Tal Kopan – Page 4 – immigrationcourtside.com

TAL @ CNN REPORTS ON THE LATEST ACT IN ADMINISTRATION’S ONGOING “IMMIGRATION THEATER OF THE ABSURD” – DHS’s Matthew Albence Uses Congressional Hearing To Double Down On Ridiculous Claim That The “New American Gulag” Is Like A ”Summer Camp” — One Where Neither He Nor Anyone Else In their Right Minds Would Send Their Kids!

ICE official stands by comparing detention centers to ‘summer camp,’ won’t say if he’d send his kids to one

By Tal Kopan, CNN

A senior Trump administration official on Tuesday stood by his controversial comments comparing the detention centers for immigrant families to “summer camp,” but declined to answer whether he’d send his own children there.

The remarks came at a congressional hearing where immigration and border security officials struggled to answer foundational questions from senators about the administration’s push to expand the detention of immigrant families and children.

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s chief of arrests and deportations, Matthew Albence, if he stood by his comments earlier this summer that family detention centers are like “summer camp.”

“Absolutely I do,” he said.

But he demurred when asked whether he’d send his own children, or those of people he is close to, to the centers.

“Would you send your children to one of these detention centers?” she asked.

“That question’s not applicable,” he said.

Albence did say the standards for family centers are “very safe” and “humane,” and that at one he had visited, families had access to TVs, food and video games and other activities.

“The point is, the parent made the illegal entry,” Albence said when pressed further. “The parent put themselves in this position.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing topic was ostensibly a court settlement that governs how immigrant children can be treated by the US, including limiting the length of time a family can be involuntarily detained to 20 days. The administration is seeking to nullify that settlement and allow itself to detain far more immigrant families for far longer.

Harris’ line of questioning was one of a series from Democrats, who pressed the officials on why they’d want to expand family detention and child detention despite widely held beliefs among medical professionals that even short periods of detention can inflict permanent and devastating trauma on children. Though the hearing did not include the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the government’s program for immigrant children who are in the US on their own, senators also asked about the ongoing fallout over family separations and unaccompanied child detention.

Members of both parties pressed as to why the agencies were not pursuing other measures with bipartisan support that could streamline the immigration court system over an expensive effort to vastly expand family detention.

More from the hearing: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/18/politics/ice-albence-family-detention-summer-camp/index.html

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Ever doubt that we currently have idiots in charge of our Government’s immigration policies? Matthew puts those to rest.

PWS

09-19-18

AMERICA THE MINUTE: AS WORLD REFUGEE CRISIS DEEPENS & IN THE FACE OF CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT REFUGEES ARE GOOD FOR AMERICA, OUR WHITE NATIONALIST REGIME TURNS ITS BACK ON REFUGEES – Fabricated Statistics & Bogus Attempt To Blame Asylum Seekers Highlight Disgraceful Actions – Sec. Mike Pompeo Joins White House “Racist Cult!” – Advice Of Experts Spurned!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/pompeo-trump-refugee-asylum-levels/index.html

Refugee levels are surging worldwide. Trump is slashing the number the US will let in

By Zachery Cohen and Elise Labott, CNN:

White House slashes refugee cap to new low 02:16

Washington (CNN)As the number of people displaced by war and famine surges, the Trump administration is capping refugee admissions at the lowest level since 1980, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday. It’s the second year in a row the administration has set the cap at a record low.

The US will cap refugee admissions at 30,000 in 2019, a 33% drop from 2018’s record-low ceiling of 45,000.

Pompeo said the number should not be considered as “the sole barometer” of the United States’ commitment to humanitarian efforts around the world, adding that the US would “focus on the humanitarian protection cases of those already in the country.”

As evidence, Pompeo cited the number of asylum applications expected next year, saying the US will process up to 280,000 such applications in 2019.

The US is on track to admit the fewest number of refugees since the resettlement program began

“The ultimate goal is the best possible care and safety of these people in need, and our approach is designed to achieve this noble objective,” Pompeo said. “We are and continue to be the most generous nation in the world.”

Refugee resettlement agencies, immigrant rights groups and religious leaders had been pushing for the administration to increase the cap, noting that the number of refugees who need help around the world is larger than ever.

But Monday’s announcement isn’t a surprise. Administration officials have been moving to scale back refugee resettlement in the US since President Donald Trump took office.

Last year, officials lowered the cap to 45,000, a dramatic decrease from the ceiling of 110,000 that President Barack Obama’s administration had set for the 2017 fiscal year.

And the US isn’t even going to admit that many. CNN reported in June that the US is on track to admit the fewest number of refugees since its resettlement program began in 1980, tens of thousands below the cap amount.

Monday’s announcement was met with swift condemnation from refugee resettlement organizations.

“The United States is not only abdicating humanitarian leadership and responsibility-sharing in response to the worst global displacement and refugee crisis since World War II, but compromising critical strategic interests and reneging on commitments to allies and vulnerable populations,” the International Rescue Committee said.

Pompeo’s assertion that the US will process up to 310,000 refugees and asylum seekers also makes a false equivalence between the two issues.

Asylum and refugee protections are designed on similar grounds to protect immigrants who are being persecuted. Refugee protections are granted to immigrants who are still abroad, whereas asylum is reserved for immigrants who have already arrived on US soil.

There is no cap on asylum numbers, and in recent years, roughly 20,000 to 25,000 asylum seekers have been granted protections annually, according to the latest available government statistics.

BY THE NUMBERS: HOW BATULO AND HER FAMILY FIT IN

Total refugees:

22.5 million around the world

3 million living in the US

Refugees recently admitted to the US:

96,874 in 2016

33,368 in 2017

4,978 so far this year

Somali refugees recently admitted to the US:

10,786 in 2016

2,770 in 2017

73 so far this year

Sources: Pew Research Center, International Rescue Committee, US State Department, United Nations

There are two resource and funding streams each for refugees and asylum cases.

They also apply differently — with the State Department handling refugee admissions and the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice handling asylum claims. The interviewers who conduct screenings, however, can be deployed to handle either kind of interview.

But immigration hardliners and the administration have sought to curtail to the growing number of asylum claims each year, driven in large part by immigrants arriving at the southern border.

The number announced Monday reflects a compromise between hardliners in the Trump administration, such as Stephen Miller, who favored capping the ceiling at 20,000, and Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton and US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who argued to keep it at 45,000, according to several senior administration officials.

Senior NSC official out at White House

Miller personally has lobbied Cabinet officials to support the President’s desires to focus on border security, officials told CNN, and the issue was discussed at a secret Principals Committee meeting on Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of asylum applications are pending between the immigration courts, run by the Department of Justice, and applications to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, run by the Department of Homeland Security.

Depending on how a person is applying for asylum, and where in the process the application is, the case could be pending before either body.

CNN’s Catherine Shoichet, Tal Kopan, Michelle Kosinski and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting

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“A Horrible Day For The Future Of America” [You Betcha!]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/18/its-great-day-restricting-access-america-horrible-day-future-america/?utm_term=.3c8a5b9bce55

Here’s what Professor Daniel W. Drezner of Tufts University had to say about the latest racist scam from the White Nationalist Administration:

There was never much coherence to Donald Trump’s foreign policy statements as a candidate, but there was a theme: The rest of the world is dangerous, and the United States needs to be walled off from it. In some cases, that meant Trump preferred a literal wall. In other instances, the walls have been more figurative but with real consequences, in the form of visa restrictions and trade barriers and whatnot.

On Monday, the Trump administration raised those walls higher.

The first move came on trade. Trump made his beliefs on this subject well-known early in the morning, tweeting: “Tariffs have put the U.S. in a very strong bargaining position, with Billions of Dollars, and Jobs, flowing into our Country – and yet cost increases have thus far been almost unnoticeable. If countries will not make fair deals with us, they will be ‘Tariffed!’” In the real world, the effects of tariffs have hurt some American sectors very badly, there have been no appreciable concessions from other countries, and it is far from obvious that this administration knows what it is doing in this area.

. . . .

What is truly impressive, however, is that this was not the dumbest and most embarrassing move made by the Trump administration on Monday. No, that honor must go to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose announcement demonstrated exactly how little swagger he possessed within the administration:

The United States will admit no more than 30,000 refugees in the coming fiscal year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday, the lowest number in decades and a steep cut from the 45,000 allowed in this year.

The new number is a small fraction of one percentage point of the almost 69 million displaced people in the world today. But Pompeo said the United States remains the most generous nation when other U.S. aid to refugees is taken into account, including funds to shelter and feed refugees in camps closer to their home countries.

Pompeo said the lower cap should not be the “sole barometer” of American humanitarian measures, but “must be considered in the context of the many other forms of protection and assistance offered by the United States.”

You know what’s a sign that you know you are announcing a dumb move? Explaining that it is not the “sole barometer” of something and then leaving the podium without taking any questions. There is no way in which the optics of reducing refugee acceptance (except if you’re European) makes the United States look like the leader of the free world.

This announcement accomplishes nothing beyond making Stephen Miller happy. The time to cut back on refugee admissions is not the moment when the number of refugees is hitting an all-time high. There is zero swagger in this play. All it will do is continue to eviscerate the last remaining tendrils of U.S. soft power.

Donald Trump is the president, and as currently constituted, neither Congress nor the courts are able or willing to constrain his moves in this area. Heck, Trump is so unconcerned about legislative constraints that Pompeo announced the refugee restrictions without consulting Congress at all, as he is obligated to do by law. It is worth pointing out, however, that these moves are unpopular with the American people, rest on bad economics, and will foster anger and backlash across the rest of the world.

So, in other words, yesterday was a normal day in the life of the Trump administration.

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Cruelty, stupidity, inhumanity, ignorance, bigotry, lies, false narratives, White Nationalism, overt racism — ah, it’s just another “day at the office” for the Trumpsters.

If you’re tired of these noxious fools ruining our country and destroying our position in the world, get out the vote to throw the GOP out this Fall. Otherwise, we might all be living in the “Third World” of a “Banana Republic” pretty soon!

PWS

09-18-18

TAL @ CNN: MORE FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE @ DHS — IN ADDITION TO MISAPPROPRIATING FEMA MONEY FOR THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WASTES TAXPAYER MONEY ON UNNECESSARY AND PERHAPS ILLEGAL & UNCONSTITUTIONAL FAMILY DETENTION & DEPORTATIONS THAT SERVE NO APPARENT PUBLIC INTEREST!

It’s not just FEMA: ICE quietly got an extra $200 million

By Tal Kopan, CNN

As a potentially catastrophic hurricane bears down on the East Coast of the US, the shifting of $10 million from FEMA’s operating budget to fund immigration detention and deportations is drawing condemnation from Democrats.

But that’s a drop in the bucket.

The Trump administration this summer quietly redirected $200 million from all over the Department of Homeland Security to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, despite repeated congressional warnings of ICE’s “lack of fiscal discipline” and “unsustainable” spending.

The Department of Homeland Security asked for the money, according to a document made public this week by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley. Of the $200 million, the document says $93 million will go to immigrant detention, a 3% budget increase that will fund capacity for an additional 2,300 detainees; and $107 million for “transportation and removal,” or deportations, a 29% budget increase.

The move comes as the Trump administration has pursued an aggressive immigration agenda, ramping up arrests of undocumented immigrants and deportations.

In addition to this summer’s widely condemned move to separate families at the border, the administration has drawn criticism for arresting a far greater rate of noncriminal undocumented immigrants and seeking to detain them much longer. On Tuesday, the administration announced it would tripling the size of an emergency temporary tent facility to house more immigrant children.

The additional $200 million would put ICE’s budget for detention and transportation at more than $3.6 billion.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/12/politics/ice-more-money-fema-dhs/index.html

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Cruel and inhumane enforcement and detention is also wasteful, particularly at a time of bloated budget deficits, thanks to unnecessary GOP tax cuts for the rich. It appears likely that the Trump Administration’s plans for long-term detention of children will be found illegal. Also, the irresponsible movement of money and lack of accountability within DHS is contemptuous of Congressional oversight.

This Administration’s immigration policies are totally out of control.

We need regime change, starting with meaningful Congressional oversight. It’s not going to happen unless and until the GOP is ousted.

PWS

09-12-18

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.”

Sessions to immigration judges: Immigrants’ attorneys like ‘water seeping’ around law

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a new group of immigration judges Monday that it is their job to “restore the rule of law” to the immigration system over the contrary efforts of the lawyers who represent immigrants.

The remarks at the training of the largest-ever class of new immigration judges implied that the judges were on the same team as the Trump administration, and that immigrants and their attorneys were trying to undermine their efforts.

“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,” Sessions said, adding the same happens in criminal courts. “And we understand that. Their duty, however, is not uphold the integrity of the act. That’s our duty.”

Sessions noted that “of course” the system “must always respect the rights of aliens” in the courts. But he also warned the judges of “fake claims.”

“Just as we defend immigrant legal rights, we reject unjustified and sometimes fake claims,” Sessions said. “The law is never serviced when deceit is rewarded so that the fundamental principles of the law are defeated.”

The comments came in the context of Sessions’ repeated moves to exert his unique authority over the immigration courts, a separate legal system for immigrants that is entirely run by the Justice Department.

Sessions approves every judge hired and can instruct them on how to interpret law, and thus decide cases, as well as how to manage cases. He has used that authority multiple times in the past year, including issuing a sweeping ruling that will substantially narrow the types of cases that qualify for asylum protections in the US. Those decisions overrode the evolution of years of immigration judges’ and the immigration appellate board’s decisions.

Sessions reminded the new judges of that authority and those decisions in his remarks, saying he believes they are “correct” and “prudent” interpretations of the law that “restores” them to the original intent.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/10/politics/sessions-immigration-judges/index.html

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Another totally inappropriate and unethical effort by Sessions to insure that migrants, particularly asylum seekers, receive neither fair consideration nor Due Process from U.S. Immigration Judges in connection with their, in many instances, very compelling cases for protection.

Let’s shine a little light of truth on the Sessions’s dark myth-spinning:

As recently as 2012, the majority of asylum applicants who received decisions on the merits of their claims in Immigration Court were granted protection;
Conditions in most “sending countries” — particularly those in the Northern Triangle — have gotten worse rather than better;
There is no reasonable explanation for the large drop in approvals in recent years other than bias against asylum seekers;
Even after Sessions took over, 30% of those who get merits determinations won their cases;
The success rate is higher for those released from detention and given fair access to counsel;
Most detained migrants, particularly those intentionally detained in substandard conditions in obscure locations, do not have reasonable access to counsel;
Most attorneys representing detained asylum seekers serve pro bono or for minimal compensation (particularly in relation to the amount of time and effort required to prepare and present an asylum case in detention);
Detention of asylum seekers simply to deter them from coming is illegal;
Separation of families is a deterrent is also illegal;
Neither detention nor “zero tolerance” prosecutions have been shown to have a material impact on the flow of refugees to our Southern Border;
Sessions has provided no evidence of any widespread fraud in asylum applications by refugees from the Northern Triangle;
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”), the leading interpreter of refugee and asylum protections, has consistently criticized the US’s overly restrictive approach to asylum adjudication;
Article III U.S. Courts continue to be critical of both the unlawful policies being promoted by Sessions and the fundamental errors still being made by the BIA and some Immigration Judges in analyzing asylum cases and claims under the Convention Against Torture;
According to the US Supreme Court, a chance of harm as low as 10% can satisfy the generous legal standard for asylum;
According to the UNHCR, asylum applicants should be given the “benefit of the doubt;”
Most of those who fail to get asylum, like the abused woman denied protection by Sessions in Matter of A-B-, face life threatening situations in their home countries — we have merely made a conscious choice not to offer them asylum or some alternative form of life-saving protection.

As Sessions sees that his time as Attorney General will likely come to an end before the end of this year, he is doubling down on his White Nationalist, xenophobic, racist, restrictionist, lawless agenda. He wants to inflict as much damage on migrants, refugees, women, and people of color as he can before being relegated to his former role as a rightist wing-nut. He also seeks to convince the Immigration Judges that they are not independent juridical officials but mere highly paid enforcement agents with an obligation to deport as many folks as possible in support of the President’s agenda.

I do agree with Sessions, however, that the newly-minted Immigration Judges have a tremendously difficult job. If they adopt his philosophy, they are likely to violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution and laws of the US and to wrongly return individuals to death-threatening situations. On the other hand, if they carefully and fairly follow the law and give full consideration to the facts, they will be compelled to grant protection in many cases, thus potentially putting them on EOIR’s “hit list.” (Basically, new US Immigration Judges, even those with many years of civil service, can be “fired at will” by EOIR during their first two years of “probation” as judges.)

The only solution is an independent Article I Immigration Court that will guarantee that someone as totally unqualified as Sessions can never again impose his personal will and bigoted, anti-Due-Process views on what is supposed to be a fair and impartial court system.

PWS

09-10-18

TAL @ CNN: BREAKING: SCOFFLAW ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES DEFYING COURT DECREE ON KIDDIE DETENTION – MONUMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL SHOWDOWN IN FEDERAL COURT COMING!

Trump admin seeks to keep immigrant families in detention indefinitely

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration has released a proposal to overhaul the way that undocumented immigrant families are treated in custody, a maneuver that would allow the government to keep the families in detention as long as their immigration court case remains open.

The proposed federal regulations would notably revoke the court case known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, which governs how undocumented children can be treated in custody. The regulations are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Friday.

The more than 200-page rule would have sweeping implications for the immigration detention system in the US and is likely to face swift resistance from advocates who brought the Flores case and those who have supported it.

One of the biggest proposed changes would create a federal license system to allow for detention centers that could hold families. The administration argues that it is the state-based licensing system that is causing issues that would restrict family detention.

The arguments for the rule are similar to the case the administration has made in court before Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the settlement. Gee has rejected those arguments in her courtroom.

“This rule would allow for detention at (family detention centers) for the pendency of immigration proceedings … in order to permit families to be detained together and parents not be separated from their children,” the rule states. “It is important that family detention be a viable option not only for the numerous benefits that family unity provides for both the family and the administration of the INA, but also due to the significant and ongoing influx of adults who have made the choice to enter the United States illegally with juveniles or make the dangerous overland journey to the border with juveniles, a practice that puts juveniles at significant risk of harm.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/politics/trump-administration-immigrant-families-children-detention/index.html

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Pretty outrageous. But, about what we would expect from a racist White Nationalist Administration with no respect for the Constitution, laws, Federal Courts, or human dignity, and that is hell-bent on wasting our taxpayer money on evil causes.

I predict that this will “reactivate” the Flores litigation before Judge Gee. She, in turn, will “stuff” the Administration on its insulting, contemptuous, and clearly bogus justification for the detention.

These individuals are coming to the US seeking to exercise legal rights to apply for protection. Every reliable study shows that if released under alternatives to detention, informed of what the system requires, given adequate notice, and, most important, given reasonable access to lawyers they show up for their hearings nearly 100% of the time and actually prevail on the merits in a significant number of cases (the success rate is kept artificially low by the disingenuous anti-asylum jurisprudence created by Sessions and by a pre-existing legal bias in the system against many asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle, also fanned and encouraged by Sessions’s overt xenophobia).

Stay tuned for another monumental waste of taxpayer money on yet another misguided Administration attempt to impose a White Nationalist immigration agenda!

PWS

09-06-18

TAL @CNN: DACA GETS A TEMPORARY REPRIEVE AS JUDGE HANEN DENIES PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION — “Here, the egg has been scrambled,” Hanen wrote. “To try to put it back in the shell with only a preliminary injunction record, and perhaps at great risk to many, does not make sense nor serve the best interests of this country.”

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/31/politics/texas-daca-continues/index.html

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Updated 6:00 PM ET, Fri August 31, 2018

Texas judge says he’ll likely kill DACA — but not yet

Washington (CNN)A federal judge on Friday hinted he will likely invalidate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the future — but for now the program can continue to operate.

The ruling was an unexpected, albeit temporary, reprieve for the program, which President Donald Trump opted to end almost exactly a year ago.

Texas-based District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote Friday that he believes DACA is likely illegal and ultimately will fail to survive a challenge before his court. DACA is an Obama-era program that protects young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation.

But despite that — and despite finding that the continuation of DACA could harm the eight states and two governors who challenged the program — Hanen decided not to issue a ruling that would have immediately blocked DACA’s continuation.

Since Trump sought to end DACA last September, the program’s future has been in doubt. Members of Congress largely say they want to preserve the program legislatively, but have failed to pass anything in two opportunities to do so. In the meantime, three federal courts have sustained the program.

While Hanen rebuffed the red states’ request to end DACA immediately, his inclination to invalidate the program eventually contributes to what experts expect to be a fast track to the Supreme Court in the coming year.

Hanen said that there were two issues that required him to deny the request to immediately halt the program: One was timeliness. He found that because Texas and its coalition of states waited more than five years after the implementation of DACA, even as it challenged a related program, to file this suit, that it lost some of its ability to claim damages were immediately harmful and thus required an immediate response.

In addition, Hanen ruled that though the states could prove they were harmed by the continuation of DACA, mainly in costs of benefits to recipients, the potential consequences of ending DACA immediately were more harmful.

Three federal judges have blocked the administration from ending DACA as it tried to do last September, ordering the Department of Homeland Security to continue renewing permits under the program.

But Hanen was widely expected to be unfavorable to DACA, as he had previously prevented a similar, expanded program from ever going into effect under the Obama administration.

The new case challenging the DACA program, instituted in 2012, drew heavily from that decision Hanen made on the 2014 expansion of the program and creation of a similar program for undocumented parents of Americans.

Hanen said in his Friday ruling that he largely agreed, and DACA was likely to be illegal under the same reasoning as that expansion.

But one major difference prevented him from immediately halting the program — the fact that it was already in effect.

“Here, the egg has been scrambled,” Hanen wrote. “To try to put it back in the shell with only a preliminary injunction record, and perhaps at great risk to many, does not make sense nor serve the best interests of this country.”

But in his 117-page decision, Hanen was clear that he did not intend his ruling to be interpreted as good news for the future of DACA, at least long term.

He said the popularity of the program was not relevant to whether it had been legally created — the crux of the challenge to it.

“DACA is a popular program and one that Conress should consider saving,” Hanen wrote. Nevertheless, “this court will not succumb to the temptation to set aside legal principles and to substitute its judgment in lieu of legislative action. If the nation truly wants to have a DACA program, it is up to Congress to say so.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who led the challenge to DACA, hailed the ruling in a statement, despite it being an interim loss in court.

“We’re now very confident that DACA will soon meet the same fate as the Obama-era Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program, which the courts blocked after I led another state coalition challenging its constitutionality,” Paxton said. “Our lawsuit is vital to restoring the rule of law to our nation’s immigration system.”

Hanen’s ruling Friday defuses the threat to DACA for some time. In a separate order, Hanen took the unusual step of making it possible to appeal his denial of an immediate halt to the program, and gave the parties three weeks to figure out next steps before the case moves to its next phase.

The Department of Justice declined to defend DACA in the lawsuit, but did ask Hanen to limit the effect of any ruling he may have issued.

Spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement that Hanen had agreed DACA is unlawful, “as the Justice Department has consistently argued,” and said the department was “pleased” with the decision.

In the administration’s stead, DACA was defended by the pro-immigrant advocacy and legal organization MALDEF and the state of New Jersey.

In a statement Friday, MALDEF hailed the ruling but noted it still believes DACA to be legal.

“While MALDEF continues to disagree adamantly with the judge’s views on the legality of DACA under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), and on whether the state of Texas even has standing — as required by the Constitution — to challenge DACA, today’s court decision appropriately leaves DACA in place with respect to over 100,000 Texans and hundreds of thousands of others nationwide,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF.

This story has been updated.

CNN’s Ariane de Vogue and Jason Morris contributed to this report.

\

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It’s not clear to me that Judge Hanen can kill the program even if he finds it illegal, given the contrary findings and injunctions already in effect from several other U.S. District Judges. Indeed, there are several cases already pending in the DC Circuit and the Ninth Circuit that cold moot the whole issue. It’s the kind of mess we get into when Congress abdicates its duty to legislate.

PWS

09-01-18

TWO FROM TAL @ CNN: 1) RACISM TRUMPS IDEOLOGY IN TERMINATION OF NICARAGUAN TPS; 2) SESSIONS’S CHILD ABUSE UPDATE – HUNDREDS REMAIN SEPARATED WHILE ABUSER REMAINS AT LARGE, DISSING FEDERAL JUDGES!

‘Suicide,’ ‘catastrophe’: Nicaraguans in US terrified of looming end of protections

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Cassandra has lived and worked in the US over 20 years. Threats to her life have been made to her family and friends back in Nicaragua. It would be “suicide” to move back, she says.

But the Trump administration says she and thousands of other immigrants like her must do so by January.

On Jan. 5, roughly 5,300 Nicaraguans who have lived in the US since at least that date in 1999 will lose their protected status. If they have no other immigration status in the US, they will be forced to either return to the country or risk living in the US illegally.

The decision to end temporary protected status for Nicaraguans last November was overshadowed by similar Trump administration decisions to end such protections for hundreds of thousands more immigrants from neighbors Honduras and El Salvador. Nationals of Nicaragua received the shortest time frame of any of those TPS recipients to get their affairs together: 12 months.

But since that decision was made, Nicaragua has plunged into violence and political unrest, with at least 322 people dying there since mid-April, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States. By the White House’s own count, the toll is more than 350. The UN Refugee Agency has put out guidance to its member countries asking them to allow Nicaraguans to enter and to apply for asylum once there.

The situation is bad enough that the Trump administration sanctioned three Nicaraguan officials in July for human rights abuses, saying President Daniel Ortega and his vice president “are ultimately responsible for the pro-government parapolice that have brutalized their own people.”

In light of the violence, a bipartisan group of seven bipartisan lawmakers wrote to President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in late July asking the President to either reconsider ending temporary protected status for Nicaraguans or to designate a new status for them.

“It would be, frankly, I think, unacceptable to then send folks back to that same place that we’re sanctioning,” Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, one of those who signed the letter, told CNN. “It’s a barbaric regime that’s literally murdering people in the streets. … It would be a catastrophe, and it’s one that can be avoided.”

Diaz-Balart said he has not gotten a response from the administration to the letter, though he remains hopeful it will reverse course.

The Department of Homeland Security ignored repeated requests for comment from CNN about whether it’s considering extending further protections to Nicaraguans.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/tps-nicaragua-trump-immigrants-fear/index.html

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Hundreds of immigrant kids remain separated from parents

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Hundreds of children separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border remain separated from their parents, including 497 in government custody, according to a new court filing Thursday.

The figure includes 22 children under the age of five still in government care. Six of those are 4 years old or younger whose parents were deported without them.

A total of 1,937 children have been reunified with parents, up only 14 from last week.

The numbers have changed only slightly from last week, as the court filing from the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union case describes a slow and laborious process to try to connect the families that have been separated.

It remains unclear exactly how many parents were deported without their children, though it’s in the hundreds. By the government’s latest count, there are 322 deported parents who have children still in custody.

But the ACLU, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of separated parents, says the administration has previously given it a list of deported parents that includes 70 additional cases. The administration said, according to the ACLU, that some of the discrepancy is due to kids being released from care. It’s not clear what will happen to those families.

US District Judge Dana Sabraw will hold a status hearing on the case Friday.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/family-separations-hundreds-children-separated/index.html

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So, we send good folks who have been contributing to our economy and society back to likely harm at the hands of the repressive leftist Government of Nicaragua basically because they are Latinos. Of course, almost all of them have very plausible asylum, withholding, CAT, or cancellation of removal claims. So, more than 5,000 cases will needlessly be thrown back into our already overwhelmed Immigration Court system. No wonder the backlog continues to mushroom under Sessions’s White Nationalist policies! Racist-driven policies always come at a high cost!

In the meantime, Sessions continues publicly to thumb his nose at Federal Judges, while making less than impressive efforts to comply with their lawful orders. And, families and children continue to suffer from Sessions’s White Nationalist agenda.

PWS

08-31-18

TAL @ CNN: TRUMP’S WHITE NATIONALIST BASE STILL LOVES SESSIONS — No Other Confirmable AG Is Likely To Be As Overtly Racist, Immoral, & Willing To Subvert The Law As Sessions!

Sessions ‘irreplaceable’ on immigration to base

By Tal Kopan, CNN

When then-candidate Donald Trump touted Jeff Sessions’ support on the 2016 campaign trail, he’d joke that even he was surprised he beat out other immigration hawks for the prized endorsement. It was an indication of how strongly Trump resonated with the base on immigration and border security — and how strongly Sessions represented it.

Now, Sessions’ supporters are hoping the President hasn’t forgotten that lesson.

Sessions’ support among Republicans in the Senate is publicly weakening, as the President continues to tweet his frustration with his attorney general and early backer over his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But Sessions’ supporters are saying one simple fact should keep the attorney general in office: There is no one else who could better execute Trump’s own vision on immigration, and no one who bears more credit for what the President has achieved thus far.

Sessions “is almost irreplaceable because of his commitment and understanding of the core issue on which the President won his election,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for slashing immigration dramatically.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham this week argued Trump deserves to replace Sessions, saying the relationship is “beyond repair.”

That sentiment is not shared, however, in Sessions’ strongest base of support — the groups that have long advocated for the immigration-restricting policies that the attorney general has aggressively pursued.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/politics/jeff-sessions-support-immigration-base/index.html

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Yeah, I can see that Sessions would be a hard guy to duplicate. He’s a true relic of the Jim Crow era who wears his disdain and disrespect for people of color on his sleeve. I also suppose that one reason he turned out to be “confirmable” was the desire of many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get rid of his wacko, far right, obstructionist presence.

Over at Justice, Sessions doesn’t have to convince anyone that what he is doing is legal or good policy. He just does as he pleases. The Federal Courts rein him in on a regular basis. That leads Sessions to utter insulting trivialities about “interference with the Executive.” Interfering with a member of the Executive Branch who is riding roughshod over the Constitution and the statutes is just what Article III courts are supposed to be doing!

About the only thing at Justice that Sessions hasn’t screwed up is the Russia investigation (although he tried by approving the “bogus memo” from Rod Rosenstein recommending the firing of Comey which Trump later admitted was a fraud). And, that’s only because he was quite properly disqualified. While Sessions couldn’t care less about the law and ethics, he does have some sense of self-preservation. Participating in the Russia investigation could have been a Federal crime (although the Federal criminal law on non-financial conflicts of interest is somewhat murky) as well as a basis for stripping his law license.

PWS

08-28-18

TAL @ CNN: REP. WILL HURD (R-TX) SEES THROUGH THE TRUMP/SESSIONS BORDER FARCE – WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THE REST OF THE GOP?

Republican lawmaker: Border wall, family separations counterproductive to security

By Tal Kopan, CNN

After traveling to the hotbed of illegal immigration and drug trafficking, Republican Rep. Will Hurd is more convinced than ever that America doesn’t need a border wall.

“The $32 billion that would go into a border wall, I’m just even more convinced that it would be better spent with some of these existing programs, and we’d see a quicker decrease in drugs and illegal immigration,” Hurd said, referring to US initiatives to help Central America.

Hurd spoke with CNN after a three-day trip to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, three countries that drive most of the illegal immigration to the southern US border. In Central America, Hurd met with national security officials and community representatives.

A Texas lawmaker with the largest stretch of US-Mexico border of any congressional district, Hurd has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s promised border wall and the administration’s family separations at the border.

The moderate Republican’s seat is also one of the races Democrats are targeting aggressively in their hopes to flip control of the House. Hurd is facing a well-funded Democratic challenger, Gina Ortiz Jones, in a race that has already cost millions.

Trump has only doubled down on his hardline immigration policies headed into the midterms, including a border wall costing tens of billions of dollars. Though he and his base remain convinced that such aggressive policies are key to Republicans’ political success, Hurd has been a strong voice on the right for more moderate policies.

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/will-hurd-donald-trump-border-wall-central-america/index.html

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Every part of the Trump/Sessions/Miller intentionally cruel immigration enforcement program has been a failure from the standpoint of sound law enforcement. Yet, the more they fail and the more the Federal Courts and others point out their illegal actions, the more the Trumpsters double down on everything vile. In the end, the damage will only be stopped when Trump & company are voted out of office.

PWS

08-29-18

EXPLOSIVE EXPOSE’: TAL @ CNN SHOWS HOW WHITE NATIONALISTS IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IMPROPERLY SKEWED THE DECISION TO TERMINATE TPS!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/24/politics/trump-administration-tps-end/index.html

‘It IS bad there’: Emails reveal Trump officials pushing for TPS terminations

Washington (CNN)There was a simple explanation in October 2017 when a Department of Homeland Security official was asked why a memo justifying ending immigrant protections for Central Americans made conditions in those countries sound so bad.

“The basic problem is that it IS bad there,” the official wrote.

Nevertheless, he agreed to go back and see what he could do to better bolster the administration’s decision to end the protections regardless.

The revelation comes in a collection of internal emails and documents made public Friday as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the decision to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who live in the US, most of whom have been here for well over a decade.

Friday’s document dump come as backup for the attorneys’ request that the judge immediately block the government’s decision to end these protections as the case is fully heard. A hearing is scheduled for late September.

Trump admin was warned a policy change could strengthen MS-13. They did it anyway.

In the emails, Trump administration political officials repeatedly pushed for the termination of TPS for vulnerable countries, even as they faced pushback from internal assessments by career staffers and other parts of the administration.

In one exchange, the now-director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Francis Cissna, remarks that a document recommending that TPS for Sudan be terminated reads like it was going to recommend the opposite until someone was “clubbed … over the head.”

“The memo reads like one person who strongly supports extending TPS for Sudan wrote everything up to the recommendation section and then someone who opposes extension snuck up behind the first guy, clubbed him over the head, pushed his senseless body of out of the way, and finished the memo. Am I missing something?” he wrote to key DHS staffers. Another high-ranking official then asks for the memo to be “revised.”

In a similar exchange, policy adviser Kathy Nuebel Kovarik asks her staff to address what she perceives as inconsistencies in the justification documents for ending TPS for El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

“The problem is that it reads as though we’d recommend an extension b/c we talk so much about how bad it is, but there’s not enough in there about positive steps that have been taken since its designation,” she wrote.

Staffer Brandon Prelogar responded that “it IS bad there.”

“We can comb through the country conditions to try to see what else there might be, but the basic problem is that it IS bad there (with regards to) all of the standard metrics,” Prelogar wrote. “Our strongest argument for termination, we thought, is just that it is not bad in a way clearly linked to the initial disasters prompting the designations. We can work with RU to try to get more, and/or comb through the country conditions we have again looking for positive gems, but the conditions are what they are.”

Trump’s immigration policies were supposed to make the border safer. Experts say the opposite is happening.

DHS did end protections for all three countries, despite dire predictions previously reported by CNN from career analysts about the consequences including potentially strengthening the vicious gang MS-13.

Immigrants are suing over the ending of TPS for these countries, alleging the protections were terminated due to a prebaked agenda that violated the law, as well as a racist agenda. The judge has previously allowed the lawsuit to proceed and forced the production of these internal documents, over the objection of the government.

The program covers migrants in the US from countries that have been hit by dire conditions, such as epidemics, civil war or natural disasters. Previous administrations, spanning both parties, had opted to extend the protections for most of the countries involved every few years when they came up for review.

The Trump administration says the conditions in each country have improved from the original disasters to the point that the protected status had to end. DHS has maintained that under its reading of the law, decisions to extend may be based only on conditions from the original disaster — not any that have arisen since. That breaks with the reading of the law from all prior administrations, attorneys argue — citing a deposition of a former USCIS director also submitted Friday.

The documents show a gradual process of the front offices of DHS taking more control of the TPS decision making. Early in the administration, career staffers drafted a document that would have justified extending TPS for Haiti. Officials asked that it be changed, and it was initially extended just six months ahead of being terminated completely.

For later decisions, the documents show the State Department complaining that it was marginalized from the process. In fact, a Federal Register Notice for the termination for Sudan had to be pulled back and edited after the State Department complained that it had been changed from a version it had approved at the last minute to something inconsistent with current US policy toward the country.

The emails show that Gene Hamilton, a close ally of Attorney General Jeff Sessions who was a senior counselor at DHS before moving to the Justice Department, made some of those last-minute revisions, attempting to remove references to human rights violations, among other changes.

When presented with Hamilton’s changes to some language already agreed to with the State Department, Prelogar wrote that “we’d just say that this could be read as taking another step toward providing an incomplete and lopsided country conditions presentation to support termination, which may increase the likelihood of criticism from external stakeholders to that effect.”

The trail also shows the State Department had recommended TPS for Sudan be extended, although it did so late in the game, and that it was caught off-guard by the changes.

In a last-minute email, the State Department’s Christopher Ashe wrote to the acting director of USCIS that there were problems.

Documents reveal DHS knew ending protections could cause more, not less, illegal immigration

“The Department has identified some significant mischaracterizations that are at odds with the Department’s understanding of circumstances on the ground. We believe that lacking correction, the (Federal Register Notice) could be out of step with the Administration’s broader engagement on Sudan — much of which DHS is not engaged on and is likely unaware of the nuances that USCIS’s changes in the language could have,” Ashe wrote.

He continued that State was “caught off guard” by a decision to make the announcement.

“We literally were forced to dispatch our Foreign Affairs Officers by taxi to the Embassies with virtually no notice to inform the host governments of the imminent announcements. We had thought we had obtained a commitment for sufficient notice to make such notifications,” Ashe wrote.

DHS terminations of protected status ignored diplomats’ recommendations, report says

Nuebel Kovarik responds on the email chain that DHS would reject the suggested change by State that would imply not “all” nationals of Sudan could return, saying it would contradict the decision to terminate. She agrees to change the notice to acknowledge that some regions of Sudan may remain too dangerous for return.

State had asked for that, noting that otherwise it could “encourage the Government of Sudan to believe they have the greenlight from US (government) to force the return of displaced persons … to return to deadly conflict-affected areas. These areas are places where even well-armed UN peacekeeping forces decline to engage for fear of violence and recent killings of peacekeepers.”

But Nuebel Kovarik declines to hold off publishing the official announcement to accommodate the change, saying it’s “minor” enough to be done later on as a revision.

“We don’t say the country is perfect,” she concluded.

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Great to have Tal back and “telling it like it is.” Just like at the DOJ, racist hacks like Cissna and his unholy cabal are distorting and downright suppressing facts to implement a predetermined White Nationalist agenda. Every decent American should be appalled! These folks are blatantly dishonest in maters that affect human lives. They probably belong in jail; if not, they should never hold public office now or in the future

It’s time for all Americans of conscience who believe in our Constitution and the rule of law to rise up at the ballot box in November and take our country back from the White Nationalists!

PWS

08-24-18

BREAKING FROM TAL: WANT PROOF THAT THE U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS AREN’T “COURTS” AT ALL & THAT DUE PROCESS FOR MIGRANTS IS A FRAUD IN THEM? — DOJ TAKES ACTION AGAINST U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGE FOR ALLEGEDLY CRITICIZING SESSIONS!

Immigration judge removed from cases after perceived criticism of Sessions

By Tal Kopan

The Justice Department plans to take dozens of cases away from an immigration judge who has delayed deportation orders, in part for perceived criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the union representing immigration judges said Wednesday.

CNN reported Tuesday that the Justice Department replaced Philadelphia Immigration Judge Steven Morley with an assistant chief immigration judge last month to hear a single case on his docket, which resulted in a young undocumented immigrant, Reynaldo Castro-Tum, being ordered deported.

Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jack Weil told Morley that comments in the Castro-Tum case were perceived as “criticism” of the Board of Immigration Appeals and attorney general’s decisions and that they were “unprofessional,” according to the grievance filed by the National Association of Immigration Judges. The cases all involve young undocumented immigrants and whether they got adequate notice from the government about hearings at which they failed to appear. Weil also told Morley that he himself should have either ordered Castro-Tum deported or terminated the case altogether.

It’s the most public fight yet between the union that represents the nation’s roughly 350 immigration judges and Sessions, who has intently focused on the immigration courts under his purview. The immigration judges have long bemoaned their structure under the Justice Department, but have taken particular issue with many of the moves pursued by the Trump administration that they say interfere with their ability to conduct fair and impartial court proceedings.

Unlike federal judges, immigration judges are employees of the Justice Department and the attorney general has the authority to hire them, manage their performance measures and even rule on cases with binding authority over how the judges must decide similar issues.

The judge’s union says DOJ broke the collective bargaining agreement by violating Morley’s independent decision-making authority.

Morley denied those comments were unprofessional and reiterated he made the proper decisions in the case based on the facts and due process, the grievance said.

“He’s being targeted for what is perceived to be criticism of the attorney general when it is in fact just a judge doing his job, raising concerns about due process,” Judge Ashley Tabaddor said Wednesday on behalf of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/08/politics/immigration-judges-justice-department-grievance/index.html

Also ICYMI – my story on today’s hearing in Texas on DACA: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/08/politics/daca-hearing-texas/index.html

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Obviously, telling a judge how he “should” have decided a case is a job for the BIA, not the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge. That’s what appeals are for — to correct errors in a trial judge’s handling of a case. Can you imagine a Chief U.S. District Judge telling a colleague how he “should” have decided a case and removing cases because the judge didn’t handle the case as he wanted it done?

And certainly, judges are free to criticize or disagree in their decisions with decisions by superior judges and public officials as long as they ultimately follow the law and precedent. During my tenure as Chair of the BIA, we took a few “zingers” from Immigration Judges who didn’t agree with our decisions or what we ordered them to do. I always told staff to just concentrate on the merits and getting the result right without getting sidetracked by the sideshow. Also, as a trial judge, I applied a number of precedents where I had dissented as a BIA Member without necessarily agreeing that my former colleagues were correct — just acknowledging that they “had the votes” and I was obliged to apply the precedent.

If Congress won’t do its job and remove the Immigration Courts from the Executive Branch, it’s time for the Article IIIs to step in and put an end to this pathetic parody of justice. To steal a line from yesterday’s Washington Post, Session’s outlandish antics could easily be taken from a description of Stalin’s Gulag or a court system in a failing Third World dictatorship. Thank goodness that there are some courageous judges in this system, like Judge Steven Morley, willing to take seriously their oaths of office and to uphold the Constitution, even when it becomes “career threatening” (which, of course, in a functional judicial system — unlike EOIR — it shouldn’t).

Thanks again to Tal for “giving us the scoop” on this one.

PWS

08-08-18

WHITE NATIONALIST ADMINISTRATION’S NEXT TARGET FOR ABUSE: LEGAL IMMIGRANTS! — PLUS, SESSIONS’S CONTINUING “DECONSTRUCTION” OF DUE PROCESS AND JUSTICE IN THE U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS!

Tal Kopan reports for CNN:

Sources: Stephen Miller pushing policy to make it harder for immigrants who received benefits to earn citizenship

By Tal Kopan, CNN

White House adviser Stephen Miller is pushing to expedite a policy that could penalize legal immigrants whose families receive public benefits and make it more difficult to get citizenship, three sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The White House has been reviewing the proposal since March at the Office of Management and Budget, which is the last stop for regulations before they are final. But concerns over potential lawsuits have delayed the final rule, and the draft has undergone numerous revisions, multiple sources say.

The crux of the proposal would penalize legal immigrants if they or their family members have used government benefits — defined widely in previous drafts of the policy.

The law has long allowed authorities to reject immigrants if they are likely to become a “public charge” — or dependent on government. But the draft rule in its recent forms would include programs as expansive as health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, as well as some forms of Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The rule would not explicitly prohibit immigrants or their families from accepting benefits. Rather, it authorizes the officers who evaluate their applications for things like green cards and residency visas to count the use of these programs against applicants and gives them authority to deny visas on these grounds — even if the program was used by a family member.

Two non-administration sources close to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which would publish and enforce the proposal, say that Miller has been unhappy by the delay and has pushed the agency to finish it quickly. The sources say Miller even instructed the agency to prioritize finalizing the rule over other efforts a few weeks ago.

Miller is an immigration hardliner within the administration, a veteran of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Senate office who has been at President Donald Trump’s side since the early stages of his presidential campaign.

But two other administration sources downplayed the idea of any instructions to defer other policies until it’s done, though they acknowledged Miller is keenly interested in the rule.

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/07/politics/stephen-miller-immigrants-penalize-benefits/index.html

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Tal also highlights the continuing bias and political interference with the U.S. Immigration Courts under Sessions, spotlighting the continuing vocal public opposition of “Our Gang” of retired U.S. Judges, led in this case by Judge Jeffrey Chase, to the wanton destruction of Due Process in our Immigration Courts as well as the NAIJ, representing current Immigraton Judges (I am a member):

Immigrant ordered deported after Justice Department replaces judge

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Judge Steven Morley has overseen the immigration case of Reynaldo Castro-Tum for years. But last month when Castro-Tum was officially ordered deported, it wasn’t Morley at the bench.

Instead, the Justice Department sent an assistant chief immigration judge from Washington to replace Morley for exactly one hearing: the one that ended Castro-Tum’s bid to stay in the US.

The unusual use of a chief immigration judge from headquarters has raised concerns from retired immigration judges, lawyers and the union for active immigration judges. They say the move seems to jeopardize the right to a fair process in immigration courts.

It also highlights the unique structure of the immigration courts, which are entirely run by the Justice Department, and the ways that Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who serves as a one-man Supreme Court in these cases — has sought to test the limits of his authority over them.

The saga of Castro-Tum starts in 2014, when he crossed the border illegally as a 17-year-old. The Guatemalan teen was apprehended by the Border Patrol, which referred him to custody with the Health and Human Services Department as an unaccompanied minor. He was released to his brother-in-law a few months later and registered his brother-in-law’s address with the government. Multiple notices of court hearings were sent to that address, the government said.

But after the fifth time Castro-Tum failed to appear in court, immigration Judge Morley closed the case until the government provided him with evidence that Castro-Tum had ever lived at the address they were sending the notices to. The Board of Immigration Appeals sent the case back to Morley to reconsider with instructions to proceed even if Castro-Tum failed to show again. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Earlier this year, Sessions referred the case to himself and ruled that immigration judges across the board could no longer close immigration cases as they saw fit. The attorney general said immigration judges lack the authority to make such “administrative closures” of cases.

Sessions gave Morley 14 days to issue a new hearing notice to Castro-Tum. The Philadelphia-based immigration attorney Matthew Archambeault, who had begun following the case, appeared in court and volunteered to represent Castro-Tum, as well as to track him down. He asked the judge to postpone the case a bit longer to give him time to do that, which Morley granted.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/07/politics/immigration-judge-replaced-deportation-case-justice-department/index.html

ICYMI:

Trump nominates new ICE director:

http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/06/politics/ice-trump-vitiello/index.html

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Thanks, again, Tal, for your reporting and for all you do to expose the Administration’s daily scofflaw performances in mal-administering our immigration laws.

Folks, we are in a battle for the “hearts and minds of America.” Will we fulfill our destiny as a vibrant, diverse, creative “nation of immigrants?” Or, will be become a “shell of a nation” controlled by emotionally stunted, scared, White Nationalist bigots pursuing a philosophy of White racial favoritism, discrimination, persecution, and “beggar thy neighbor” economics.

The next election will be the test. Statistically, Trump’s White Nationalist Nation, pushing a platform of overt xenophobia and bigotry, does not represent the majority of Americans. But, they (with the help of their “fellow travelers” in the GOP) have seized effective control of our Government on many levels. Unless we dislodge them at the ballot box and take back America for the majority of us who neither are nor sympathize with White Nationalism, our nation may well be doomed to a gloomy future.

Get out the vote! Just say no to Trump, Sessions, Miller and their White Nationalist cronies!

PWS

08-08-18

SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: FEDERAL COURTS DELIVER “DOUBLE BODY SLAM” TO TRUMP & SESSIONS ON CHILD SEPARATION, DACA!

Judge slams Trump admin for suggesting ACLU, others should find deported parents

By Tal Kopan, CNN

A federal judge called the Trump administration’s slowness to track down migrant parents it had separated from their children and then deported “unacceptable,” saying the responsibility is “100%” on the government.

The stern admonishment from District Judge Dana Sabraw came a day after the administration argued that immigrant advocacy groups — not the government — should be responsible for tracking down the more than 500 parents it had separated from their children at the border and deported without them.

Sabraw said during a Friday phone hearing that if the government doesn’t track down the parents, it will have “permanently orphaned” their children.

“The reality is there are still close to 500 parents that have not been located, many of these parents were removed from the country without their child, all of this is the result of the government’s separation and then inability and failure to track and reunite,” Sabraw said.

“And the reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanent orphaned child, and that is 100% the responsibility of the administration,” he added.

Sabraw instructed the administration to name one or two officials to be a single point of command in the reunification effort, and to submit a detailed plan for how they will reunify children with parents either deported or, in a smaller number of cases, released into the US.

“In reviewing the status report it appears that only 12 or 13 of close to 500 parents have been located, which is just unacceptable at this point,” Sabraw said.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/trump-administration-aclu-deported-parents/index.html

Judge again says DACA must be restored

By Tal Kopan and Dan Berman

A federal judge on Friday again said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program should be fully restored.

Judge John Bates said the Trump administration still has failed to justify its proposal to end DACA, the Obama-era program that has protected nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation.

Bates agreed to delay his ruling for 20 days to give the administration time to respond and appeal, if it chooses.

More (being updated):http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/daca-ruling/index.html

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Basically the Administration is “flicking the middle finger” at Judge Sabraw and his family reunification order. And, they are also doing the same thing to Judge Bates by nonchalantly screwing 800,000 young people, American’s future, without providing any legal rationale.

As a former judge, I actually understand why these judges are letting this “roll off their backs” and focusing on making the Administration solve the problems they created. Judges have to be the “adults in the room” even in an Administration of infantile minds.

But, at some point, a lawyer like Sessions who thumbs his nose at judicial orders and fails to provide any legal support for a litigating position that affects 800,000 American residents should face disciplinary proceedings. Not only has the Administration’s response been unacceptable, but so has the professional and ethical performance of Sessions and his DOJ lawyers. What about “Bivens liability” for Sessions and other Administration officials who knowingly and intentionally violated Constitutional rights in the child separation program, had their attorneys lie to the court about the very existence of the policy, and refused to take responsibility for fixing it.

Perhaps when this is over. But, then again, maybe not.

PWS

08-03-18

TAL @ CNN: ADMINISTRATION PLANNING END RUN AROUND FLORES SETTLEMENT BY ISSUING NEW REGULATION!

White House reviewing plan to end court settlement on immigrant child detention

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The White House is reviewing a plan that could nullify a settlement that immigrant children that arrive with their families be released from custody within 20 days, a rule they have blamed for their separation of thousands of families at the border.

The action to finalize regulations on the topic, revealed in a government database, comes after repeated attempts to change the Flores Settlement Agreement have been resoundingly rejected by a federal judge and amid continuing fallout over the Trump administration’s related decision to separate families at the border.

The Trump administration has made the Flores settlement a frequent target of its ire — blaming the agreement for its decision to implement a policy at the border that resulted in thousands of families being separated. It has also repeatedly said only Congress can act to overrule the settlement. But lawmakers have shown little appetite to do so and have so far failed to pass any immigration legislation under this administration.

Key provisions of the agreement dictate minimum standards of care of immigrants in detention, as well as requiring that children who arrive with their families be released from custody within 20 days unless their parent agrees to them being held longer. But three weeks is faster than their immigration court cases can be processed, leading the Trump administration to complain the agreement forces them to either release the families together or separate them.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/02/politics/trump-administration-flores-settlement/index.html

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Sounds pretty scofflaw! Can they get with it?

Flores doesn’t purport to create Constitutional rights for the class members. Congress clearly could, and should, merely enact the Flores protections for children into statute. But, realistically, that’s not going to happen under Trump, and even if it did, Trump would undoubtedly veto it.

Conversely, perhaps Congress could overrule Flores by statute. But, if Flores turns out to be setting forth Constitutional minimum requirements, then the statute would be held unconstitutional. On the other hand, if no Constitutional issues are involved, Congress would be free to act. However, Congress hasn’t shown any enthusiasm for immigration legislation, particularly something as sensitive and potentially controversial as Flores.

Additionally, just because Congress could change the law doesn’t necessarily mean that the Administration could do so by regulation. Indeed, if the Administration could void a court-approved settlement simply by publishing a regulation, settlements with the Government would cease to have any meaning or enforceability.

Also, at the time of the original Flores settlement it seems to me that both parties and the court wisely wanted to avoid protracted litigation on the Constitutional question of long-term detention of children which had risks for both parties.

At a minimum, an attempt to “undo” Flores by regulation would allow the plaintiffs to raise the Constitutional issue in court. It’s seems to me that there must be some Constitutional limits on child detention. So, the Government could well end up enjoined to follow Flores while the litigation on the Constitutional question works its way up the system — a process likely to take until beyond 2020. I’d also say that the Administration’s stupidity and lawlessness on separating children from parents tends to make the “litigating context” very favorable for plaintiffs.

So, to me, it looks like another dumb, counterproductive, “in your face” move by the Trumpsters. But, that doesn’t mean they won’t try it. In fact, most of their so-called “litigating strategy” seems to fit this mold. It’s an Administration that has made immorality, lies, fraud, waste, and abuse of public resources the norm. However this issue comes out, that couldn’t bode well for the future of our country.

PWS

08-03-18

U.S. JUDGE BLASTS SESSIONS AGAIN FOR LAWLESS AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL ATTACKS ON “SANCTUARY CITIES,” As Reported By Tal @ CNN!

Judge strikes down law underpinning Sessions’ anti-sanctuary city push

By Tal Kopan, CNN

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration were handed another stark defeat in their effort to punish sanctuary cities, with a judge declaring a law the administration had been relying on unconstitutional.

In a terse 58-page opinion, a Reagan-nominated district court judge thoroughly rebuked Sessions’ efforts to penalize sanctuary cities, saying efforts he has taken to impose immigration-related conditions on federal law enforcement grants are unconstitutional. The judge also called the underlying law that the administration has pointed to as justifying its efforts unconstitutional.

The ruling will only apply to the city of Chicago for now — but the judge said he intends for his ruling to apply nationwide.

Judge Harry Leinenweber had also previously temporarily blocked the grant conditions, which the appellate court upheld.

But now Leinenweber has gone even further — making his initial ruling permanent and going beyond it to strike down the underlying law, referred to as Section 1373.

The administration has pointed to the obscure law in all of its sanctuary city lawsuits, the vast majority of which it has lost. The law mandates that local governments share immigration status of individuals with the federal government.

The Justice Department has argued that law should be interpreted broadly to mandate cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. But citing a recent Supreme Court ruling, Leinenweber did the opposite — striking down the law itself as unconstitutional.

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/politics/trump-sessions-defeat-sanctuary-cities/index.html

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

Not only is Sessions’s attack on “sanctuary cities” illegal, it’s also just plain bad law enforcement policy. Sessions is “poisoning the well” for needed cooperation between the Feds and locals on real law enforcement initiatives for many years to come.

PWS

07-27-18

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