed women away with a flick of his wrist. Hatch also posted “an uncorroborated account from a Utah man questioning the legitimacy and sexual preferences” of Julie Swetnick, one of Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accusers. The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board raked him over the coals:

The despicable attack launched by Sen. Orrin Hatch and the Senate Judiciary Committee — more precisely, the Republicans on that committee — on one of the women who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault is a textbook example of why more victims do not come forward.

Worse, it betrays a positively medieval attitude toward all women as sex objects who cannot be believed or taken seriously.

Not a single Republican spoke up to criticize him. One would think someone would point out that he brought dishonor on himself, his party and the Senate. But clearly Republicans take no umbrage at such conduct.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley(R-Iowa) attempted to excuse the lack of a single Republican woman — ever — on the Judiciary Committee. “It’s a lot of work — maybe they don’t want to do it.”Kavanaugh snapped and sneered at female senators on the Judiciary Committee. Republicans didn’t bat an eye or hold it against him. He was just mad, you see.

President Trump repeated the calumny that if the attack was “as bad” as Ford said she’d have gone to the police. He declared it was a “scary time” for young men. He openly mocked Ford at a rally to gin up his base’s anger. Republican apologists said he was just explaining the facts. He actually misrepresented her testimony, falsely claiming she couldn’t recall many facts — the neighborhood of the house where she was attacked. William Saletan called out Trump and his defenders: “It’s true that Ford can’t recall important details about place and time. It’s true that she can’t recall how she got to the house or how she left. It’s true that every accused person is entitled to a presumption of innocence. But Trump’s portrayal of Ford’s testimony wasn’t true. It was a pack of lies. And people who defend it, like Lindsey Graham, are liars too.”

Trump and other Republicans accused sex-crime victims protesting Kavanaugh as protesters paid by George Soros (a Jewish left-wing billionaire whose name is routinely invoked in anti-Semitic attacks). The GOP Senate whip, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), called the victims a “mob” and echoed the bogus claim that they were paid protesters. They deny victims’ very existence; they are non-persons — props sent by opponents to ruin a man’s life.

Graham snorted that he’d hear what “the lady has to say” and then vote Kavanaugh in. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he’d “plow right through” (more like plow over) Ford’s testimony and confirm Kavanaugh. Republicans’ defense of Kavanaugh — that Ford and others were props of a left-wing plot and therefore lacked agency of their own — evidences the party’s attitude toward women.

You cannot say a party that embraces a deeply misogynistic president who bragged about sexually assaulting women and mocked and taunted a sex-crime victim; accepted a blatantly insufficient investigation of credible sex crimes against women in lieu of a serious one that the White House counsel knew would be disastrous; repeatedly insulted and dismissed sex-crime victims exercising their constitutional rights; has never put a single woman on the Judiciary Committee (and then blames its own female members for being too lazy); and whips up male resentment of female accusers is a party that respects women. Its members resent women. They scorn women. They exclude women. They use women to maintain their grip on power. But they do not respect them.

What’s worse is that Republicans who would never engage in this cruel and demeaning behavior themselves don’t bat an eye when their party’s leaders do so. Acceptance of Trump’s misogyny — like their rationalization of the president’s overt racism — becomes a necessity for loyal Republicans. If it bothers a Republican, he or she dare not say so. One either agrees or ignores or rationalizes such conduct, or one decide it’s a small price to pay (“it” being the humiliation of women) for tax cuts and judges. It’s just words, you know.

The Republican Party no longer bothers to conceal its loathing of immigrants, its contempt for a free press, its disdain for the rule of law or its views on women. Indeed, these things now define a party that survives by inflaming white male resentment. Without women to kick around, how would they get their judge on the court or their guys to the polls?

Women with this ordeal seared into the hippocampus of their brains will vote in November. Women are expected to forget or move on? I don’t think so.

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

Yup! Need to vote!

The “Club” is in power because too many non-members failed to vote. And, those young men who DON’T aspire to grow up to be Trump, Sessions, Hatch, Kavanaugh, Graham, Grassley, Steve King, Kobach, or Stephen Miller had better unite with their “non-Club sisters” to vote the Good Old Boys (and their women supporters and enablers) out of office.

If nothing else, last week shows the futility of demonstrating, public opinion polls, writing op-Ed’s, running commercials, and protesting when you don’t have the votes. Put the energy into winning elections! That’s what the Club does. And, it might be the only thing they are right about.

PWS

10-08-19

Related posts:

  1. WASHPOST: RACISTS FIND HOME IN TODAY’S GOP —From Dissing Mexican Americans, To Barring Muslims, Abandoning Refugees, Restricting Legal Immigration, Slamming Families, & Encouraging Voter Suppression, GOP Appears To Be “All In” On “Built To Fail” Strategy Of Making America White Again: “the larger moral cowardice that has overtaken the party.”
  2. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”
  3. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  4. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!

RAFAEL BERNAL IN THE HILL: Federal Courts Are Homing In On The Racism, Dishonesty, & Lawlessness Driving Many Of Trump, Nielsen, & Sessions’s Cruelest & Dumbest Immigration Policies!

https://thehill.com/latino/410012-trump-immigration-measures-struggle-in-the-courts

Bernal writes:

A federal judge’s ruling blocking a Trump administration order to end immigration benefits for nearly 300,000 foreign nationals is the latest in a series of judicial setbacks for the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Federal District Judge Edward Chen late Wednesday blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) order to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that allows citizens of Sudan, El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua to live and work in the United States, raising hopes for activists who have fought to make the program permanent.

The preliminary injunction granted by Chen, an appointee of President Obama, follows a trend of court reversals that have slowed the administration’s proposed overhaul of American immigration laws.

The administration’s first judicial setbacks on immigration came weeks into Trump’s presidency, as a New York court stopped in January of 2017 the application of the first version of a travel ban that blocked immigrants and visitors from seven majority-Muslim countries.

After a series of court battles, a third version of the travel ban — which includes non-Muslim countries North Korea and Venezuela — was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court in June of this year.

Trump’s termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program is still up in the air.

Because of court action, DHS is still receiving DACA renewal applications, which under Trump’s original order should have ended in October of 2017.

Both the travel ban and termination of DACA tied into Trump’s campaign promises on immigration, but TPS is a relatively obscure program that had been more or less summarily renewed by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Under TPS, nationals of countries that undergo natural or man-made disasters are allowed to live and work in the United States until their home countries recover.

Chen’s decision only blocks the DHS orders while the lawsuit is in place, but he hinted in his decision that he’s unlikely to change his mind in the final ruling.

The decision came as a surprise, as TPS statute gives a wide berth to the secretary of Homeland Security to determine who receives its benefits.

DHS declined to comment on the case, but Department of Justice spokesman Devin O’Malley panned Chan’s decision, saying it “usurps the role of the executive branch in our constitutional order.”

Emi Maclean, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), called it “an extraordinary decision.”

“This is the first time in the history of the TPS statute, a statute from 1990, that there has been a court order halt for any TPS determination,” said Maclean.

“It’s hugely important in what it says about the Trump administration making policies in the arena of immigration, and it’s obviously important for hundreds of thousands of people and their families and communities,” she added.

In his decision, Chen referred to the “animus” behind the administration’s TPS strategy, echoing district and appeals courts decisions on the travel ban, which used Trump’s campaign rhetoric as evidence of discriminatory intent.

Chan said he found “evidence that this may have been done in order to implement and justify a pre-ordained result desired by the White House.”

“Plaintiffs have also raised serious questions whether the actions taken by the Acting Secretary or Secretary was influenced by the White House and based on animus against non-white, non-European immigrants in violation of Equal Protection guaranteed by the Constitution,” he added.

Justice took a different view.

“The Justice Department completely rejects the notion that the White House or the Department of Homeland Security did anything improper. We will continue to fight for the integrity of our immigration laws and our national security,” said O’Malley.

Although the decision is only a temporary setback for the administration, TPS activists — who want to turn their TPS benefits into permanent residency permits — say they’re encouraged to raise the political profile of the program and its beneficiaries.

“While this decision helps us to at least breathe and be comfortable that our friends with TPS are not going to lose immigration status, it also motivates us to continue organizing and hoping that Congress will understand the importance of this,” Jose Palma, the Massachusetts coordinator for the National TPS Alliance, said in a call with reporters.

Immigration causes have been front and center in U.S. politics during the Trump administration.

But TPS has received relatively little attention.

“We were doing some lobbying and some Congresspeople didn’t know what TPS was,” said Palma. “We were asking for support for TPS and they were asking, ‘What is TPS? We don’t know,’”

And while TPS recipients had been included in previous attempts at comprehensive immigration reform, most bills that got traction in 2018 focused solely on Dreamers.

The exception was a bipartisan bill proposed by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), which would have pulled immigrant visas from the diversity visa program to grant permanent residency to certain TPS holders, including some from Haiti.

That bill was shot down in January by Trump at a White House meeting with Graham and Durbin, where he allegedly called Haiti and some African countries “shithole countries.”

Still, TPS advocates say they’ve been able to raise awareness for the program since Haiti’s designation was terminated in November.

Palma pointed to seven legislative proposals in the current Congress that would either extend TPS benefits or give current beneficiaries permanent residency.

Another proposal from Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) would transfer the responsibility of designation from DHS to Congress and restrict access of undocumented immigrants to TPS.

Palma added that the ultimate goal of many TPS recipients, particularly those who have been in the United States for long periods of time, is to achieve permanent residency.

“If we’re going to take the future of this campaign based on what we have achieved from there to now, I feel confident that it’s not going to be easy but it’s something we can definitely achieve,” he said.

Chen’s order covers only El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, which account for a majority of TPS holders.

The most numerically significant TPS countries not included in the lawsuit are Honduras, which has about 57,000 citizens in the program, and Nepal, which has about 9,000. They are not included because their terminations had not been announced at the time the lawsuit was filed.

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

What is missing here is decisive, bipartisan Congressional action to resolve some of these issues in a way that the Trump White Nationalists can’t easily undo. Barring that, various aspects  of the White Nationalist anti-immigrant agenda will continue to “bop along” through the lower Federal Courts: sometimes winning, but often losing.

While the GOP right is obviously feeling a sense of invincibility with the likely advent of Justice Kavanaugh, Trump can’t necessarily count on the Supremes to bail him out by intervening in controversial immigration cases. It would be better for the Court, and particularly for Chief Justice Roberts, presumptive Justice Kavanaugh, and the other “GOP Justices” to take on some less controversial issues — ones where they might actually achieve unanimity or near-unanimity first, and save the inevitable, partisan “5-4s” for a later date. That might mean that he fate of many of Trump’s most controversial immigration schemes could remain in the hands of the lower Federal Courts until sometime after October 2019.

Of course, that isn’t necessarily good news for those opposing the Trump agenda: Trump is quickly turning the lower Federal Courts into bastions of right-wing doctrinaire jurisprudence, just as the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and other right-leaning legal groups have mapped it out.

PWS

10-05-18

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. CONTINUING JUDICIAL EDUCATION FOR ARTICLE III JUDGES: “Kids In Cages” Ought To Be Displayed Outside Every Federal Courthouse & The Supremes So That “Robed Enablers” Can See The Results Of Their Abdication Of Constitutional Duties!
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”

“A new and dark era as Immigration Judges,” Says Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, NAIJ President!

Dear Colleagues,

October 1st marked a new and dark era as Immigration Judges.  The Agency is now subjecting us to quotas and deadlines as part of our individual performance evaluations, something that is inherently in conflict with our oath of office(which is the very reason why Congress explicitly excluded ANY individual performance measures for Administrative Law Judges).   NAIJ has largely concluded the bargaining with the Agency on “impact and implementation” of these quotas and deadlines and continues to express (to the Agency and the public) our strenuous disagreement with the concept of quotas and deadlines as a matter of principle.  However, to the extent that we remain a part of the Department of Justice and are treated as DOJ attorneys (in spite of being judges in our duties and responsibilities), our legal recourse of action is confined to labor laws, which are designed for traditional labor/management relationships and do not deal with issues of judicial independence.  Thus, unless and until the Agency takes an adverse action against a particular judge (or Congress steps in with the durable solution of removing the Immigration Court from the Justice Department), we cannot file any grievance or complaints (including the suggestion of several of our judges to file for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which appears to be prohibited by the Federal Torts Claims Act). Thus, we have spent many hours in the past months in bargaining and informal discussions to minimize the impact of this ill-conceived program.  We have been able to help craft more favorable interpretations of what will satisfy the metrics, improved the content and design of the Dashboard to make it more user friendly, and been able to point out shortcomings and flaws which we still seek to improve or eliminate.  The MOU you will see shortly has been negotiated as an adjunct to Article 22 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement which provides protections for judges in the performance evaluation process.  We entered into the MOU in the hopes of improving the position of judges by clarifying that the quotas and deadlines do not stand alone, but must be read in conjunction with specific consideration of each judge’s docket and consistent with Article 22.3.h.  We expect the MOU will help provide judges with a measure of protection and help reconcile the quotas and deadlines with the individual demands of our individual dockets and courts.  Additionally, the MOU provides for a continuing forum for the NAIJ to raise concerns with the Agency about the operation of the Dashboard or application of performance measures, both on a general level and on behalf of any individual judge.  So your continued feedback to NAIJ is a critical part of this process.

Meanwhile I cannot emphasize enough that your oath of office should be your guiding principle throughout these challenging times.  As I have said many times before, so long as you put in an honest day’s work and stay true to your oath of office, we will stand by you 100% of the time.   “Due process” is the beginning and the end of the conversation.  Period. Full Stop.

 

Thank you for those of you who have been sharing with us your experiences with the Dashboard and your ACIJs regarding the CBA Article 22.3.h.  Please keep them coming as we want to make sure that any problematic patterns or practices of the Agency are noted and resolved early.

 

We also understand that many of you are seeking guidance on how to best navigate this new system.  We do have some suggestions for you which we plan to share in our upcoming Q&A sessions on the implementation of the Quotas and Deadlines.  I have included a couple of attachments that may also be of help to you in identifying the data entry error or track the 22.3.h factors that your ACIJs should be considering.  So please mark your calendars, and plan on joining us for at least one of the sessions.

 

Wednesday, October 10th 8:00 a.m. PT, 9:00 a.m. MT, 10:00 a.m. CT, 11:00 a.m. ET

Wednesday, October 10th 9:00 a.m. PT, 10:00 a.m. MT, 11:00 a.m. CT, 12:00 p.m. ET

Wednesday, October 10th, 10:00 a.m. PT, 11:00 a.m. MT, noon CT, 1:00 p.m. ET

Thursday, October 11th, 11:00 a.m. PT, noon MT, 1:00 p.m. CT, 2:00 p.m. ET

Thursday, October 11th, noon PT, 1:00 p.m. MT, 2:00 p.m. CT, 3:00 p.m. ET

 

The call-in information for each of the scheduled sessions is as follows:   (605) 475-4001 & passcode: 765103#

 

If you have any questions in advance that you would like for us to address during a meeting, feel free to forward it to my attention.

Thank you for all of your hard work.

 

Ashley

 

The Honorable A. Ashley Tabaddor, President

National Association of Immigration Judges

606 S. Olive St., 15th floor

www.naij-usa.org

213-534-4491 (direct office line)

BEST E-MAIL: ashleytabaddor@gmail.com

 

DISCLAIMER:  The author is the President of the National Association of Immigration Judges.  The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the official position of the United States Department of Justice, the Attorney General, or the Executive Office for Immigration Review.   The views represent the author’s personal opinions, which were formed after extensive consultation with the membership of NAIJ.

 

 

P.S. Please let your fellow NAIJ members know about these call-in session.  Should you hear of any NAIJ member who may not have received this email, please let me knowasap and feel free to forward to them as well. Thank you.

 

From: Ortiz-Ang, Susana (EOIR)
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2018 3:07 PM
To: All of Judges (EOIR) <All_of_Judges@EOIR.USDOJ.GOV>
Cc: Keller, Mary Beth (EOIR) <MaryBeth.Keller@EOIR.USDOJ.GOV>; Wilson, Donna L. (EOIR) <Donna.Wilson@EOIR.USDOJ.GOV>
Subject: New Performance Measures (On Behalf of Mary Beth Keller, Chief Immigration Judge)

 

Judges,

 

Please see the below and attached.

Today, the new performance measures, as incorporated in Element 3 of your Performance Work Plan, become effective. The new Element 3 is attached to this e-mail and will be appended to each of your PWPs. The implementation of these new performance measures is part of a larger effort to make changes across the Agency to better enable us to meet our mission, to fairly and expeditiously adjudicate immigration cases.  You are and always have been a dedicated and professional corps, with the competence and integrity to render decisions that are both “timely and impartial,” as required by the regulations. Historically, IJs have been held accountable in performance Element 3 to make timely rulings and decisions as well as to manage calendars efficiently. These measures simply define these goals more specifically in the present day.

I wanted to emphasize a few important points that you also may have heard from your ACIJ during your court meetings:

 

-Decisions should not be made on individual matters based solely on the performance measures. We remain committed to ensuring due process in each case.

 

– I hope that each of you has taken an opportunity to review the IJ Performance Data Dashboard (“Dashboard”), which is linked to the OCIJ intranet page under “Quick Links.” Please keep in mind that the Dashboard is not your performance rating. It displays data from CASE as it relates to your progress towards meeting the established goals and benchmarks in Element 3 of the PWP.  The new measures apply to your performance for the second year of this cycle, from Oct. 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019.   Your overall performance rating will be determined at the end of the two-year rating cycle (ending September 30, 2019), considering your performance in all three elements of the PWP.

 

– The Dashboard is one day behind. Therefore today it shows data as of September 30, 2018. Tomorrow, it will “zero out,” and show data as of October 1. As of tomorrow, only actions you take from October 1 forward should appear on the Dashboard.

 

– In addition to the Definitions document that I circulated on September 10 (and attached again here), with the input of NAIJ, we have developed a Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQ”) document, which I have attached here as well. We continue to tweak the data captured in the Dashboard to ensure that it accurately reflects the Definitions document and the FAQ document. We encourage you to bring data issues to the attention of your ACIJ.

 

– Please carefully review not only the new PWP Element 3, but also Article 22 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Agency and NAIJ. In particular, in Article 22.3.h., the Agency has agreed to take into account a number of factors that may affect an IJ’s ability to meet the performance standards, including factors not in control of the IJ.

 

– We have concluded our discussions with NAIJ, and in the near future, we will publish on the intranet the Memorandum of Understanding that both parties agreed to at the conclusion of bargaining. Please review this document carefully when it becomes available.

 

– We welcome your input throughout the year. We want to hear about the circumstances you feel are hindering your efforts to reach the goals and benchmarks. We also want to hear your suggestions for making the courts and our processes more efficient, and more generally how the courts can better meet our mission.

 

–  If there is something systemic or frequently recurring that you believe is interfering with your ability to meet the measures, please raise your concern with your ACIJ.

 

– Please be patient, especially during the rollout and at the end of the first quarter, when numbers are likely to be low due to holidays and leave.

Thank you.

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

So, Chief Immigration Judge Marybeth Keller says decisions shouldn’t be made based “solely on the performance measures.” In other words, performance measures can be a basis for decisions so long as the IJ doesn’t identify them as the “sole” basis.

There would be no need for “performance measures” at all unless those imposing them intended that they influence or control results. What kind of “performance measure” isn’t geared at influencing or shaping the “end product” of the “performance.” Or, perhaps the theory of DOJ/EOIR management is that IJs as a group are a bunch of lazy work shirkers who won’t put in a full day’s effort unless watched and threatened at all times with sophomoric “big brother type performance dashboards.”

Maybe that is the purpose of the “IJ Performance Data Dashboard.” This “Dashboard” is a remarkable achievement for an agency that still hasn’t been able to roll out a finalized version of an e-filing system. Clearly it’s a matter of “priorities;” fair adjudication and service to the public obviously aren’t among them!

The purpose of the Dashboard is appparently to insure that the stress levels build and that “judges” remain focused on achieving their “performance goals” (and hence keeping their jobs) rather than on the merits or justice in a particular case.  Indeed, in a “real” court system judges would be encouraged to focus solely on providing fair and impartial adjudications in accordance with Due Process and the technology would be devoted exclusively to that end. “Production data,” while perhaps interesting from an intellectual or self-evaluation standpoint, actually has little or nothing to do with justice in a particular case.

Everyone who loses a case in this amazingly depressing “kangaroo court” system should file a petition for review citing the inherent Due Process flaw in having a “judge” who can’t possibly function as an “impartial” adjudicator as required both by the Constitution and by DOJ regulations. Maybe at some point the Article IIIs will fully understand the judicial farce in which they are complicit and act accordingly.

PWS

10-03-18

Related posts:

  1. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  2. “THE 5-4-1 PLAN FOR DUE PROCESS IN IMMIGRATION COURT” — My Speech To The Association Of Deportation Defense Attorneys, NY City, March 21, 2019
  3. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  4. SENATORS DEMAND IG INVESTIGATE BIAS, CORRUPTION, GROSS MISMANAGEMENT @ EOIR!

ANGELO PAPARELLI: The Real “Con Job” Is An Immigration “Court” Lacking Independent Jurists & Run By A Closed Minded Anti-Immigrant Partisan Politico!

https://www.nationofimmigrators.com/immigration-courts/the-long-lived-con-job-structural-injustice-in-the-immigration-courts/

Last week, President Trump held an 81-minute press conference. He traversed wide-ranging territory, including his notions of procedural due process. Discussing the importance of fundamental fairness when trying to distinguish facts from falsehoods, he said:PRES. TRUMP:

Somebody could come and say 30 years ago, 25 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, he did a horrible thing to me. He did this, he did that, he did that and, honestly, it’s a very dangerous period in our country. And it’s being perpetuated by some very evil people — some of them are Democrats, I must say — because some of them know that this is just a game that they’re playing. It’s a con game. It’s at the highest level. We’re talking about the United States Supreme Court. . . .

I’ve used much worse language in my life than “con job.” That’s like probably the nicest phrase I’ve ever used. I mean con job — it is. It’s a con job. You know confidence. It’s a confidence job, but they — it’s a con job by the Democrats. They know it.

Although clearly referring to recent charges of decades-old sexual wrongdoing against Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the president could have been discussing credibility determinations that arise every business day in our nation’s administrative tribunals that are euphemistically called immigration “courts.”  The hearings and proceedings in the immigration courts raise one of the highest of stakes, deportation (or as it’s technically termed, removal) from the United States, a process which the Supreme Court in Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6, 10 (1948), described as “a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile,” and in Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276, 284 (1922), as a theft of liberty that “may result … in loss of both property and life, or of all that makes life worth living.”

Yet immigration hearings are all too often a con job — not necessarily for any lack of effort at fairness and truth-ferreting by the actual participants, the immigration judges, and the attorneys representing the federal government and the hapless noncitizen known as the “respondent” who must appear in person and respond to one or more allegations that s/he is in the U.S. unlawfully and thus deportable.  No, the unfairness is baked into the immigration court system; it’s a feature, not a bug.  It was willfully designed by a long-forgotten Congress to be structurally unfair, and intentionally to omit the essential requirement of procedural due process.  That is, that the fact-finder — the judge — must be independent and impartial, leaning neither in favor nor against one side or the other.  In immigration courts, however, the immigration judge and the “trial attorney,” or counsel for the government, are both Executive-Branch employees.   Immigration judges are Department of Justice lawyers appointed by the U.S. Attorney General.  Trial attorneys – who often later become immigration judges – are employed by the Department of Homeland Security and are part of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.

The Attorney General has the power to fire and remove immigration judges, or, on his unexplained whimsy, to punitively relocate them to hear cases at remote detention facilities in the U.S. hinterlands. As seen in recent months by the incumbent Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the AG has approved the imposition of work load production quotas on immigration judges, which inevitably will lead to even more abbreviated hearings, rushed oral and written decisions by immigration judges, and – all too often – reversible errors that must be rectified by the Board of Immigration Appeals and the federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court.

The present AG has gone even further in advancing his activist agenda, e.g., on August 16 in Matter of L-A-B-R- et al., 27 I&N Dec. 405 (A.G. 2018), by limiting the authority of immigration judges to find good cause to grant continuances, and on June 11, in Matter of A- B,  27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), by taking away the power of immigration judges to find female victims of domestic violence abroad whom the foreign police will not or cannot protect as a social group deserving of protection under the asylum laws of the United States.

Indeed, the con job is even more atrocious because the power of the Attorney General in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) seems to have been inspired by no less a legal authority than Humpty Dumpty:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

Alice in Wonderland,  by Lewis Carroll (Ch. 6)(italics in the original).

The “master” — according to INA § 103(a)(1)  — the arbiter of  the meaning of words carrying immigration-related legal consequences, at least for now, is the incumbent, AG Jeff Sessions:

The Attorney General shall be charged with the administration and enforcement of this Act and all other laws relating to the immigration and naturalization of aliens, except insofar as this Act or such laws relate to the powers, functions, and duties conferred upon the President, the Secretary of State, the officers of the Department of State, or diplomatic or consular officers: Provided, however, That determination and ruling by the Attorney General with respect to all questions of law shall be controlling (emphasis added).

Many respected commissions, organizations and individuals have long assailed the systemic deficiencies that make our nation’s administrative system for procedural fairness in deportation proceedings unfair and ineffective (including, Kip T. Bollins, The President of the Federal Bar Association which has  proposed model legislation, the Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, the National Immigrant Justice Center,  and Ashley Tabaddor, President of the National Association of Immigration Judges, in recent congressional testimony) – a broken and unjust process that by now can only be seen as a con job.

In 1981, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame, chaired the Select Commission on U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy, which issued a 467-page report.  The report contained a recommendation (23 VII.C.I.) on the re-positioning of the immigration court from the Justice Department into an independent judicial tribunal:  “The Select Commission recommends that existing law be amended to create an immigration court under Article I of the U.S. Constitution.” The Commission explained its reasoning in Article 23 VII.C.I., page 248, entitled “Structure for Immigration Hearings and Appeals”:

The Select Commission is convinced of the need for a more equitable and efficient method of processing exclusion and deportation cases. Some Commissioners believe that the answer lies in the creation of a U.S. Immigration Board, with statutory independence from INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] and the Attorney General, subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act. Such a mechanism, the Commission members argue, would also be an ideal body for adjudicating noncriminal actions taken against employers under an employer sanctions system. A majority of Commissioners, however, is of the view that such a solution would still suffer from many of the current administrative inadequacies. The institution of an Immigration Court under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, they believe, would result in more efficient and uniform processing of cases. . . .

The Immigration Court recommended by the Commission will include a trial division to hear and decide exclusion and deportation cases and an appellate division to correct hearing errors and permit definitive, nationally binding resolutions of exclusion and deportation cases.* The new court also offers the potential for introducing judicial uniformity into the review of denials of applications and petitions — matters that now occupy the attention of district courts around the country. The elimination of potential disparate rulings by courts of appeals should discourage further litigation. The Commission majority is also of the view that an Article I Immigration Court is more likely to attract outstanding adjudicators. Improvements in the caliber of personnel will enhance the quality of decisions and generally: eliminate any need for further review. Some Commissioners believe that if the Article I Court cannot be instituted for several years, interim measures should be taken to improve the competency of the existing INS.

*The remedy of Supreme Court review by petition for certiorari would remain available for the rare immigration case of great national importance; review of immigration decisions, by U.S. Courts of Appeals would be eliminated.

Congress should of course consider and debate the merits of the Commission’s sub-recommendations. (I would not eliminate the right of petition to the federal appeals courts for the very reason that many immigration rulings are of great national importance and the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket cannot accommodate them.) Still, the fundamental proposition urged by the Select Commission – to remove the immigration courts from the oversight of the Attorney General, and instead structure it as an Article I court – is supported by a multitude of contemporary stakeholders.

One leading voice is Hilarie Bass, President of the American Bar Association (ABA), who offered in her April 18, 2018 Statement submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration Committee, “Strengthening And Reforming America’s Immigration Court System,” the ABA’s compelling reasons:

[The ABA] determined that the Article I model presented the best option for meeting the goals and needs of the system. The Article I model is likely to be viewed as more independent than an agency because it would be a true judicial body; is likely as such to engender the greatest level of confidence in its results; can use its greater prestige to attract the best candidates for judgeships; and offers the best balance between independence and accountability to the political branches of the federal government. Given these advantages, in our view, the Article I court model is the preferred option.

. . .  Removing the adjudication system from the Department of Justice, whose primary function is a law enforcement agency, is vital to assuaging concerns about fairness and the perception of fairness. As a wholly judicial body, an Article I court is likely to engender the greatest level of confidence in the results of adjudication.

An Article I court also should attract highly-qualified judicial candidates and help to further professionalize the immigration judiciary. History has shown the potential for the politicization of the hiring process and an inherent bias toward the hiring of current or former government employees. Removing the hiring function from the Department of Justice also may increase the diversity of the candidate pool. Providing for a set term of sufficient length, along with protections against removal without cause, will similarly protect decisional independence and
make Article I judgeships more attractive. By attracting and selecting the highest quality lawyers as judges, an Article I court is more likely to produce well-reasoned decisions. Such decisions, as well as the handling of the proceedings in a professional manner, should improve the perception of the fairness and accuracy of the result. Perceived fairness, in turn, should lead to greater acceptance of the decision without the need to appeal to a higher tribunal. When appeals are taken, more articulate decisions should enable the reviewing body at each level to be more efficient in its review and decision-making and should result in fewer remands requesting additional explanations or fact-finding.

Unfortunately, Attorney General Sessions seems mired in a false equivalency, asserting that anyone opposing his views on immigration must ipso facto be a proponent of unregulated open borders. He made this clear recently in his remarks welcoming 44 new immigration judges, characterizing immigration lawyers not as officers of the court but as single-objective advocates (essentially as mouthpieces) who will do or say anything to win in immigration court:

Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day – like water seeping through an earthen dam – to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the [INA]. That is our most serious duty.

He said other disturbing things as well in addressing the new immigration judges:

You have an obligation to decide cases efficiently and to keep our federal laws functioning effectively, fairly, and consistently.

And, as the statute states, Immigration Judges conduct designated proceedings “subject to such supervision and shall perform such duties as the Attorney General shall prescribe”.

This last provision gives me responsibility to ensure that our immigration system operates in an effective and efficient manner consistent with law enacted by Congress.  Many in this country take a different view. They object to any enforcement that works. They evidence an open borders philosophy. . . .

As you take on this critically important role, I hope that you will be imaginative and inventive in order to manage a high-volume caseload. I do not apologize for expecting you to perform, at a high level, efficiently and effectively.

Your role requires great legal skill. Many of the cases present complex legal issues, but like anyone acting as a judge, you must manage your docket and support staff well.Cases must be moved to conclusion.

And as members of the Executive Branch, it is our duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation. Your job is to apply the law—even in tough cases.

As we work to restore rule of law in our immigration system, we will send a clear message to the world that the lawless practices of the past are over. The world will know what our rules are, and great numbers will no longer undertake this dangerous journey.

To be sure, the world — indeed, the American people — should know what our rules are.  They should also know Lord that their ability to make the arduous journey to settle in America pursuing their opportunity under the facts in their case and our immigration laws to live out the American Dream will be decided by an impartial jurist in an independent tribunal. This is not our fathers’ immigration system. It cannot be learned by a three-year-old. Its laws should not be declared by any Attorney General. Congress must end this con job.

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Right on Angelo! I call it a cruel and unconstitutional “bait and a switch.”
Respondents appear before robed “judges” who actually are enforcement officers in partnership with the immigration police and beholden to a “chief enforcer” who has complete contempt for foreign nationals, truth, the rule of law, and the US Constitution.
Sure, notwithstanding the odds many judges “buck the trend” and provide fairness as best they can in an inherently unfair and biased system. But, it’s still a hoax perpetrated by Congress and enabled by Article III Courts who should have held this mess unconstitutional from the day it was established.
PWS
10-02-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
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  4. SENATORS DEMAND IG INVESTIGATE BIAS, CORRUPTION, GROSS MISMANAGEMENT @ EOIR!

TAL @ CNN: Misogyny, Racism, White Nationalism, Intentional Child Abuse @ Heart of Trump/Sessions Ugly Restrictionist Immigration Policies!

Trump’s immigration policies have especially affected women and domestic violence victims

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

The Salvadoran woman could not escape her ex-husband’s abuse. Even after their divorce, he tracked her down in a town two hours away, raped her, and separately had a friend and his police officer brother threaten her directly. So she snuck into the US and applied for asylum.

Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions used her case to make it extremely difficult for her and women like her to get those protections.

The identity of the woman in the case remains anonymous. But her story is too familiar for the advocates and attorneys who work with thousands of immigrant women and immigrant women victims seeking the right to stay in the country.

Despite their stated objectives of cracking down on criminals and fraud, many of the Trump administration’s immigration policies have especially impacted the vulnerable and victims.

One policy change that could deter women victims from reporting their crimes takes effect Monday as the Senate deliberates whether to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh amid assault allegations against him, which he has vehemently denied.

Some of the changes were barely noticed. Others, like Sessions’ overhaul of asylum law, have generated numerous headlines.

But the sum total of those policies could put an already particularly vulnerable population even at risk, advocates who work with women say. And that could empower abusers and predators even further, they add, making everyone less safe.

The policies

A policy takes effect on Monday that could increase the risk of deportation for undocumented immigrant victims or witnesses of crimes. The agency that considers visa applications will begin to refer immigrants for deportation proceedings in far more cases, including when a person fails to qualify for a visa. The policy would also constrain officers’ discretion.

The new US Citizenship and Immigration Services policy specifically applies to visas designed to protect victims of violent crime and trafficking, including some created under the Violence Against Women Act. Those visas will give legal status to victims who report or testify about crimes.

The result: Victims who apply for the special visas but fall short, including for reasons like incomplete paperwork or missing a deadline, could end up in deportation proceedings. Previously, there was no guidance to refer all visa applicants who fall short to immigration court for possible deportation. Under the new policy, it’ll be the presumption. Advocates for immigrants worry the risk will be too great for immigrants on the fence about reporting their crimes.

In the Salvadoran woman’s case, Sessions ruled in June that gang and domestic violence victims generally don’t qualify for asylum, and the Department of Homeland Security applied those rules to all asylum seekers at the border and refugees applying from abroad.

Other policies that especially impact women and victims include:

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/30/politics/trump-immigration-women-victims/index.html

 

 

‘I wouldn’t wish it even on my worst enemy’: Reunited immigrant moms write letters from detention

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The women say they were treated like dogs and told that their children would be given up for adoption. They lied awake at night, wondering if their kids were safe.

But even after being reunited with their children, they say their nightmare has not ended.

Their anguish is conveyed in a collection of letters written from one of the few immigrant family detention centers in the country, where some moms and children who were separated at the border this summer are now being held together while they await their fate. The mothers’ writings reflect a mix of despair, bewilderment and hope as they remain in government custody and legal limbo, weeks after they were reunited.

“My children were far from me and I didn’t know if they were okay, if they were eating or sleeping. I have suffered a lot,” wrote a mother identified as Elena. “ICE harmed us a lot psychologically. We can’t sleep well because my little girl thinks they are going to separate us again. … I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone.”

The letters reflect the scars inflicted at the height of family separations this summer, when thousands of families were broken up at the border and kept apart for weeks to months at a time. They also reflect the ongoing uncertainty and emotional recovery for the families that are still detained.

The letters were collected at the Dilley detention center in Texas. They were provided via the Dilley Pro Bono Project by the Immigration Justice Campaign, a joint effort by leading immigrant advocacy and legal groups to provide access to legal support in immigrant detention centers.

The mothers speak with the Dilley Pro Bono staff in visitation trailers in the evenings and had expressed a desire to tell their stories to the public. The staff suggested writing them down, and the mothers agreed to write the letters, translated from Spanish, under pseudonyms.

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/30/politics/separated-mothers-reunited-letters/index.html

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Yup. Don’t let all the BKavs commotion distract you from focusing on the daily intentional and gross abuses of human rights and fundamental decency being committed by the Trump Administration.

Think a partisan Trump sycophant like BKavs would ever impartially uphold the rule of law against the abuses of the Trump Administration, particularly when it comes to treatment of women? Not a chance! He’s being put on the Supremes because Trump & the GOP are confident of his predetermined extreme right-wing agenda, his lack of objectivity, and his demonstrated inability to think outside the “box of privilege” which has allowed him to succeed and prosper (often at the expense of others).

No more BKavs for America!

PWS

10-01-18

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHITE NATIONALIST AG MAKES VICIOUS UNFOUNDED ATTACK ON REFUGEES & THEIR ATTORNEYS THE CENTERPIECE OF HIS SPEECH TO LARGEST CLASS OF INCOMING U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES — “Good lawyers using all their talents and skills work every day … like water seeping through an earthen dam to get around the plain words of (immigration law) to advance their clients’ interests.”
  2. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: AS SESSIONS RAMPS UP THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG,” RAMPANT SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE DETAINEES CERTAIN TO INCREASE! – AG’S Child Abuse Also Makes Him Complicit In Sexual Abuse! – See The Short Video By Emily Kassie Here!
  4. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!

SNL “DOES” BKAVS! — “Now I am usually an optimist, a keg is half full kind of guy, but what I’ve seen from the monsters on this committee makes me want to puke—and not from beer!”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/snl-matt-damon-absolutely-nails-brett-kavanaugh-in-season-premiere

Matt Damon absolutely “nails” it!

PWS

09-30-18

 

 

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HON. JEFFREY CHASE & OTHERS: No Matter What The FBI Reports, Judge BKavs Has Already Shown That He Is An Angry, Belligerent, Political Partisan Unfit To Serve On High Court!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/9/28/kavanaugh-and-judicial-impartiality

Kavanaugh and Judicial Impartiality

The standard to keep in mind regarding the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice is found in 28 U.S.C. section 455(a): “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Let’s set aside for now the fact that as drafted, the statute seems to apply only to men (did Congress really not envision women judges?).  Comments have been made recently about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh being “innocent until proven guilty.”  That’s actually the standard for a defendant in a criminal trial.  Because we as a society recognize how terrible it would be to send an innocent person to jail, possibly for many years, our legal system has established a standard that is willing to allow many who are guilty of crimes to go free, because we find that result preferable to ruining the life of an innocent person through wrongful conviction.  Therefore, where the evidence establishes, for example, an 85 percent likelihood that the defendant committed the crime, a finding of not guilty is warranted, as the remaining 15% constitutes “reasonable doubt.”  Of course, wrongful convictions still happen in practice, but nevertheless, the theory behind a presumption of innocence and a standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” in criminal proceedings remains a noble one.

Not being allowed to serve as a Supreme Court justice is a far, far cry from being convicted of a crime and sent to prison.  Realize that there are only nine people in the whole country who are Supreme Court justices.  Many who have never been appointed to the Supreme Court have nevertheless gone on to lead happy, productive lives; some have amassed significant wealth, others have even held positions of trust and respect in society.

In choosing a Supreme Court justice, the ideal candidate is not someone who hasn’t been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of some horrible act.  Rather, it’s someone whose impartiality is beyond questioning.  This is because in a democracy, faith in our judicial institutions is paramount.  Society will abide by judicial outcomes that they disagree with if they believe that the “wrong” result was made by impartial jurists who were genuinely trying to get it right.  Abiding by unpopular judicial decisions is the key to democracy.  It is what prevents angry mobs from taking justice into their own hands.  In the words of Balzac, “to distrust the judiciary marks the beginning of the end of society.”

A primary reason Republicans are so anxious to “plow through” (as Mitch McConnell, using the rapiest terminology imaginable, unfortunately phrased it) the nomination of Kavanaugh is because of how he might rule on abortion rights, an issue of great importance to the party’s base.  Nearly all of the Republican Senators seem to believe that as long as Kavanaugh has not been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of attempted rape, then he is fully qualified to serve as the deciding vote in taking away a right that has been constitutionally guaranteed to women for the past 45 years.

However, the three Republican Senators who at the last second requested an FBI investigation into the charges against Kavanaugh may have realized that their colleagues were not applying the correct standard.  Abortion rights involve a woman’s right to control her own body.  Yesterday, the country heard very detailed and articulate testimony from a highly credible and courageous witness.  What she described involved her being deprived of the right to control her own body, by a male who physically pinned her down, covered her mouth when she tried to scream for help, and tried to forcibly remove her clothing against her will.  Her violator then added insult to injury by laughing at her in a way that still haunts her to this day.  The credible witness stated that she was 100 percent certain that the male who violated her rights in this despicable way was Kavanaugh.

The evidence goes directly to the question of the candidate’s view of a woman’s right to control her own body.  The question that Senators should be considering is how much public trust there will be in the impartiality of a decision that involves such right in light of the past actions of the justice casting the potential deciding vote.

Senators who will nevertheless vote for Kavanaugh will say that in spite of the testimony, they cannot be sure of his guilt.  Or they may state that they are strongly convinced of his innocence.  Regardless, many people might reasonably question Kavanaugh’s impartiality based on the evidence they have heard.  (And remember, there have been two other women leveling similar accusations as well).  Even those who believe him innocent should at this point realize that in light of public perception, the appearance of impropriety should disqualify Kavanaugh from consideration.

Should those Senators deciding the issue ignore the above, we will all likely live with the consequences for decades to come.  Although it would not undo the damage, let us hope the public will respond quickly and decisively in voting the offenders out of office in November.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

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Others agree with Jeffrey:

Here’s what the NY Times Editorial board had to say:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/opinion/why-brett-kavanaugh-wasnt-believable.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Why Brett Kavanaugh Wasn’t Believable

And why Christine Blasey Ford was.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

Pool photo by Saul Loeb

What a study in contrasts: Where Christine Blasey Ford was calm and dignified, Brett Kavanaugh was volatile and belligerent; where she was eager to respond fully to every questioner, and kept worrying whether she was being “helpful” enough, he was openly contemptuous of several senators; most important, where she was credible and unshakable at every point in her testimony, he was at some points evasive, and some of his answers strained credulity.

Indeed, Dr. Blasey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday was devastating.

With the eyes of the nation on her, Dr. Blasey recounted an appalling trauma. When she was 15 years old, she said, she was sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh, then a 17-year-old student at a nearby high school and now President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.

Her description of the attack, which she said occurred in a suburban Maryland home on a summer night in 1982, was gut-wrenchingly specific. She said Judge Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, both of whom she described as very drunk, locked her in a second-floor room of a private home. She said Kavanaugh jumped on top of her, groped her, tried to remove her clothes and put his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. She said she feared he might accidentally kill her.

“The uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense,” she said, was her strongest memory.

Judge Kavanaugh, when it was his turn, was not laughing. He was yelling. He spent more than half an hour raging against Senate Democrats and the “Left” for “totally and permanently” destroying his name, his career, his family, his life. He called his confirmation process a “national disgrace.”

“You may defeat me in the final vote, but you will never get me to quit,” Judge Kavanaugh said, sounding like someone who suddenly doubted his confirmation to the Supreme Court — an outcome that seemed preordained only a couple of weeks ago.

Pool photo by Erin Schaff

Judge Kavanaugh’s defiant fury might be understandable coming from someone who believes himself innocent of the grotesque charges he’s facing. Yet it was also evidence of an unsettling temperament in a man trying to persuade the nation of his judicial demeanor.

We share the sorrow of every sensible American who feels stricken at the partisan spectacle playing out in Washington. Judge Kavanaugh was doubtless — and lamentably — correct in predicting that after this confirmation fight, however it ends, the bitterness is only likely to grow. As he put it in his testimony, “What goes around, comes around,” in the partisan vortex that has been intensifying in Washington for decades now. His open contempt for the Democrats on the committee also raised further questions about his own fair-mindedness, and it served as a reminder of his decades as a Republican warrior who would take no prisoners.

Judge Kavanaugh’s biggest problem was not his demeanor but his credibility, which has been called in question on multiple issues for more than a decade, and has been an issue again throughout his Supreme Court confirmation process.

On Thursday, he gave misleading answers to questions about seemingly small matters — sharpening doubts about his honesty about far more significant ones. He gave coy answers when pressed about what was clearly a sexual innuendo in his high-school yearbook. He insisted over and over that others Dr. Blasey named as attending the gathering had “said it didn’t happen,” when in fact at least two of them have said only that they don’t recall it — and one of them told a reporter that she believes Dr. Blasey.

Judge Kavanaugh clumsily dodged a number of times when senators asked him about his drinking habits. When Senator Amy Klobuchar gently pressed him about whether he’d ever blacked out from drinking, he at first wouldn’t reply directly. “I don’t know, have you?” he replied — a condescending and dismissive response to the legitimate exercise of a senator’s duty of advise and consent. (Later, after a break in the hearing, he apologized.)

Judge Kavanaugh gave categorical denials a number of times, including, at other points, that he’d ever blacked out from too much drinking. Given numerous reports now of his heavy drinking in college, such a blanket denial is hard to believe.

In contrast, Dr. Blasey bolstered her credibility not only by describing in harrowing detail what she did remember, but by being honest about what she didn’t — like the exact date of the gathering, or the address of the house where it occurred. As she pointed out, the precise details of a trauma get burned into the brain and stay there long after less relevant details fade away.

She was also honest about her ambivalence in coming forward. “I am terrified,” she told the senators in her opening remarks. And then there’s the fact that she gains nothing by coming forward. She is in hiding now with her family in the face of death threats.

Perhaps the most maddening part of Thursday’s hearing was the cowardice of the committee’s 11 Republicans, all of them men, and none of them, apparently, capable of asking Dr. Blasey a single question. They farmed that task out to a sex-crimes prosecutor named Rachel Mitchell, who tried unsuccessfully in five-minute increments to poke holes in Dr. Blasey’s story.

Eventually, as Judge Kavanaugh testified, the Republican senators ventured out from behind their shield. Doubtless seeking to ape President’s Trump style and win his approval, they began competing with each other to make the most ferocious denunciation of their Democratic colleagues and the most heartfelt declaration of sympathy for Judge Kavanaugh, in a show of empathy far keener than they managed to muster for Dr. Blasey.

Pressed over and over by Democratic senators, Judge Kavanaugh never could come up with a clear answer for why he wouldn’t also want a fair, neutral F.B.I. investigation into the allegations against him — the kind of investigation the agency routinely performs, and that Dr. Blasey has called for. At one point, though, he acknowledged that it was common sense to put some questions to other potential witnesses besides him.

When Senator Patrick Leahy asked whether the judge was the inspiration for a hard-drinking character named Bart O’Kavanaugh in a memoir about teenage alcoholism by Mr. Judge, Judge Kavanaugh replied, “You’d have to ask him.”

Asking Mr. Judge would be a great idea. Unfortunately he’s hiding out in a Delaware beach town and Senate Republicans are refusing to subpoena him.

Why? Mr. Judge is the key witness in Dr. Blasey’s allegation. He has said he has no recollection of the party or of any assault. But he hasn’t faced live questioning to test his own memory and credibility. And Dr. Blasey is far from alone in describing Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge as heavy drinkers; several of Judge Kavanaugh’s college classmates have said the same.

None of these people have been called to testify before the Senate. President Trump has refused to call on the F.B.I. to look into the multiple allegations that have been leveled against the judge in the past two weeks. Instead the Republican majority on the committee has scheduled a vote for Friday morning.

There is no reason the committee needs to hold this vote before the F.B.I. can do a proper investigation, and Mr. Judge and possibly other witnesses can be called to testify under oath. The Senate, and the American people, need to know the truth, or as close an approximation as possible, before deciding whether Judge Kavanaugh should get a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court. If the committee will not make a more serious effort, the only choice for senators seeking to protect the credibility of the Supreme Court will be to vote no.

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

Emily Bazelon of the NY Times Sunday Magazine wasn’t convinced by BKavs either:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/kavanaugh-blasey-ford-investigation.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The Senate’s Failure to Seek the Truth

It is impossible to justify the lack of a neutral investigation into the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

By Emily Bazelon

Ms. Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.

Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Twice as a reporter, I’ve interviewed women who have accused men of sexual assault and the men they accused. In both cases, the women looked me in the eye and told me about how they’d been raped, and then the men looked me in the eye and told me they’d never raped anyone. All four people spoke with force and emotion. In the moment, I wanted to believe each one. It’s uncomfortable to imagine that someone who seems wholly sincere is not. It’s confusing — it seems unfeeling — to turn away from someone who makes a vehement claim of truth.

If you watched Thursday’s hearing, in particular Christine Blasey Ford’s opening statement and Brett Kavanaugh’s, maybe you know what I mean. So then what? As a reporter, I looked for corroborating evidence as a means of assessing each person’s veracity. What else could I find out, and how did their accounts stack up against that? This is how investigators do their work. They find out as much as they can about the surrounding circumstances. Then it’s up to judges to weigh the facts and decide which account is most credible.

Judge Kavanaugh didn’t sound as if he was thinking like a judge. His partisan attack on Democrats wasn’t judicial, in any sense of the word. His approach to evidence wasn’t either.

The difficulty for holding Judge Kavanaugh accountable for what Dr. Blasey says was her assault is the lack of a certain kind of corroboration for her account. The other people she has named who were at the small gathering where she says the assault took place don’t remember such a gathering. Two of them are Judge Kavanaugh’s high school friends. One of them is Dr. Blasey’s friend.

But there’s no reason any of them would have remembered such a gathering. She says it was a spur-of-the-moment get-together, after swimming and before a party to come. And it took place 36 years ago. The gathering she describes is also consistent with one of Judge Kavanaugh’s calendar entries about drinking with his friends.

We also have more than Dr. Blasey’s word. Years ago, she talked about this assault, and named Judge Kavanaugh, with her husband and her therapist, and at a later time, she told a few close friends. They back her up on this. One memorable detail from her testimony has the ring of truth, in its specificity: Her assault came up in couples therapy with her husband because the traumatic memory triggered anxiety and claustrophobia, and that made her insist on adding a second front door to her house, to his understandable confusion. This is not the kind of fact a person makes up.

Dr. Blasey was firm about closing a door that would allow us to reconcile her accusation and Judge Kavanaugh’s denial. She is not mixed up about the identity of her assailant, she said. She is “100 percent certain” it was Judge Kavanaugh. The comfortable path for the judge’s supporters — believe she was assaulted, disbelieve he committed the assault — is gone. Her certainty was a pillar of the testimony she put the full weight of herself behind — her professional identity, her character, the careful consideration and precision about facts that was evident as she spoke.

Judge Kavanaugh refused to open another door that would allow the public, and the Senate, to reconcile these accounts of accusation and denial. He ruled out the possibility that he could not remember assaulting Dr. Blasey because he blacked out or was otherwise incapacitated by drinking. He was just as adamant about categorically denying the other sexual misconduct he has been accused of by two other women.

Judge Kavanaugh also didn’t much back off his denials of being a hard drinker or an aggressive drunk. This is his big weakness, stacked against other facts that have been gathered. Several classmates from his college days at Yale paint an entirely different picture of him as a drinker than the innocent one he offered of being a person who “likes beer.” So do his own yearbook entries and speeches. If you’re a judge who believes in strictly reading a text for its plain meaning, as Judge Kavanaugh says he is, his dismissals and wispy explanations aren’t persuasive.

If you’re thinking like a judge aiming to discover the truth, it’s also hard (impossible?) to justify the lack of a neutral investigation and the absence of other witnesses, beginning with Mark Judge, the friend of Judge Kavanaugh’s, whom Dr. Blasey says saw and participated in the assault, but not ending with him.

The task of a judge or a Supreme Court justice is to seek the truth. The most important qualities for the job are probity and veracity. Nobody was on trial at the Senate Judiciary Committee. But only one person — Judge Kavanaugh — was asking to be elevated to the highest court in the land.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion).

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at the magazine and the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. She is also a best-selling author and a co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest, a popular podcast.

@emilybazelon • Facebook

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Meanwhile, over at Slate, Will Saletan wasn’t buying BKavs performance either:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/kavanaugh-lied-senate-judiciary-committee.html

POLITICS

Kavanaugh Lied to the Judiciary Committee—Repeatedly

Thursday’s hearing didn’t prove whether Kavanaugh assaulted Ford. But we do know the Supreme Court nominee wasn’t honest in his testimony.

By WILLIAM SALETAN

Brett Kavanaugh frowns during his testimony.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
Jim Bourg/AFP/Getty Images

On Thursday, after listening to testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, several Republican senators said they would vote to confirm the nominee because it’s impossible to determine which witness—Ford or Kavanaugh—is telling the truth. Actually, it’s easy. We don’t know for certain whether Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Ford. But we do know that Kavanaugh lied repeatedly in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here are some of his lies.

1. “It’s been investigated.” The White House has ignored multiple requests from Democratic senators to authorize FBI interviews with the alleged witnesses in the case. In particular, there has been no FBI or Judiciary Committee interview with Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s accused accomplice in the alleged assault. In fact, Judge has fled to a hideout in Delaware to avoid being called to testify.

During the hearing, several Democratic senators pleaded with Kavanaugh to call for FBI interviews so that the truth could be resolved. Kavanaugh refused. When Sen. Chris Coons pointed out that the FBI had needed only a few days to complete interviews in the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill case, Kavanaugh said even that was too much, because the Judiciary Committee had already examined his case. “It’s been investigated,” he told Coons.

No honest judge would say that. None of the alleged witnesses, other than Ford and Kavanaugh, has been interviewed. Instead, the alleged witnesses have issued short statementsof nonrecollection and have asked not to testify. The committee’s Republican majority, eager to brush the case aside, has accepted these statements and has refused to ask further questions. In his testimony, Kavanaugh falsely claimed that FBI interviews would add nothing. Agents would “just go and do what you’re doing,” he told the senators.

Kavanaugh claimed that a vague statement of nonrecollection from Judge’s lawyer was sufficient “testimony.” He dismissed calls for Judge to appear before the committee, arguing that his own testimony was adequate. But Kavanaugh also mocked the committee’s Democrats, who lack the power of subpoena, by telling them to go talk to Judge. When Sen. Patrick Leahy asked whether Bart O’Kavanaugh, a drunken character in Judge’s book, was meant to represent Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee passed the buck to his testimony-evading friend: “You’d have to ask him.”

2. “All four witnesses say it didn’t happen.” Each time senators pleaded for an FBI review or a more thorough investigation by the committee, Kavanaugh replied that it wasn’t necessary, since all the people Ford claimed had been at the gathering where the alleged assault occurred had rejected her story. Eight times, Kavanaugh claimed that the witnesses “said it didn’t happen.” Three times, he said the witnesses “refuted” Ford’s story. Four times, Kavanaugh claimed that “Dr. Ford’s longtime friend,” Leland Keyser, had affirmed that the gathering never occurred.

That’s a lie. Keyser has stated that she doesn’t recall the gathering—she was never told about the attack, and she was supposedly downstairs while it allegedly occurred upstairs—but that she believes Ford’s story. That isn’t corroboration, but it isn’t refutation or denial, either. During the hearing, Sen. Cory Booker pointed this out to Kavanaugh, reminding him that in an interview with the Washington Post, Keyser “said she believes Dr. Ford.” Kavanaugh ignored Booker’s correction. Ninety seconds later, the nominee defiantly repeated: “The witnesses who were there say it didn’t happen.”

3. “I know exactly what happened that night.”Kavanaugh made several false or widely contradicted statements about his use of alcohol. This is significant because Judge has admitted to drunken blackouts, which raises the possibility that Judge and Kavanaugh don’t remember what they did to Ford. During the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked about Kavanaugh’s participation in a night of drunken revelry at Yale Law School. Kavanaugh assured Blumenthal, “I know exactly what happened the whole night.” Later, Booker asked Kavanaugh whether he had “never had gaps in memories, never had any losses whatsoever, never had foggy recollection about what happened” while drinking. Kavanaugh affirmed that he had never experienced such symptoms: “That’s what I said.”

These statements contradict reports from several people who knew Kavanaugh. Liz Swisher, a friend from Yale, says she saw Kavanaugh drink a lot, stumble, and slur his words. “It’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess,” she told the Washington Post. And in a speech four years ago, Kavanaugh described himself and a former classmate “piecing things together” to figure out that they’d “had more than a few beers” before an alcohol-soaked banquet at Yale Law School.

4. “I’m in Colorado.” As evidence that the charges against him were ludicrous, Kavanaugh told the committee that he had been falsely accused of committing an assault more than 1,500 miles away. He claimed that according to his accusers, “I’m in Colorado, you know, I’m sighted all over the place.” But a transcript of Kavanaugh’s Sept. 25 interview with Judiciary Committee staffers shows no claim of an offense in Colorado. The transcript says that according to a woman from Colorado, “at least four witnesses” saw Kavanaugh shove a woman “up against the wall very aggressively and sexually” in 1998. But Kavanaugh was specifically told during the interview that the scene of the alleged incident was in D.C., where he was living at the time.

Kavanaugh also told other whoppers. He claimed that his beer consumption in high school was legal because the drinking age in Maryland was 18. In reality, by the time he was 18, the drinking age was 21. He claimed that his high school yearbook reference to the “Beach Week Ralph Club” referred in part to his difficulty in holding down “spicy food.” He claimed that the entry’s jokes about two sporting events he and his high school buddies had watched—“Who won that game, anyway?”—had nothing to do with booze. And he defended his refusal to take a polygraph test on the grounds that such tests aren’t admissible in federal courts—neglecting to mention that he had endorsed their use in hiring and law enforcement.

Maybe Kavanaugh is an honest man in other contexts. Maybe he’s a good husband, a loving dad, and an inspiring coach. And maybe there’s no way to be certain that he assaulted Ford. But one thing is certain: He lied repeatedly to the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Some of his lies, about the testimony of witnesses and the integrity of investigations, go to the heart of our system of justice. Any senator who votes to put this man on the Supreme Court is saying that such lies don’t matter.

****************************************************
Also at Slate, Yascha Mounk predicts lasting damage to our Republic if BKavs is confirmed:
 
THE GOOD FIGHT

The Kavanaugh Stakes Just Got Higher

To confirm him now would be dangerous to the survival of our democratic institutions.

By YASCHA MOUNK

The Supreme Court and Brett Kavanaugh getting sworn in to testify.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Drew Angerer/Getty Images and Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images.

At this moment of feverishly intense partisanship, it takes a great deal of courage to tiptoe away from your own tribe. Sen. Jeff Flake has not yet announced that he is willing to part for good; in the end, he may yet betray his professed principles and cast his vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. And yet, we should not underestimate how much strength it took for him to demand an investigation into Christine Blasey Ford’s serious allegations of sexual assault and delay the judge’s confirmation by at least a week. For now, he has proved to be one of the few people in the Senate—and perhaps one of the few in the whole country—who have insisted on taking Ford’s allegations seriously even though he actually shares most of Kavanaugh’s judicial views.

For the sake of our country, all of us should now hope that the FBI manages to uncover conclusive evidence that either supports or dispels Ford’s accusations. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. So the big risk we now face is that the same hell we have lived through for the past 48 hours will be repeated in even more farcical form next week. And that is why it’s very important to use this time to reflect seriously on how judicious people—and perhaps especially senators like Flake who profess to be conscientious conservatives—should vote if they have not made up their mind about the allegations.

It is painfully obvious that most Republican senators will vote to confirm Kavanaugh if the allegations against him are anything short of iron-clad; indeed, one shocking poll suggests that a majority of Republicans voters, and nearly half of evangelicals, would support his confirmation even if they did believe that he is guilty. It is also obvious that most Democrats will vote against his confirmation even in the unlikely case that the FBI should somehow manage to disprove Ford’s allegations; indeed, Kavanaugh’s extreme views on executive power provide a strong reason for any defender of liberal democracy to oppose his nomination. And yet, I think that one very important consideration has largely been overlooked.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Kavanaugh is an innocent man. If that’s the case, the raw anger he displayed during Thursday’s confirmation hearing is certainly understandable. While we might wish for a public figure to keep his poise even when his reputation is being impugned, it is perfectly human to lose your countenance under such circumstances.

But even under that charitable interpretation, Kavanaugh’s performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee makes him eminently unfit to sit on the highest court of the land.

A justice on the Supreme Court has to rule on a whole host of issues that are of huge partisan significance: If he is confirmed, he will have to settle substantive questions of public policy—from abortion rights to the health care mandate—on which Democrats and Republicans have hugely differing preferences. Just as importantly, he will also help to set the parameters that are supposed to ensure that Democrats and Republicans can appeal for the votes of their fellow citizens on fair terms.

But how can somebody who has accused Democrats of a “calculated and orchestrated political hit” be seen as impartial when he rules on a gerrymandering case that could deliver a huge advantage to Republicans? How can somebody who describes serious allegations of sexual assault as “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” be expected to give both sides a fair hearing if the outcome of a presidential election should once again be litigated in front of the Supreme Court? And how can somebody who denounces the “frenzy on the left” to derail his nomination be trusted to ensure that the left’s most vocal enemy, Donald Trump, does not overstep the bounds of his constitutional authority?

Because of Mitch McConnell’s refusal to hold hearings on the confirmation of Merrick Garland during the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, the current composition of the Supreme Court is already tainted. Now, the confirmation of as nakedly partisan a jurist as Kavanaugh would go a long way toward destroying whatever remains of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. And this would not only tank the trust Americans have in the last branch of government that has, according to polls, consistently been more popular than secondhand car salesmen; it also significantly raises the likelihood that Democrats will engage in yet another round of tit for tat.

Precisely because partisans need to be able to trust that courts can enforce the rules for fair political competition between them and their adversaries, attempts by a political party to change the ideological makeup of the judiciary are extremely dangerous to the survival of democratic institutions. That’s why (direct or indirect) court-packing schemes have been key elements of the authoritarian takeovers in Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. And it’s also why the current governments in Poland and Hungary are playing constitutional hardball to ensure that judges they appoint command a majority on the most important courts in their respective countries.

There can therefore be little doubt that any attempt by Democrats to pack the Supreme Court, for example, by expanding its size, would be another step in a tit-for-tat spiral at whose end autocracy awaits. And yet, recent events will make it very hard for those voices within the Democratic Party that recognize this danger to prevail. If one side is so willing to abuse precedent and decency to, as Kavanaugh might put it, screw the libs, it becomes very difficult for the other side not to reciprocate in kind.

This is why Kavanaugh’s confirmation would not just be a disaster in itself; it would also be a strong reason to become even more pessimistic about the future of American politics. The GOP and Trump are now more fully aligned than ever. Our country’s partisan divide is deeper than it has been in living memory. The mutual hatred and incomprehension is more acute than it has been in decades. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, it’s very, very difficult to envisage what path could possibly lead us out of this nightmare.

Jeff Flake has acted with much more courage and decency than most liberals care to admit. But the responsibility that now rests on his—and Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s and Sen. Susan Collins’—shoulders is even greater than he might realize.

**********************************************
Dahlia Lithwick @ Slate is also no BKavs fan:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/christine-blasey-ford-hearing-fear-a-justice-brett-kavanaugh.html

That being said, I thought that his emotional partisan attack on Democratic Senators, his overt rudeness to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and his unsupported “conspiracy theory” re the Clintons showed that he is exactly what his critics have been saying all along: an injudicious and disingenuous partisan.

No matter what really happened with Ford, he is “damaged goods” who can’t credibly serve on the Supremes. A decent person would withdraw at this point for the good of the country.

Certainly, Trump can find a reactionary GOP female judge with no personal baggage to carry the flag. He was actually pretty stupid to nominate BKavs in the first place rather than a female vetted by the Heritage Foundation whom the Dems couldn’t have touched.

I assume that Senator L. Graham is auditioning for Gonzo’s job after the midterms. He seems to forgotten what he and his GOP buddies did to Judge Merrick Garland — a very decent person and good jurist who never even got a chance to be heard at all. The GOP just decided that “advice and consent” meant “stonewall if you don’t like the President.” And as a moderate and polite “center left” jurist, Judge Garland certainly would have been a more appropriate pick for the Supremes than BKavs! But, power is power, and the GOP has it right now — the Dems don’t.

Nothing is likely to stop Judge’s Kavanaugh’s elevation at this point. But, as Jeffrey suggests, getting to the ballot box could make BKavs the last such appointment for some time.

Best,

PWS
09-30-18

 

Related posts:

  1. 👩‍⚖️⚖️ONE MEAN☠️🤮⚰️ MOTHER: Soon-To-Be Justice Barrett’s Immigration Jurisprudence Shows Cruelty, Legal Ignorance, Lack Of Empathy For The Vulnerable Humans Whose Lives Are At Stake In An Unconstitutional System Rigged Against Them!
  2. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  3. WILLIAM SALETAN @ SLATE: “Trump Is a Remorseless Advocate of Crimes Against Humanity” – “But Trump’s election and his persistent approval from more than 40 percent of Americans are a reminder that nothing in our national character protects us from becoming a rapacious, authoritarian country. What protects us are institutions that stop us from doing our worst.” 
  4. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!

DUE PROCESS MOCKED, COURT SYSTEM IN CHAOS! — NAIJ President A. Ashley Tabaddor Speaks Out Against Sessions’s Bias & Politicization Of U.S. Immigration Courts!

https://www.voanews.com/a/immigration-judges-say-new-quotas-undermine-independence/4582640.html

From VOA News:

Immigration Judges Say New Quotas Undermine Independence

WASHINGTON —

The nation’s immigration court judges are anxious and stressed by a quota system implemented by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that pushes them to close 700 cases per year as a way to get rid of an immense backlog, the head of the judges’ union said Friday.

It means judges would have an average of about 2½ hours to complete cases — an impossible ask for complicated asylum matters that can include hundreds of pages of documents and hours of testimony, Judge Ashley Tabaddor said.

“This is an unprecedented act, which compromises the integrity of the court and undermines the decisional independence of immigration judges,” she said in a speech at the National Press Club, in her capacity as head of the union. Tabaddor said the backlog of 750,000 cases was created in part by government bureaucracy and a neglected immigration court system.

“Now, the same backlog is being used as a political tool to advance the current law enforcement policies,” she said.

Signature issue

Curbing immigration is a signature issue for the Trump administration, and the jobs of the nation’s more than 300 immigration judges are in the spotlight.

They decide whether someone has a legal basis to remain in the country while the government tries to deport them, including those seeking asylum. Tabaddor presides in Los Angeles, where she oversees 2,000 cases, including many involving juveniles.

The judges are employees of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is overseen by the attorney general — unlike the criminal and civil justice systems where judges operate independently.

Immigration court judges have repeatedly asked for independence, and Tabaddor brought it up again Friday, calling the current structure a serious design flaw.

A Justice Department spokesman said the union has repeatedly tried to block common-sense reforms that would make the judges’ jobs better, and that the proper home for the courts is where they are right now, under DOJ.

FILE - The Arlington Immigration Court building in Arlington, Virginia. The courtrooms inside are plain, and cases are dispatched quickly, each one settled in five to 10 minutes. (A. Barros/VOA)
FILE – The Arlington Immigration Court building in Arlington, Virginia. The courtrooms inside are plain, and cases are dispatched quickly, each one settled in five to 10 minutes. (A. Barros/VOA)

Earlier this year, the Justice Department sent a memo to immigration judges telling them they would need to clear at least 700 cases a year in order to receive a “satisfactory” rating on their performance evaluations. Sessions has pushed for faster rulings and issued a directive that prevents judges from administratively closing cases in an effort to decrease the backlog by 50 percent by 2020.

This month, he appointed 44 new judges, the largest class of immigration judges in U.S. history, and has pledged to hire more. He said in a speech to the judges that he wouldn’t apologize for asking them to perform “at a high level, efficiently and effectively.”

Tabaddor wouldn’t say whether the quotas were also putting pressure on judges to deport more people — not just decide cases faster.

“There’s certainly no question they’re under pressure to complete more cases faster,” she said. “I think I would just say listen to the attorney general’s remarks and you can decide what messaging is going to be sent.”

Asylum qualifications

Earlier this summer, Sessions tightened the restrictions on the types of cases that can qualify someone for asylum, making it harder for Central Americans who say they’re fleeing the threat of gangs, drug smugglers or domestic violence to pass even the first hurdle for securing U.S. protection.

Immigration lawyers say that’s meant more asylum seekers failing interviews with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to establish credible fear of harm in their home countries. They also say that immigration judges are overwhelmingly signing off on those recommendations during appeals, effectively ending what could have been a yearslong asylum process almost before it’s begun.

President Donald Trump hasn’t been behind the move to bolster the roster of judges. “We shouldn’t be hiring judges by the thousands, as our ridiculous immigration laws demand, we should be changing our laws, building the Wall, hire Border Agents and Ice,” he said in a tweet in June, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Watch the C-Span replay here:

https://archive.org/details/CSPAN2_20180921_170200_Federal_Immigration_Judge_Discusses_Court_System

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

We need an Article I independent US Immigration Court now!

Congress seems to be tied up in knots. Will the Article IIIs step up and begin enforcing the Due Process clause of the Constitution?

The solutions — remand every case for a new hearing  in which: 1) Jeff Sessions shall not be involved, and 2) all precedents issued by Jeff Sessions are considered null and void. Jeff Sessions shall, however, be allowed to appear and make arguments as the attorney for DHS.

The Immigration Court System is collapsing. The lives of hundreds of thousands are at risk. We need less talk and more action to enforce Due Process!

Some historical perspective: EOIR once illegally tried to bar Judge Tabaddor from hearing Iranian cases because she attended a reception with other prominent Iranian Americans!  Compare that the with the overt, unethical anti-immigrant bias that Jeff Sessions spews out on a regular basis. His bias affects justice for every respondent appearing in Immigration Court.

Is 21st Century America going to permit “political show trials” every day in Immigration Court?

PWS

09-24-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. HERE’S A SEPARATE LETTER ON THE URGENT NEED FOR AN ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT THAT I SENT TO MY SENATORS AND CONGRESSMAN TODAY!

GONZO’S WORLD: When The Attorney General Of The United States Is An “Equal Opportunity Hater” — NAACP’s Sherrilyn Ifill Says “Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions has made clear that he has no intention of investigating police departments for patterns and practices of discrimination. The Justice Department has essentially all but abandoned civil rights as a priority, and so they are no longer working as a partner with us.”

http://flip.it/fy_RAC

The Lily News

 

September 21

Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Joe Heim.

Sherrilyn Ifill, 54, is a lawyer living in Maryland and New York. She became the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund just after President Obama was sworn in for his second term. Below, she discusses our current political situation, what gives her hope and more.

On the Justice Department under the Trump administration: “During the Obama administration I was trying to push [Obama] further than whatever the administration was already doing in the civil rights space, because that’s kind of my job. But there’s no question that the Obama administration really worked in many instances as a partner. That is not the case now. Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions has made clear that he has no intention of investigating police departments for patterns and practices of discrimination. The Justice Department has essentially all but abandoned civil rights as a priority, and so they are no longer working as a partner with us.

That means that our work has increased. We have had to function as a kind of private DOJ, trying to take up the slack. The DOJ and the attorney general should be the chief enforcer of the nation’s civil rights law. But what we see with Attorney General Sessions is no attempt to prioritize civil rights. In fact, to the contrary, working against us, working against civil rights implementation, working against the progress of civil rights that we’ve achieved.”

On what she would say to President Trump if he invited her to the White House: “I cannot imagine what the circumstance of that invitation would be, so it’s an impossible question to answer. I don’t do ceremonial visits. I’m interested in substance. So there would be a lot I would have to know in advance about what was going to happen. The president has been so explicitly hostile to civil rights and racial justice that I would have to have a very clear understanding of what reversals he was prepared to make to his policies. And in the absence of those, I can’t imagine a circumstance in which I would attend such a meeting.”

On Trump’s comments that black Americans are doing better economically than ever before: ”He does state that, and I think the figures that he uses are convenient in terms of job numbers. But look more closely at wage stagnation and, in fact, wage decreases. Look at the ways in which the failure to invest in infrastructure has left African American communities stranded in terms of transportation. Look at the voter suppression that disempowers African Americans from being able to even control their own destiny in the places where they live. Look at the assault on education and the ways in which the Department of Education is prepared to leave students who are victims of for-profit colleges stranded. Look at the ways which they are seeking to fight and undercut affirmative action. All of these are also part of economic opportunity. And the president conveniently leaves that out of the narrative. Those are things that are necessary to give African Americans a chance.”

On her book about the legacy of lynchings in America, and what the country needs to heal: “What America does not need, in my view, is one national conversation. The book really makes the case for the importance of local communities engaging in truth and reconciliatory processes. The recognition that racial discrimination, and particularly acts of racial pogroms, which essentially is what happened in the period in which lynching was so prevalent in this country, that those local communities need to deal with that, grapple themselves with that history and themselves take on the responsibility for how you stitch back together a community that has been broken for decades, how you confront a painful truth.”

[ The gang rape was horrific. The NAACP sent Rosa Parks to investigate.]

On what gives her hope: “I’m excited to see the continuous mass mobilization that people have engaged in, beginning with the Women’s March and continuing since then, in which people understand the need to come out of their homes to see one another and to say what they believe in. I’ve also really been encouraged by the ways in which the rule of law, for the most part, has held despite President Trump’s excesses. The crisis of this administration’s governance has compelled people to reimagine what it means to be a real citizen in this country. And that gives me optimism, because I think the other way was not sustainable. The benign citizenship performance that most Americans were engaged in was simply not sustainable. Now people understand that they are needed. Their voice is needed, every vote is needed, their engagement is needed.”

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

Undoubtedly, our Civil Rights Laws were passed to protect African-Americans and similarly situated individuals so that they could enjoy the same advantages and benefits once accorded only to Whites. But, Jeff Sessions believes that civil rights are just about protecting White Power & Privilege against African-Americans, Hispanics, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals and other “uppity” minorities.

Similarly, the Bill of Rights was adopted to protect individual rights against Government overreach. But, Jeff Sessions believes that the right of police to enforce the law using brutality and unnecessary and indiscriminate force is superior to the individual Constitutional rights of people of color.

The solution to restoring reason and the true rule of law (not the perverted “rule of Sessions”): regime change!

PWS

09-23-18

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: HIS HIGHLY DISINGENUOUS “TRIBUTE” TO DR. KING WHILE ACTIVELY UNDERMINING MLK’S VISION OF RACIAL EQUALITY IN AMERICA OUTRAGES CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES! — Hollow Words From An Empty Man!
  3. COURTSIDE HISTORY: HOW THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ RACISM ERASED A PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER! — ALSO MY: “FRIDAY ESSAY — FROM MONTICELLO TO TRUMP, MILLER, SESSIONS, AND THE GOP WHITE NATIONALISTS”
  4. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”

WHY DON’T TEENAGE GIRLS REPORT SEXUAL ASSAULTS? — Elizabeth Bruenig @ WashPost Tells Us The Ugly Answer!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/opinions/arlington-texas/

Elizabeth writes:

. . . .

Leaving school one autumn day in 2006, I stood at the top of the concrete stairs at the back exit, with the senior parking lot spread out before me, cars gleaming in the still afternoon sun. Several of them bore a message scrawled in chalk-paint: FAITH. They looked to me like gravestones, brief and cryptic in neat rows.

. . . .
*********************************************
Please note that the guys spouting the “why didn’t she report it” nonsense are 1) a known liar, misogynist, bully, philanderer, and coward who happens to be our unqualified President, and 2) a bunch of old, white, tired, amoral GOP legislators who, although nominally adults, are too cowardly and morally corrupt to stand up to the aforesaid unqualified President who is destroying America, and who prefer instead to pick on the vulnerable and courageous.
Ballot boxes exist to, over time, remove all of these intentionally tone-deaf folks from our national Government. Use it, or we’ll all lose it!
PWS
09-21-18

 

Related posts:

  1. 👩‍⚖️⚖️ONE MEAN☠️🤮⚰️ MOTHER: Soon-To-Be Justice Barrett’s Immigration Jurisprudence Shows Cruelty, Legal Ignorance, Lack Of Empathy For The Vulnerable Humans Whose Lives Are At Stake In An Unconstitutional System Rigged Against Them!
  2. JRUBE @ WASHPOST: Misogynists Rule, Propped Up By Their Women!
  3. 🤡CLOWN CAPITOL:  J.R. PRESIDES OVER GOP CLOWN SHOW HE HELPED CREATE — Empowering The Koch Bros, Suppressing Minority Votes, Enabling GOP Gerrymandering, Ignoring Invidious Racial & Religious Motives, Turning A Blind Eye To Lies & Pretexts, It All Contributed To The Arrogant Display Of GOP Dishonesty & Impunity Now On Public Display In The Senate! — Plus Bonus Friday Mini-Essay: “Profiles in Fecklessness”
  4. CHARLES M. BLOW @ NYT: TIME TO START CALLING IT WHAT IT IS:  “It is time for us to simply call a thing a thing: White supremacy is the biggest racial problem this country faces, and has faced. It is almost always the cause of unrest around race. It has been used to slaughter and destroy, to oppress and imprison. It manifests in every segment of American life.”

INSIDE EOIR: How Sessions’s White Nationalist Anti-Due-Process Agenda Inspires Idiocy @ EOIR!

https://www.hoppocklawfirm.com/post-pereira-the-doj-chooses-harsh-ij-performance-metrics-over-compliance-with-supreme-court-mandate/

Post-Pereira, the DOJ Chooses Harsh IJ Performance Metrics Over Compliance With Supreme Court Mandate

by | Sep 20, 2018 | Immigration, Immigration Practice | 1 comment

Post-Pereira, the DOJ Chooses Harsh IJ Performance Metrics Over Compliance With Supreme Court Mandate

It now appears the Department of Justice has chosen not to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira v. Sessions solely because doing so would conflict with the agency’s self-imposed deportation quotas it is placing on Immigration Judges, which go into effect October 1, 2018. The story unfolds in a series of e-mail messages obtained through FOIA and involve the interplay of two federal agencies tasked with separate responsibilities in the process of deciding whether to deport a person charged with being removable.

Much Ado About Scheduling Hearings

The basic issue raised by Pereirais that the immigration statute requires an immigration court charging document to list the date and time of the hearing. The Supreme Court said in Pereirathat a Notice to Appear (commonly known by its acronym: “NTA”) that doesn’t contain the date and time “is not a notice to appear” at all, which means arguably the proceedings were invalid and unlawful from the beginning.

Imagine having to go to traffic court even though the police officer wrote your ticket on a napkin, didn’t sign it, and it didn’t tell you when and where your court would be (or what you were being charged with). You or your attorney would march into court arguing this isn’t really a ticket, so why on earth am I even here? You would easily get the proceedings thrown out, because they were started improperly.

The difference here is that unlike traffic court, immigration court can result in lifetime expulsion from the United States, for individuals who may have a good reason to fear being harmed or killed if deported. And not showing up to court means an automatic order of removal.

Solving this problem would be simple. As the Supreme Court observed in Pereira: 

As the Government concedes, ‘a scheduling system previously enabled DHS and the immigration court to coordinate in setting hearing dates in some cases.’ Given today’s advanced software capabilities, it is hard to imagine why DHS and immigration courts could not again work together to schedule hearings before sending notices to appear.

If the system already exists, why weren’t they already using it?

The problem results from the decision by Congress in 2003 to separate of INS into two separate agencies: (1) the immigration courts (under the umbrella of the Department of Justice; and (2) the Department of Homeland Security, which is the prosecutor in immigration court cases.

The system for scheduling hearings (called “Interactive Scheduling System” or “ISS”) is owned by the Department of Justice, so it has sole decision-making power on whether the DHS, a separate agency, can access it and schedule hearings on its own. The DOJ ended that access at some point and has never restored it. Without access to that system, DHS has decided to fudge the date and time – issue NTAs with a line for the date and time but simply write “to be determined” on the line. And they have done that on most charging documents filed for the last 20 or so years.

This disconnect has resulted in a number of problems, the most serious of which is that immigrants don’t know when their hearing date is, so they miss the date and get ordered removed in in absentia (as happened to the immigrant in Pereira).

The Pereira decision left the DOJ with a pretty clear command from the Supreme Court: turn your system back on so DHS can schedule hearings. Most who practice in this area thought the Department of Justice would comply. Unfortunately, they haven’t.

Despite Pereira, EOIR Vacillates on Whether to Turn on ISS

Through a series of FOIA requests it has started to become clear what the agency decided to do after Pereira: nothing.

The Pereira decision was issued on June 21, 2018. Early on June 22, 2018 Rene Cervantes, the court administrator for the San Diego Immigration Court, e-mailed Rico Bartolomei Jr, the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge for that area, asking if the court should keep accepting the filing of NTAs by DHS without the date and time, despite what the Supreme court had just quite plainly said.

Bartolome responded that there had been no guidance from the DOJ, so for now they would keep accepting deficient NTAs for filing. By mid-afternoon on the 22nd, the discussion turned to whether the Department of Justice would “turn on ISS ASAP,” meaning enabling the DHS to access its scheduling system so it could file compliant notices to appear.

The answer was received that evening from Print Maggard, Deputy Chief Immigration Judge, that the decision of Director James McHenry was that “at this time we are not turning on ISS.”

By June 25, 2018 it looked like the DOJ had decided to turn the ISS system back on. In an e-mail Christopher Santoro, Principal Deputy Chief Immigration Judge, wrote that the only problem was timing, writing:

“[W]e were also told that, consistent with the benchmarks that went out with the new court performance measures, we need to get detained NTAs their first MC within 10 days of filing and non-detained NTAs their first MC within 90 days of filing. We also cannot be “full” – in other words, if DHS wants to file an NTA, there must be a slot for them to schedule it in within 10/90 days.”

Santoro was referring to the new Immigration Judge quotas going into effect on October 1, 2018. Since President Trump took office, the immigration court backlog has skyrocketed while case processing has slowed.

In response, the Attorney General has ordered draconian benchmarks which will require, among other things, that every judge in the country enter at least 700 orders per year. These measures are designed turn immigration courts into deportation machines – multiple Attorney General opinions have stripped judges of decision-making power while the agency orders more and more decisions to be made.

Relevant here, the new IJ quotas require detained hearings to be scheduled within 10 days of the prosecutor, DHS, filing the NTA with the court.

A June 25, 2018 e-mail from Mark Pasierb, chief clerk to the Immigration Court, explained that the ISS schedule system only has a certain number of slots for hearings with each judge each day. Thus, if the next ten days are “full,” allowing the DHS to access the ISS system will require it to pick a day that is beyond the DOJ’s self-imposed deportation quotas.

On June 27, 2018, Chief Immigration Judge Mary-Beth Keller sent out a timetable for when ISS would be turned on. She wrote that  “effective immediately, NTAs filed at the window that do not specify the time and place of the hearing should be rejected.” She added that by July 2, 2018, the DOJ would turn the ISS system back on for non-detained cases and by July 16, 2018 for detained cases. However, that advice did not last long.

By July 11, 2018, the EOIR had decided officially to continue accepting non-compliant NTAs. Santoro e-mailed all court staff writing:

The Department has concluded that, even after Pereira, EOIR should accept Notices to Appear that do not contain the time and place of the hearing. Accordingly, effective immediately, courts should begin accepting TBD NTAs.

The DOJ Chooses Self-Imposed Deportation Quotas Over Complying With the Supreme Court.

What the June 25 Christopher Santoro e-mail reveals is that while the DOJ definitely has the power to turn on its scheduling system to comply with the Pereira decision, it does not want to, because it does not want that process (essentially ordered by the Supreme Court) to affect its new mega-deportation benchmarks that start on October 1, 2018.

The results are already being felt in Immigration Courts around the country. Without being able to access ISS, the prosecutors whose job it is to file these charging documents are just writing made-up dates or “dummy dates” on the charging documents. It’s hard to envision how the agency can get away with that; attorneys who file documents they know to be false (including having a pretend hearing date) are subject to discipline by their state bar.

More urgently, the people who receive these documents are showing up in court, sometimes within days, scheduling to travel across the country at times to attend a court hearing that was never even scheduled and is not going to take place.

Until the EOIR chooses to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in Pereira (likely after parties are forced to litigate these issues in federal court) it is not clear there is any solution to this problem on the horizon.

  • Solving this problem isn’t “rocket science,” but it does exceed the collective abilities of the perpetuators of “Clown Court” (as the great Yogi Berra said, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”);
  • Sessions’s scofflaw, “haste makes waste,” attitude is now the “order of the day” at EOIR, which once purported to be a court system, not an ICE deportation office;
  • The DOJ & EOIR lack the competence to fairly and effectively administer a court system;
  • EOIR needs to go and be replaced with an independent court system outside the Executive’s control.

I will be fascinated to see how the DOJ attorneys defend this one before the Article IIIs with a “straight face” (or not).

Another day, another abuse of our justice system by Jeff Sessions and the “go alongs to get alongs” who are unwilling to stand up to him.

Many thanks to Matthew for shedding some much-needed light on the shady practices within EOIR & DOJ.

It would all be funny if people’s lives weren’t at stake.

PWS

09-21-18

Related posts:

  1. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  2. TRUTH MATTERS: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: AILA Blasts EOIR’s False & Unethical Anti-Asylum Screed! — “Together, the document’s deceptive information and polarizing rhetoric further undermines the court system’s ability to be a neutral arbiter of justice and comes at a time when there is a severe lack of public confidence in its capacity to deliver fair and timely decisions. EOIR’s skewed portrayal only demonstrates the urgent need for Congress to create an independent court, separate from DOJ.”
  3. IMMIGRATION COURTS: After Two Years Of Trump Administration Anti-Immigrant Shenanigans At EOIR, The Backlog Has Mushroomed To 975,298, Morale Has Hit Rock Bottom, & Due Process Is Mocked Every Day — There Is A Solution, But Will Our Republic Survive Enough To Reach It?
  4. 😎👍🏼🥂SHEEEEEEE’S BACK! TAL KOPAN @ SF CHRON RETURNS TO THE “IMMIGRATION BEAT” WITH A POWERFUL IN-DEPTH LOOK AT HOW AMERICA’S MOST DYSFUNCTIONAL “COURT SYSTEM” PREDICTABLY SCREWED UP THE COVID-19 RESPONSE WHILE DEEPENING HUMAN MISERY INFLICTED ON THE “BACKLOGGED” — “’There isn’t a day that goes by that there isn’t mass chaos behind this veil of business as usual,’ said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.”

FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE CONTINUE AS ICE ISSUES NOTICES WITH “FAKE” EOIR COURT DATES — Are The Incompetents @ ICE & EOIR Creating A “Pereira II Debacle” With Yet Another “Haste Makes Waste” Approach?

https://thinkprogress.org/ice-undocumented-immigrants-dummy-court-dates-6fed9d1ef4e7/

Rebekah Entralgo reports for Think Progress:

ICE is giving undocumented immigrants ‘dummy’ court dates

Immigrants are being told to arrive at the courthouse on dates that don’t even exist.

REBEKAH ENTRALGO 
Some undocumented immigrants living in the United States have received documents, ordering them to arrive at the courthouse for hearings at midnight, on weekends, or on dates that don't exist such as September 31, the Dallas Morning News reported this week. (Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
SOME UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE RECEIVED DOCUMENTS, ORDERING THEM TO ARRIVE AT THE COURTHOUSE FOR HEARINGS AT MIDNIGHT, ON WEEKENDS, OR ON DATES THAT DON’T EXIST SUCH AS SEPTEMBER 31, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS REPORTED THIS WEEK. (PHOTO CREDIT: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES)

Some undocumented immigrants living in the United States have received fake documents, ordering them to arrive at the courthouse at midnight, on weekends, or on dates that don’t exist, such as September 31, according to a report by The Dallas Morning News.

According to the outlet, roughly two dozen immigrants arrived at a Texas courthouse last week for their hearings only to be turned away by court staffers who told them their names were not on the docket and that they had been given “fake dates.”

The immigrants had been taken into custody during a raid conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month. Some 159 undocumented immigrants, many of them without a criminal record, were detained at the Load Trail trailer factory in Sumner, Texas “about 100 miles northeast of Dallas.”

According to the Morning News, the raid was described by ICE officials as “one of the largest such operations at a single workplace in a decade.”

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents arrested alleged immigration violators at Fresh Mark, Salem, June 19, 2018. Image courtesy ICE ICE / U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

55 undocumented immigrants remain in ICE custody after one of the largest raids in a decade

The immigrants were later given their “fake” court dates by ICE officials, who apparently never coordinated with immigration courts to clear the dates, resulting in what advocates have described as “chaos.”

“The immigration court system is confusing enough on a normal day,” Ashley Huebner, associate director of legal services at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told the Morning News. “But to have an individual who probably does not speak English…and receives a document in which DHS has purposely listed a fake date and time is a real different level of confusion and absurdity.”

“Fake dates,” sometimes called “dummy dates,” are not a phenomenon unique to Texas. According to the Morning News, reports of fake court dates have sprung up in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, nor the Justice Department have offered a clear explanation for why undocumented immigrants are being handed fake court dates.

ICE spokesman Tim Oberle shifted the blame to a court agency known as the Executive Office for Immigration Review saying it “is responsible for setting and resetting appearance dates upon receipt of a notice to appear filed by” ICE.

The court debacle comes as the national immigration backlog continues to grow at an astonishing rate. Reports suggest that, even without any new arrests, it could take up to four years to eliminate the backlog in its entirety.

Additionally, ICE has requested $1 billion dollars from the federal government to keep with the Trump administration’s demands of detaining an average of 43,000 undocumented immigrants a day. Health and Human Services officials have also requested hundreds of additional beds at a juvenile detention camp in Tornillo, Texas, to partly accommodate the surge in detained minors over the past year.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, the current number of children detained in immigration facilities stands at nearly 13,000.

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

Come on, Man! Figuring out how to serve Notices to Appear with correct court dates is hardly “rocket science,” as pointed out by the Supremes in Pereira. To be fair, the “original Periera problem” began during previous Administrations. But, under Jeff Sessions, the DHS and DOJ have shown an uncanny ability to mindlessly and incompetently “double down” on every illegal and/or unwise immigration policy or program that has failed in the past.

Since Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump, and Kirstjen Nielsen don’t believe in tempering justice with mercy, perhaps it’s just as well that their cruelty and stupidity is often tempered with incompetence.

PWS

09-18-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. PURE BS 💩 — TRUMP’S “BIG LIE” ABOUT MIGRANT APPEARANCES FOR HEARINGS BOGUS AS $3 BILL 🤮👎🏻— Replacing DHS/EOIR With Rational, Qualified, Fact-Based Governance & Real Judiciary Could Bring Appearance Rate Close To 100%!  — Two Items From ImmigrationProf Blog!
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻IN NYT OP-ED, FORMER TRUMP DOJ ATTORNEY ERICA NEWLAND ADMITS COMPLICITY! — Having Undermined Democratic Institutions, Sold False Narratives To (Too Often Willing) Federal Judges, & Participated In Racist-Inspired “Dred Scottification” (“Dehumanization”) Of the Other Is Actually a BIG Deal! — So Is The Destruction Of Due Process & Fundamental Fairness In The Immigration Courts (Now, “Clown Courts”🤡, or “America’s Star Chambers”☠️) 
  4. TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION POLICY: “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE!” — Also, ICE Intentionally Falsifies Court Hearing Dates — Where Is The Accountability?

GONZO’S WORLD: A.G.’S “MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY” SPEECH TO NEW U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES CONTINUES TO DRAW FIRE! Hon. Jeffrey Chase & Others Criticize Sessions’s Inappropriate, Biased, & Unethical Demand That Judges Show No Mercy & Prejudge Asylum Cases Against Refugees! — Constitutional Crisis Brewing!!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/9/15/like-water-seeping-through-an-earthen-dam

In addressing 44 newly-hired immigration judges earlier this week, their new boss, Jeff Sessions, demonstrated not only his usual level of bias (to a group charged with acting as impartial adjudicators), but a very strange grasp of how our legal system works.

Sessions told the new class of judges that lawyers “work every day – like water seeping through an earthen dam – to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interest.  Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the Act.”

Later in his remarks, Sessions opined that “when we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation.”

To me, the above remarks evince a complete misunderstanding of how our legal system works.

In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Katzenbach v. McClung, a landmark civil rights case.  In order to find that the federal Civil Rights Act applied to a local, family-owned barbecue restaurant in Alabama, DOJ attorneys persuaded the Supreme Court that there was federal jurisdiction under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause because of segregation’s impact on interstate commerce.  I’m no Constitutional law expert, but I’m not sure that when its authors afforded Congress the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,” that this is what they had in mind.  Was creatively interpreting the Commerce Clause in order to end segregation “like water seeping through an earthen dam” to get around the clear words of the Constitution?  Did ending segregation constitute, in Sessions’s opinion, doing violence to the rule of law out of a sense of sympathy for the black victims of Alabama’s racist policies?

Every positive legal development is the result of an attorney advancing a creative legal argument, often motivated by a sense of sympathy for unfair treatment of a class of individuals in need of protection.  Many landmark decisions have resulted from such attorneys offering the court an unorthodox but legally sound solution to a sympathetic injustice.  This is actually how the legal system is supposed to operate.  Our laws are made by Congress, and not the Executive branch.  When Congress drafts these laws, they and their staffers are well aware of the existence of lawyers and judges and their ability to interpret the statutory language.

Had Congress not wanted our asylum laws to be flexible, allowing them to be interpreted in myriad ways to respond to changing types of persecution carried out by different types of actors, it could have said so.  When the courts found that victims of China’s coercive family planning policies did not qualify for asylum, Congress responded by amending the statutory definition of “refugee” to cover such harm.  In the four years following the BIA’s conclusion that victims of domestic violence qualified for asylum, Congress notably did not enact legislation barring such grants.  To the contrary, after Jeff Sessions issued his decision with the intent of preventing such grants, a Republican-led Congressional committee unanimously passed a measure barring funding for government efforts to carry out Sessions’ decision, a clear rebuke by the legislative branch of Sessions’s view that such claims are illegitimate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-led-house-committee-rebuffs-trump-administration-on-immigrant-asylum-claim-policy/2018/07/26/3c52ed52-911a-11e8-9b0d-749fb254bc3d_story.html?utm_term=.809760180e2a.

Interestingly, Sessions finds it perfectly acceptable to use unorthodox interpretations of the law when it serves his own interests.  For example,  he argues that he is upholding “religious liberty” in defending the right of bigots to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals. https://www.advocate.com/politics/2018/7/30/sessions-launches-new-lgbt-assault-religious-liberty-task-force.   The conclusion drawn from this inconsistency is that Sessions does not oppose creative interpretations of the law; he rather believes that the only proper interpretation of the law is his.

One of the problems with this approach is that Sessions doesn’t actually know anything about the law of asylum.  And yet he somehow feels entitled to belittle the analysis of the leading asylum experts in academia, the private bar, USCIS, ICE, and EOIR, all of whom have repeatedly found victims of domestic violence to satisfy all of the legal criteria for asylum.  In its 1985 decision in Matter of Acosta, (a case that Sessions cited favorably in his controversial decision), the BIA noted that the ground of “particular social group” was added to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees (which is the basis for our asylum laws) “as an afterthought.”  The BIA further noted that “it has been suggested that the notion of ‘social group’ was considered to be of broader application than the combined notions of racial, ethnic, and religious groups and that in order to stop a possible gap in the coverage of the U.N. Convention, this ground was added to the definition of refugee.”  (The full decision in Acosta can be read here:  https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2012/08/14/2986.pdf).

As a young attorney, I learned (from the late, great asylum scholar Arthur Helton) that at the last moment, the Swedish plenipotentiary to the 1951 Convention pointed out that there were victims of Hitler and Stalin in need of protection who did not fall under the other four Convention grounds of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion.  A fifth, catch-all ground was therefore proposed to serve as a “safety net” in such cases.  In other words, the reason the particular social group category was created and is a part of our laws was because the Convention’s drafters, perhaps “like water seeping through an earthen dam,” created an intentionally nebulous legal standard out of a sense of sympathy for victims of injustice.  The ground was therefore created to be used for the exact purpose decried by Sessions.

Because of the strength of such legal authority, Sessions’s decision in Matter of A-B-, in spite of dicta to the contrary, actually still allows for the granting of domestic violence and gang violence-based asylum claims.  The decision criticized the BIA’s precedent decision in Matter of A-R-C-G- for reaching its conclusion without explaining its reasoning in adequate detail.  However, where the record is properly developed, a legally solid analysis can be shown to support granting such claims even under the standards cited by Sessions.

This is what makes Sessions comments to the new class of immigration judges so disturbing. Having appointed judges whom his Justice Department has found qualified, he should now leave it to them to exercise their expertise and independent judgment to interpret the law and determine who qualifies for asylum.  But in declaring such cases to lack validity, belittling private attorneys innovative arguments, and equating the granting of such claims to doing violence to the rule of law, Sessions aims to undermine right from the start the judicial independence of the only judges he controls.  EOIR’s management has demonstrated that it has no intention of pushing back; instead, it asks how high Sessions wants the judges to jump.

Knowing this, how likely is one of the 44 new judges to grant asylum to a victim of domestic violence who has clearly met all of the legal criteria?  New immigration judges are subject to a two-year probationary period.  It’s clear that a grant of such cases under any circumstances will be viewed unfavorably by Sessions.  In a highly publicized case, EOIR’s management criticized a judge in Philadelphia whose efforts at preserving due process they bizarrely interpreted as an act of disobedience towards Sessions, and removed the case in question and more than 80 cases like it from the judge’s docket.

So if a new judge, who may have a family to support, and a mortgage and college tuition to pay, is forced to choose between applying the law in a reasoned fashion and possibly suffering criticism and loss of livelihood, or holding his or her nose and adhering to Sessions’s views, what will the likely choice be?

Sessions concluded his remarks by claiming that the American people “have spoken in our laws and they have spoken in our elections.”  As to the latter, Americans voted against Trump’s immigration policies by a margin of 2.8 million votes.  As to the former, Congress has passed laws which have been universally interpreted by DHS, EOIR, and all leading asylum scholars as allowing victims of domestic violence to be granted asylum based on their membership in a particular social group.  It is time for this administration to honor the rule of law and to restore judicial independence to such determinations.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

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

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/immigration-judges-hit-back-at-sessions-for-suggesting-they-show-too-much-sympathy/ar-BBNbbLK

Tal Axelrod reports in The Hill:

A union representing the country’s 350 immigration judges slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for comments he made that suggested they were sidestepping the law and showing too much sympathy when handling certain cases.

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation,” Sessions said Monday in a speech to newly hired judges. “Your job is to apply the law – even in tough cases.”

Immigration judges, who work for the Department of Justice and are expected to follow guidelines laid out by the attorney general, said they believe Sessions was politicizing migrant cases.

“The reality is that it is a political statement which does not articulate a legal concept that judges are required to be aware of and follow,” Dana Marks, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Immigration Judges and an immigration judge in San Francisco, told BuzzFeed News. “It did appear to be a one-sided argument made by a prosecutor.”

Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, added that “we cannot possibly be put in this bind of being accountable to someone who is so clearly committed to the prosecutorial role.”

Sessions, an ideological ally of President Trump on immigration, has established additional restrictions on the types of cases that qualify for asylum and when certain cases can be suspended. He was involved in the White House’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy that led to family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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

http://immigrationimpact.com/2018/09/11/speech-to-new-immigration-sessions-attacks-immigration-lawyers/

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK of the American Immigration Council reports on Immigration Impact:

Rather than encourage the new class of 44 immigration judges to be fair and impartial adjudicators in his Monday morning speech, Attorney General Jeff Sessions advocated for a deeply flawed immigration court system and directed judges to carry out the Trump administration’s punitive, anti-immigration agenda.

While many would have taken the opportunity to reinforce principles of due process and fairness to new judges, Sessions instead emphasized that judges must follow his commands and encouraged judges to ignore “sympathy” when applying the law to noncitizens in their courtrooms.  He also renewed his criticisms of immigration lawyers and the noncitizens who access immigration courts each day in order to apply for immigration relief.

Throughout his speech, Sessions framed the role of immigration judges as enforcers of the law, not as neutral adjudicators in an adversarial system. He declared that the work of the new judges would “send a clear message to the world that the lawless practices of the past are over” and railed against “the problem of illegal immigration.”

Rather than be a place where individuals ask for immigration relief and impartial judges weigh the merits of each case, Sessions seemed to argue for the courts to be turned into a deportation mill. Judges would then spearhead the fight against illegal immigration.

Despite the Attorney General’s authority to establish performance standards and create new precedent for judges to follow, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows judges to independently make decisions on individual immigrants’ cases.

Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the union representing immigration judges, reacted to Sessions’ remarks, calling them “troubling and problematic” and accused Sessions of not “appreciat[ing] the distinction” between judges and prosecutors. “We are not one and the same as them.”

Sessions also renewed his attacks on immigration lawyers, first articulated in a 2017 speech (for which he was widely condemned) when he accused “dirty immigration lawyers” of encouraging undocumented immigrants to “make false claims of asylum [by] providing them with the magic words needed” to claim asylum.

Monday’s speech returned to a similar theme, with Sessions claiming that “good lawyers … work every day—like water seeping through an earthen dam—to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the Act.”

In response to this new attack, the American Immigration Lawyers Association issued a press release accusing Sessions of expressing “disdain for lawyers who take a solemn oath to uphold the law” and showing “a complete disregard for the role of independent judges in overseeing our adversarial system.”

Sessions’ ongoing assault on judicial impartiality threatens to undermine the ability of judges to make decisions based only on the facts and law in front of them.

In addition, by attacking immigration lawyers, who every day play a vital role in ensuring that noncitizens have a fair day in court, Sessions continues to demonstrate that he has little interest in fairness or justice when it comes to immigrants. Our immigration courts should reflect our American values of fairness, compassion, and due process, rather than a rejection of them.

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

https://www.newsweek.com/jeff-sessions-immigration-judges-sympathy-1115512

U.S.

JEFF SESSIONS DEMANDS IMMIGRATION JUDGES SHOW NO SYMPATHY, SAYS IT DOES ‘VIOLENCE TO THE RULE OF LAW

BY

As the Trump administration continued to struggle to reunite hundreds of migrant children separated from their parents resulting from the president’s “zero-tolerance” policy, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told dozens of incoming immigration judges Monday to show no sympathy for those who appear before them in court.

“When we depart from the law and create nebulous legal standards out of a sense of sympathy for the personal circumstances of a respondent in our immigration courts, we do violence to the rule of law and constitutional fabric that bind this great nation,” Sessions said. “Your job is to apply the law—even in tough cases.”

Sessions, the most powerful attorney in the country as head of the Justice Department, was speaking to 44 new immigration judges in Falls Church, Virginia.

He also took aim at lawyers who represent immigrants who were caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, suggesting they try to misconstrue immigration law “like water seeping through an earthen dam.” He told the judges it was their responsibility to “restore the rule of law” to the system.

. . . .
Read the rest of Ramsey’s article at the above link.
****************************************************
There is a simple term for justice not tempered by mercy, compassion, and sympathy: INJUSTICE. Indeed, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which includes the essential Due Process Clause, was specifically intended to protect the populace against Executive overreach of the kind that England imposed on the Colonies prior to the Revolution. That’s exactly what we’re seeing under Jeff Sessions!
As most Immigration Judges recognize, Session’s overt White Nationalism, racial bias, and absurd claims that he is “restoring the rule of law” (when in fact he is doing the exact opposite) are totally out of control.
It’s time for a “Due Process intervention” by the Article III Courts. Sessions and the DOJ must be stripped of their untenable and unconstitutional control over the Immigration Courts. Appoint a “Special Master” — someone like retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy — to run the Immigration Court System and restore Due Process and fairness until Congress does its job and creates an independent U.S. Immigration court outside the Executive Branch.
The problems aren’t going away under the Trump Administration. And, if the Article III Judiciary doesn’t act it will find itself crushed under thousands of defective removal orders that Sessions is urging the Immigration Judges to turn out without Due Process or the “fair and impartial” adjudication that it guarantees. The Article IIIs can run, but they can’t hide from this Constitutional crisis!
Sessions’s remarks are also an insult to all of the many current and former U.S Immigration Judges who, unlike Jeff Sessions, have been deciding “tough cases” for years, within the law, but with sympathy, understanding, humanity, and compassion which are also essential qualities for fair judging under our Constitutional system that Sessions neither understands nor respects. No wonder his own party judged him unqualified for an Article III judgeship years ago. He hasn’t changed a bit.
PWS
09-17-18

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. EOIR TARGETS UNACCOMPANIED KIDS FOR DEPORATION RAILROAD!
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

GONZO’S WORLD: INSIDE APOCALYPTO’S “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” – AS “KIDDIE DETENTION” HITS NEW HEIGHTS, THE CRUELTY, DISDAIN FOR HUMAN DIGNITY, AND DAMAGE TO MIGRANTS AND OUR NATIONAL PSYCHE IS UNRELENTING – Yet, America’s Most Notorious & Unapologetic Human Rights Violator Walks Free!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/12/us-immigration-detention-facilities?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

From The Guardian:

After harrowing journeys to the US, new arrivals are held in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, dozens of interviews reveal

in McAllen, Texas

A June photo released by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows undocumented people at the central processing center in McAllen, Texas.
A June photo released by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows undocumented people at the central processing center in McAllen, Texas. Photograph: Handout/US Customs and Border Protection/AFP/Getty Images

All day and night they listened to the wailing of hungry children.

Here, in a freezing immigration detention facility somewhere in the Rio Grande valley of south Texas, adults and children alike were fainting from dehydration and lack of food.

Sleep was almost impossible; the lights were left on, they had just a thin metallic sheet to protect against the cold and there was nothing to lie down on but the hard floor.

This is the account of Rafael and Kimberly Martinez, who, with their three-year-old daughter, had made the dangerous trek from their home on the Caribbean coast of Honduras to the US border to ask for political asylum.

“The conditions were horrible, everything was filthy and there was no air circulating,” Kimberly Martinez told the Guardian of the five days the family spent cooped up in one facility they – like tens of thousands before them – referred to as “la hielera”: the icebox. Her husband added: “It’s as though they wanted to drain every positive feeling out of us.”

They knew, from following the news, that their ordeal of escaping gang violence back home and trekking across desert terrain at the height of summer would not end when they reached the United States.

What they did not expect, though, were days of hunger, separation and verbal abuse that they said they endured at the hands of federal immigration officials.

‘Caged up like animals’

All they were given to eat, they said, were half-frozen bologna sandwiches, served at 10 in the morning, five in the afternoon and two in the morning, and single sugar cookies for their daughter. What water they were given had a strong chlorine taste – a common complaint – and upset their stomachs.

The Martinezes (not their real name) were among dozens of asylum-seekers the Guardian interviewed in the border city of McAllen recently after they secured their provisional release from federal custody – with black electronic monitors fastened tightly around their ankles – and just before they continued their journeys by bus to the homes of US-based sponsors to await court hearings on their statuses.

The Guardian sat in with a team of volunteer doctors and nurses administering emergency medical care and listened as family after family gave jarringly consistent accounts of what they described as grim conditions in a variety of border detention facilities – conditions that have grown only grimmer since the advent of Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies.

Activists in Los Angeles protest Donald Trump’s immigration policies, 30 June.
Pinterest
Activists in Los Angeles protest Donald Trump’s immigration policies, 30 June. Photograph: Mike Nelson/EPA

Officials said the allegations made by families about their experiences in detention did not equate with what they knew to be common practice and they insisted detainees were treated with dignity and respect.

The “hieleras”, or iceboxes, asylum-seekers said, were overcrowded, unhygienic, and prone to outbreaks of vomiting, diarrhea, respiratory infections and other communicable diseases. Many complained about the cruelty of guards, who they said would yell at children, taunt detainees with promises of food that never materialized and kick people who did not wake up when they were expected to.

At regular intervals, day and night, the Martinezes, and many others, said guards would come banging on the walls and doors and demand that they present themselves for roll call.

If they talked too loudly, or if children were crying, the guards would threaten to turn the air temperature down further. When the Martinezes gathered with fellow detainees to sing hymns and lift their spirits a little, the guards would taunt them, or ask aggressively: “Why did you bother coming here? Why didn’t you stay in your country?”

“Many of these agents were Latinos, like us, but they were people without morals,” Rafael Martinez said, his voice choking with tears. “There we were, caged up like animals, and they were laughing at us.”

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Gumbel’s shocking, disturbing, and downright infuriating report at the above link. If any other country treated vulnerable individuals seeking to exercise their legal rights to claim refuge under the Geneva Convention in this way we would call it just what it is — extreme cruel and inhuman treatment amounting to torture. Yet, somehow, the architects of this abhorrent, racist, wasteful, and dehumanizing system — Trump, Sessions, Miller, Nielsen, and others — remain free and largely unaccountable.

They even have the absolute audacity to whine and complain when Federal Courts occasionally call them out for their gross contempt for the law and Constitution and force them to take corrective action — which they do grudgingly, disrespectfully, without apology, and ineffectively.

Just today, “Gonzo Apocalypto” was sputtering about Federal Courts issuing nationwide injunctions against some of his corrupt, illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral practices. What a totally disingenuous jerk! I don’t remember Ol’ Gonzo complaining when a single Federal Judge in Texas, Judge Hanen, tanked Obama’s “DAPA” program that would have helped hundreds of thousands of deserving parents of US citizens and green card holders (and also helped reduce the Immigration Court backlog). Heck, Gonzo even tried to use that decision as the bogus justification for terminating DACA, a step that even Judge Hanen is not very anxious to take. Unlike Gonzo, Judge Hanen at least understands that DACA individuals have substantial equities in the United States that Congress would be wise to recognize through legislation.

Undoubtedly, there is a need for some detention of dangerous individuals or some so-called “flight risks” pending the completion of immigration proceedings. But, it is only a minuscule fraction of the number now being unnecessarily and wastefully detained.

And, there is seldom any reason whatsoever for detaining women and children who have passed the credible fear process and seek asylum. Work with the private bar to get them represented, help them understand the system, including their obligations to appear at court and when summoned by DHS, and work with the U.S. Immigration Judges, the private bar, and the DHS Offices of Chief Counsel to get these cases scheduled in a reasonable manner.

For every case that DHS seeks “priority processing,” they should be required to offer prosecutorial discretion or “PD” to a “lower priority” case. That would eliminate the current Government practice of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”), keep the court backlogs from growing out of control, and insure timely and fair processing of recent arrivals. The DHS would also be “incentivized” to agree or stipulate to well-documented, clearly grantable asylum cases, as they are supposed to do. That’s how the system could and should work pending enactment of more comprehensive immigration reform.

Additionally, individuals who satisfy “credible fear” should be offered an opportunity to apply first to the USCIS Asylum Office, before the case is sent to Immigration Court, since that office would already have a “preliminary workup” of the case.

There are lots of ways of improving this system and making it work better for the asylum applicants, their lawyers, and the DHS. But, they aren’t going to happen as long as irresponsible, biased, ethically and morally challenged  “White Nationalist” officials such as Trump, Sessions, & Nielsen are in charge.

PWS

09-13-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. TRUMP TREATS KIDS AS HUMAN PAWNS IN UGLY POLITICAL CHESS GAME – Administration’s Continued Spreading Of False Narrative On Migration Makes Continuing Migration Outside of Legal System Inevitable!

BREAKING: WHAT DID I TELL YOU? – HASTE MAKES WASTE! – TRUMP SCOFFLAWS FORCED TO AGREE TO REHEAR ASYLUM CASES OF THOSE DENIED DUE PROCCESS THROUGH FAMILY SEPARATION!!!!

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/13/17853770/children-separated-news-update-parents-trump

Dara Lind reports for Vox News:

As many as 1,000 parents separated from their children are getting a second chance to stay in the US

In a huge reversal, the Trump administration is giving families another chance to claim asylum — and even some parents who’ve already been deported might be eligible.

By Dara Linddara@vox.com
A Honduran father and his 6-year-old son worship during Sunday mass on September 9, 2018, in Oakland, California. They fled their country seeking asylum in the US.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

The Trump administration has just agreed to give parents who were separated from their children at the US-Mexico border earlier this year a second chance to make asylum claims in the US.

The Department of Justice has negotiated an agreement that covers three lawsuits filed against the government over the family-separation policy. Parents in the US who’d been ordered deported would get another chance to pass an interview demonstrating a “credible fear” of persecution — the first step in the asylum process.

If either the parent or the child passes the screening interview, families will be allowed to apply for asylum together. Some parents who don’t pass will be allowed to remain with their children in the US while the children’s cases are adjudicated.

And in some cases, the government is even willing to consider reopening cases for parents who were already deported from the US.

The agreement covers three lawsuits: Ms. L v. ICE, which forced the government to reunite separated families this summer; M- M- M- v. ICE, brought on behalf of children separated from parents; and Dora v. Sessions, a lawsuit from parents who had failed their initial asylum screenings because they were distraught after weeks of separation from their children.

If the agreement is approved by the federal judges overseeing the three lawsuits, it will result in a second chance for hundreds of parents. Muslim Advocates and the Legal Aid Justice Center, who represented the plaintiffs in Dora v. Sessions, believe it could give “well over 1,000” parents another chance at an asylum claim. And for many families, it will eliminate (or at least defer) the impossible choice between giving up a child’s legal case, and separating the family again by keeping the child in the US while the parent is deported.

Separating families made it much harder for parents to seek asylum

Under the Trump administration’s family separation policy, a parent who wanted to seek asylum in the US had one chance: to pass a “credible fear” screening interview with an asylum office.

If a parent passed the credible fear screening, he or she was given a chance to seek asylum before an immigration judge; if the parent failed, he or she could appeal the decision to an immigration judge, with much worse odds. Losing the appeal, or agreeing to drop the case, led to an order of deportation.

Generally, most asylum seekers pass their credible fear screenings. But evidence suggests that parents who were separated from their children often failed their interviews. Parents were often so consumed by grief over their separation from their children that they weren’t able to answer asylum officers’ questions fully and effectively, according to the lawsuit filed in Dora v. Sessions.

“Explaining the basis for an asylum claim is very difficult under the best of circumstances,” said one source familiar with the interview process but not professionally authorized to speak on the record. “When someone is a) detained, b) almost certainly unrepresented, and c) beside herself with fear and desperation because of having had her child taken from her,” the source continued, “it is almost impossible.”

By the time nearly 2,000 parents and children were reunited in July (thanks to Judge Dana Sabraw’s rulings in the Ms. L case ordering family reunification), the overwhelming majority of parents had already lost their cases and been ordered deported. But their children — who’d been placed on a separate legal track as “unaccompanied alien children” after being separated from their parents — often still had ongoing cases and a real chance of winning some form of legal status in the US.

So upon being reunited, hundreds of families were faced with the choice between returning to their home country together (and facing possible peril or persecution), and keeping the child in the US in hopes of winning asylum or another form of legal status — and separating the family anew. (Some parents alleged they weren’t even given this chance, and were coerced into withdrawing their children’s legal claims — and forcibly reseparated without warning if they refused to comply.)

None of this would have happened if families hadn’t been separated to begin with. Under normal circumstances, if either a parent or a child passed an asylum interview, the government would allow them both to file asylum claims. And obviously, parents who weren’t traumatized by family separation might have had a better chance with their interviews. But simply reuniting the family didn’t solve the problem.

The government is agreeing to give reunited families the same chance they’d had if they’d never been separated

Here is what the agreement proposed by the government would actually do, if approved:

  • Parents who passed their initial “credible fear” interviews for asylum will be allowed to continue; this agreement doesn’t change those cases.
  • Parents who had lost their cases and been ordered deported will be given a full review to reassess whether or not they have a credible fear of persecution. This review will include a second interview for “additional fact-gathering” — during which a lawyer can be present (or can dial in by phone). Parents will be allowed to do this even if they didn’t ask for a credible fear interview when they were first arrested.
  • Parents who fail their credible fear screenings will be allowed to remain in the US and apply for asylum if their child passes his or her credible fear screening. The reverse is also true: If a child fails her asylum screening but the parent passes his, both parent and child will be allowed to apply for asylum. This is the way things normally work when families are apprehended together; by instituting it now, the government is essentially wiping away the legal side effects of family separation.
  • Parents who aren’t eligible for a credible fear interview because they had been deported before and were returning will still be allowed to avoid deportation if they meet a higher standard (“reasonable fear”) and qualify for something called “withholding of removal.” Even if they fail that standard, they will be allowed to stay in the US while their children are going through their asylum cases.
  • Parents who have already been deported will not have their cases automatically reviewed by the government. However, the plaintiffs in these lawsuits will have 30 days to present evidence to the government that particular parents should be allowed to return, and the government will consider those requests. (The agreement doesn’t make it clear whether deported parents will have their own cases reopened, or whether they will solely be allowed to return to stay with their children while the children’s legal cases are ongoing.)

If the agreement is approved, it will officially send the legal fight over family separation into its endgame phase. While hundreds of parents and children remain separated, the legal fight over reunification is largely about who’s responsible for carrying out various parts of the government’s reunification plan; the new agreement would set a similar plan up for the legal due process of parents and children making claims to stay in the US.

It would almost certainly run into similar implementation obstacles to the reunification plan, but it would set expectations that the government would provide this process by default, rather than moving forward with deportation.

The Trump administration is never going to wholly be able to erase the consequences of its decision to separate families as a matter of course. But it is now agreeing to give up the legal advantages that it accrued by separating parents’ and children’s cases — and forcing parents to go through interviews with life-or-death stakes without knowing when or whether they’d ever see their children again.

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

I’ve been saying it over and over again. Why not just do it right, provide full Due Process, and follow the law?

Not only are the policies being promoted by Sessions, Trump, and the rest of the GOP White Nationalists unconstitutional, illegal, vile, and immoral, they are totally wasteful of limited Government resources (particularly in a time of GOP-fueled budget deficits) and unnecessarily tie up the Federal Courts. Contrary to Jeff Sessions’s false narratives, no court system anywhere has unlimited time for all the nonsense that the Government could potentially pursue. When common sense and sane prosecutorial discretion lose out, they whole system suffers.

Think what might have happened if, instead of wasting time and money on illegal family separation, unnecessary criminal prosecutions, and bending protection law out of shape, the Government had done the right thing and spent the money:

  • Working with NGOs and legal aid groups to release folks in locations where they could get legal assistance, virtually guaranteeing their appearance in Immigration Court;
  • Agreeing to grant the many domestic violence and other types of gang-related cases that could have been granted after proper preparation and documentation under a proper application of the law (before Sessions messed it up);
  • Taking all of the cases of long-term law-abiding residents off overloaded Immigration Court dockets so that the real contested asylum cases could be given priority without denying anyone Due Process or moving everything else back through “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”).
  • Any “bad guys,” or “true economic migrants” could have been given full hearings, denied, and removed. But, totally contrary to Sessions’s racist blather, most of the folks arriving are actually legitimate refugees. They could have been granted status and allowed to go out and work and study to make America better. I’ve found few individuals (including many native-born US citizens) more grateful and willing to work hard and contribute than those granted asylum.
  • The money spent on wasteful litigation and needless, cruel and inhuman, detention could instead have been used;
    • to establish a viable overseas refugee screening program in the Northern Triangle;
    • working with other countries to share resettlement responsibilities;
    • and trying to correct the situations in the Northern Triangle which gave rise to the refugee flows in the first place.

Sadly, this is hardly the first, and probably by no means the last, time that the US Government has been forced to reprocess large numbers of asylum seekers because of a failure to follow Due Process and do the right thing in the first place. Just check out the history of the ABC v. Thornburgh litigation and settlement (a case I was involved in during my time in the “Legacy INS” General Counsel’s Office).

Indeed, the Trump scofflaws are “doubling down” on every failed policy fo the past. They actually are at it again with their bone-headed proposal to thumb their collective noses at Judge Dolly Gee and withdraw from the Flores settlement and set up a “Kiddie Gulag” by regulation. Good luck with that. The Trump Scofflaws are already wasting your taxpayer money on more “tent cities in the Kiddie Gulag” that they almost certainly will be enjoined from using at some point. Then, cooler heads will prevail and we’ll undoubtedly have a “Flores II” settlement.

Also, compare the real role of immigration lawyers in enforcing the law and holding Goverment scofflaws like Sessions and Nielsen accountable with the totally bogus picture painted by Sessions in his false, unethical, and highly inappropriate speech to US Immigration Judges this week. Truth is exactly the opposite of nearly everything that Jeff Sessions says.

Our country can’t afford the scofflaw conduct, inhumanity,  immorality, and wastefulness of Trump, Sessions, Miller and their racist White Nationalist cabal. Vote for regime change this Fall!

Haste Makes Waste! Told ya so!

PWS

09-13-18

 

Related posts:

  1. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  2. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. HERE’S WHY NIELSEN’S LATEST ATTACK ON REFUGEES AND THE RULE OF LAW COULD BACKFIRE! – ALSO, AN ADDENDUM: “MY MESSAGE TO THE NDPA”