Immigraton Clinic Director
University of Houston Law Center
From the Texas Standard:
The Biden administration’s approach to the border and immigration has been heavily criticized. With Trump-era policies still in place, some advocates object to the way the rules are being enforced right now, specifically a provision known as Title 42.
Geoffrey Hoffman is a clinical professor and director of the immigration clinic at the University of Houston Law Center. Hoffman told Texas Standard that Title 42 authorizes the surgeon general to suspend immigration into the United States on public health grounds. It has been on the books since the 1940s, and though Title 42 has been evoked several times, its use increased significantly during the Trump administration.
“Back in March of 2020, the Trump administration used Title 42 to curtail, basically, entry of almost everyone from the Mexican border coming in to try to seek asylum,” Hoffman said. “And so that was a very, very big impact on those people.”
Hoffman says 600,000 people have been expelled from the country under Title 42.
Immigration advocates say Title 42 is being used as an “end run” around laws allowing asylum-seekers to enter the United States and pursue their claims.
“The issue is really that it’s being used at the land border in Mexico and Canada, and not through other entries. So it’s been seen as being discriminatory, and a racial-justice issue,” Hoffman said.
The Biden administration has continued to use Title 42, carving out an exception for unaccompanied minors who are being allowed into the country to pursue asylum claims. Some immigration advocates say applying Title 42 differently to different populations should be ended.
“You have Title 42 being used, according to immigration advocates, as a pretext,” Hoffman said. “It’s a pretext to prevent people who are otherwise legitimately seeking asylum, preventing them from seeking that relief.”
Hoffman says the United States has an obligation under the nation’s own laws, and under international law, to provide a means by which asylum-seekers can make their claims. Forcing migrants out of the country without a hearing, under Title 42, violates those laws, he says.
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Remember how Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions was never shy about intervening in matters outside his agency jurisdiction, like child separation and DACA, when it fit his White Nationalist political agenda?
But, Judge Garland has not only failed to restore an operating legal asylum system @ EOIR, but also has stood by and watched while DHS daily commits gross violations of international, constitutional, and statutory law — violations that threaten life and safety — under a pretext carried over from the Trumpists.
Significantly, a U.S. District Judge in D.C. recently ruled that:
It is the role of the political branches, and not the courts, to assess the merits of policy measures designed to combat the spread of disease, even during a global pandemic,” she continued. “The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not.
This rationale appears equally applicable to CDC’s legal authority to suspend international conventions, asylum statutes, immigration laws, and constitutional due process on a cosmic scale as pretext for ending our legal asylum system without passing legislation!
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/politics/cdc-moratorium-evictions/index.html
Sure, there are problems at the border. But, the solution is to:
- restore legal screening at the ports of entry;
- reinstate a fair and robust legal asylum process using more trained Asylum Officers and better Immigration Judges — progressive experts in asylum law (NOT like the “gang of 17” same old, same old “bureaucratic retreads” the tone-deaf Judge Garland just put on the bench);
- repeal of the Sessions/Barr anti-asylum precedents and replacing the BIA with judges who are asylum experts;
- creating more opportunities for legal immigration for both refugees and needed workers;
- enlisting the support of the UNHCR, NGOs, religious organizations, universities, and local governments to aid in the processing, representation, and resettlement of asylum seekers; and
- slashing artificial and unnecessary Immigration Court backlogs to allow qualified expert Immigration Judges to adjudicate on a “real time” basis represented asylum cases that can’t quickly be granted at the Asylum Office and to establish some positive precedents in asylum law to govern and guide practitioners, Immigration Judges, and Asylum Officers.
It’s not rocket science. But, it very clearly is beyond the capability of Mayorkas, Garland, and the other folks Biden has put in charge of the Administration’s immigration policies. There are folks out there who can do the job — Professor Hoffman is just one of many.
The responsible positions necessary to reform, restore, and revitalize our nation’s refugee, asylum, and immigration laws are mostly at the sub-cabinet level, not requiring Senate confirmation. EOIR is a prime example of a great opportunity for progressive change being inexplicably squandered by Garland and his clueless lieutenants. What is important, and has been conspicuously absent from Biden immigration policies to date, is some inspired leadership and enlightened personnel choices from Mayorkas, Garland, and Becerra.
For example, Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions had no hesitation about spreading false narratives about asylum seekers, demeaning their humanity, disrespecting their hard-working attorneys, and encouraging “his” judges to deny more cases (particularly those involving women of color), and to elevate productivity, cutting corners, and obedience to his policies over quality, fairness, due process, and protecting the legal rights of asylum seekers and other immigrants from DHS overreach.
But, what inspiring statement has Judge Garland made about the necessity of making adherence to fundamental fairness, due process, best practices, quasi-judicial independence, and humane treatment of all respondents the touchstone of EOIR? What visible appointments of widely respected practical scholars and human rights experts has he made in EOIR management, the Immigration Judiciary, OIL, or elsewhere in the DOJ. NONE! Sometimes silence speaks more loudly than words!
With the pandemic and Trump’s xenophobic illegal attack on our legal immigration system, in the face of a sharply declining birth rate, we have plenty room for more immigrants, be they refugees, family members, or essential workers. As Professor Hoffman and others of us had predicted, the racist attack on our immigration system by Trump, unfortunately largely continued by the Biden Administration, has turned our immigration system over to smugglers, cartels, gangs, and pure chance.
A rational, orderly, humane, and most of all legal and constitutional immigration system would benefit all of us. It’s a shame that those currently in Government can’t or won’t make it happen.
Due Process Forever!
PWS
05-07-21