🤮🏴‍☠️👎🏽RACE-BASED CHILD ABUSE & SEXUAL ABUSE OF KIDS MUST STOP — Demand An End To Scofflaw Behavior By Our Government!

Crimes Against Humanity — Thomas Cizauskas Crimes against humanity
Creative Commons License — The Biden Administration promised to stop these crimes committed by our Government, but hasn’t.

https://www.newsweek.com/we-fled-honduras-fearing-our-lives-immigration-officers-abused-my-child-opinion-1605760p

Daniel Paz writes in Newsweek:

“Welcome to hell.”

Those were the words I heard from an immigration officer not long after I entered the United States near El Paso, Texas in May 2018. I thought I had just reached safety with Angie, my 7-year-old daughter. I was wrong.

Once we arrived at the border, immigration officers processed me and my daughter at a detention facility, and led us to a crowded cell packed with 50 to 60 other families. It smelled terrible—like urine—and everything was gray. We were so cold. They didn’t even offer us one of the cellophane blankets you see on TV. I had to take my shirt off to wrap it around Angie and keep her warm. I was shivering.

The journey to this point had been excruciatingly painful. Fearing for our lives, we had to make the decision to flee. I had a good life in Honduras. I was a businessman and I owned my own home. I knew it would be hard to leave everything I worked so hard to build behind. Starting a new life in a new country with a different culture wouldn’t be easy. But desperate circumstances called for desperate measures. Hope of reaching a safe place for my family kept me going.

At the detention center, many fathers began hearing rumors that immigration officials were going to take our children away from us. Take them where? Take my daughter? To another cell? A new facility? On the inside I was panicking, but I knew I needed to show strength for my daughter. I needed to be brave and prepare her if the rumors were true. You will contact your grandparents in Ohio, I told Angie.

In the cell, we practiced memorizing their phone numbers, repeating them over and over. To be extra safe, I then wrote the numbers with a ball-point pen on my daughter’s arm, her belly, her foot and on the inside of her jeans hoping she’d have the chance to make a phone call before immigration officials washed off the ink.

Then my nightmare happened. They came to take our children. I witnessed pain, agonizing cries and a deep sense of helplessness. Some of the immigration officers joked as they handcuffed the parents. Others expressed a cruelty I never would have expected. Rather than trying to ease our pain, they were somehow enjoying their power. As if they believed their actions were the right thing to do. I don’t know how anyone believes separating a child from a parent is right.

. . . .

While being transferred to a detention facility for children, an immigration officer sexually abused her. When she fought back, the officer threatened her, saying if she told anyone she would never see her parents again. Then Angie witnessed the same officer sexually abuse two girls who were even younger than her. Angie stayed quiet about the experience even months after we were reunited.

We were reunited after several weeks, though the separation felt eternal. The Angie the U.S. government returned to me is not the same girl they took out of my arms in that detention center. She cannot forget what happened to her. And she wants me to share what happened to her because she is worried the officer who abused her is still an immigration official. We do not know the officer’s name—let alone whether the officer is still working in government.

“What if that officer is still hurting other kids?” Angie asked me.

As a father I want to tell Angie not to worry. That is why I am asking President Joe Biden to act. Reuniting families and making sure they have immigration status in the U.S. is critical—but it is not enough. The government can make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of asylum seekers who are being turned away at the border right now. All asylum seekers should be allowed to seek protection and refuge in the U.S. without fear.

The government must also investigate every allegation of sexual abuse and mistreatment by immigration officers. Those officers must immediately be identified and removed from their positions so they cannot hurt anyone else. President Biden, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice together have the ability to ensure that families like mine can begin to heal.

It is hell to leave your home and risk everything so your child can be safe. It shouldn’t be hell once you have reached what you thought would be a safe haven.

After entering the United States to seek safety, Daniel Paz and his daughter were separated for several weeks. Paz and his family were reunited in 2018 and have since won asylum. He is a committed advocate for other families who have faced similar trauma.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

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

Who would have thought that nearly six months into the Biden Administration our Government would still be abusing asylum seekers and ignoring the Constitution, mocking the rule of law, and degrading humanity?

So, how is it that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke intend to combat racism and unequal justice in America when they have failed to re-establish the rule of law for asylum seekers at the border and continue to run an unjust and grossly mismanaged “court system” @ EOIR filled with too many “Miller Lite” judges?

Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-06-21

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PATRIOTISM 🇺🇸 & NATIONALISM 🏴‍☠️! — One Makes You Happy, The Other Not So Much! — Arthur C. Brooks @ The Atlantic

https://apple.news/AobtHDb1wTmSBHh9XLGkCxw

The Happy Patriot, the Unhappy Nationalist

Having pride in your country can lead to greater well-being, but only if you do it right.

. . . .

Over the next century, this kind of patriotism came to seem less strange around the world as societies became more demographically diverse and shared values became more central to national identity. In 1945, George Orwell defined patriotism as “devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people.” He contrasted patriotism with nationalism, by which he meant “the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled ‘good’ or ‘bad’”; also, “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.”

Nationalists may identify as patriots, and some people opposed to both ideologies might argue that they are equivalent. For national and individual well-being, though, distinguishing between them is important. Following Tocqueville and Orwell, we might define patriotism as civic pride in our democratic institutions and shared culture, and nationalism as a sense of superiority or identity, defined by demographics such as race, religion, or language. Modern social science finds a major quality-of-life difference between the two. In 2013, a cross-national team of political scientists measured the effects of each on the levels of social trust and voluntary association, both of which are strongly positively associated with personal well-being. They found that civic pride usually pushed both up, and ethnic pride pushed both down.

[Sasha Banks: The problem with patriotism]

Given the evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that patriotism, as we have traditionally understood it in the United States, is good for our happiness. Meanwhile, nationalism (under Orwell’s definition) is not. If we are moving toward the latter in our society—as many argue we are—then, in terms of happiness, we are moving in the wrong direction.

No matter your political views or where you live, you can cultivate a patriotism of the healthy Tocquevillian sort, for your own benefit and to help inflect the national mood. This requires that you follow two guidelines.

. . . .

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

Interesting article!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-05-21

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️👎🏽DOJ DISCONNECT: Garland Hits Pause Button On Trump/Barr 🤮 Kill-Fest, While Operating “Traffic Courts” That Can Impose The Death Penalty ⚰️ Without Due Process Or Impartial Judges!

In the strangely disingenuous world of Judge Garland’s DOJ:

This is unacceptable treatment of convicted felons:

Death Penalty
By Dave Granlund
Reprinted by license

But, this is “A-OK” treatment of those seeking asylum @ EOIR:

Star Chamber Justice — “Justice”
Star Chamber
Style

Pausing the Trump/Barr Federal killing spree makes sense. In addition to Garland’s “due process concerns,” there is the larger problem that the death penalty is unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment.

One would think that AG Garland’s concern for due process would extend to individuals being railroaded through his broken, biased, dysfunctional, due-process-denying Immigration “Courts” (that aren’t courts at all) who often face removal to places where they face abuse, torture, and/or death. Heck, at the border they are illegally removed without any process at all, as Judge Garland and his lieutenants look the other way. They might pretend not to see what’s happening. But, we see it!

Apparently, in Garland’s system due process is only a requirement for convicted felons, not for vulnerable individuals fighting for their lives in a process intentionally skewed against them. His is a system staffed largely with “Miller-Lite judges” selected by his two immediate predecessors who prided themselves on creating a “due process free zone” at EOIR and “partnering” with DHS Enforcement!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever,

PWS

07-05-21

HISTORY/POLITICS — STRUCTURAL RACISM IS DEEPLY INGRAINED IN OUR IMMIGRATION SYSTEM — “DRED SCOTTIFICATION” IS STILL ALIVE & WELL IN TODAY’S DYSFUNCTIONAL IMMIGRANT “JUSTICE” SYSTEM!

This video short by Julissa Arce, Activist, Writer, and Producer says it all:

https://blog.unidosus.org/2021/07/01/the-structural-racism-of-our-immigration-system/

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

In my Georgetown Law Immigration Law & Policy class, we recently talked about the racist roots of naturalization policy set forth in the Naturalization Act of 1790 with my friend and colleague Professor Cori Alonso Yoder. Obviously, the racism of our “Founding Fathers” went well beyond the institution of slavery.

Professor Cori Alonso Yoder
PHOTO: Google Scholar

Naturalization was a “whites only” proposition that transcended status as free or enslaved. White foreign nationals who had resided here for two years could be citizens. Free African Americans, Native Americans, and other free people of color could not become U.S. Citizens even if they had been born here and lived here for their entire lives. Yup, you don’t have to think too deeply to recognize the overt racism there!

Not to mention that America was literally built on the backs of enslaved African Americans whose free labor also supported a number of the white Founding Fathers, their white families, their often lavish lifestyles, and their sometimes endemic fiscal irresponsibilities. See, e.g., T. Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence whose estate had to sell off slaves to pay his debts.

No wonder White Supremacists, including many ignorant and dishonest pols, don’t want the truth of our nation’s history taught. The truth isn’t always pretty. And, it often has little to do with the various White Nationalist myths and skewed narratives foisted upon us.

Since those bogus myths exclude or distort the roles of the majority of today’s Americans, the “truth deniers” are going to have a tough time shoving their “whitewashed” version of American history down our throats in the long run! (That’s true, even though the “forces of ignorance, racism, bias, and thought suppression” on the right have been quite active lately and, shamefully, have succeeded in writing some of their racist nonsense into state and local laws). An honest reckoning with our past, including our past mistakes, is necessary for us to move forward into a better future.

One has only to look at Justice Alito’s mythologized version of America set forth in his recent majority opinion suppressing the voting rights of African Americans and other minorities, and to read Justice Kagan’s cogent rebuttal of his legal sophism, to see that “Dred Scott” is still alive at the Supremes! Sad, but true and something we all have to deal with. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/voting-rights-arizona-court/

It’s not the first time our legal system has refused to carry out the clear mandate of the 15th Amendment against attacks by states trying to suppress the political power of their African-American citizens. One would like to think it will be the last. But, that’s unlikely given the current composition of the Supremes, Congress, and many state legislatures.

There might be no immediate solution for the Supremes, Congress, and state legislatures. The political process simply takes time, and the forces of regression have found and exploited all of the “anti-democratic seams” in our institutions that give them political power beyond their numbers.

However, there is one potentially powerful court system out there that progressives could reform and reconstitute NOW into a judiciary committed to due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, and equal justice for all persons in the United States regardless or race, creed, or status. So far, the Biden Administration and AG Garland have been both tone deaf and remarkably inept at transforming the Immigration Courts into the better judiciary needed for our future! Progressives need to “raise hell” until the Biden Administration fixes the one now-dysfunctional Federal Court system that they actually control!

The future will belong to those unafraid to face the sometimes unattractive realities of our collective past, to respect and honor those who fought through the mistreatment and injustice inflicted upon them, and learn from our history rather than denying or rewriting it! It will also belong to those wise, courageous, and bold enough to take advantage of opportunities for improving American justice that are staring them in the face. So far, Dems have shown themselves not up to the job in the Immigration Courts. Until they are, racial justice and sustained progress in America are likely to remain illusions.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-02-21

☠️👎🏽BIA GOOFS UP ANOTHER CAT CASE IN 5TH CIR! — 4 Years, 3 BIA Decisions, 2 Circuit Remands, & Back To “Square 1” — What’s Missing? — Only Competence & Justice!

Four Horsemen — Gen. Garland continues to use “Miller Lite Mercenaries” against migrants. “The U.S. constitution states that our judicial system is a ‘separate but equal part’ to our democracy. But immigration courts have nothing to do with that.” — Tea Ivanovic, Immigrant Food
Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/unpub-ca5-on-honduras-cat-state-involvement-guity-casildo-v-garland#

Daniel M. Kowalski

1 Jul 2021

torture

cat

Honduras

Unpub. CA5 on Honduras, CAT, State Involvement: Guity Casildo v. Garland

Guity Casildo v. Garland (unpub.)

“[T]he BIA has not addressed the question of the applicability of the color-of-law rule regarding state involvement in torture. … The parties agree that a remand is the best alternative where the BIA has made an unauthorized or inadequately supported factual finding on the likelihood of torture, thereby leaving unresolved whether the IJ failed to apply the rule-of-law theory of state involvement in torture. Accordingly, we conclude that the prudent course is to remand the case to the BIA. … We further order the BIA to remand the case to the IJ for a clear factual finding on the likelihood of torture and for the IJ’s clarification, if necessary, on the question of state involvement in light of the color-of-law rule. … PETITION GRANTED; VACATED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REMAND.”

[Hats off to Matthew Nickson!]

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

Congrats to Matthew Nickson! Getting justice for a migrant in the notoriously pro-Government 5th Cir. is no mean feat! Think of how much easier your job would be if AG Garland hired some “real judges” at EOIR — experts in immigration and human rights who have represented individuals in Immigration Court and who are committed to due process and fundamental fairness above all else!

When you’re out to stick it to Hondurans (actually all Northern Triangle migrants), regardless of facts or law, to please your sleazy White Nationalist political bosses in the Trump regime, bad things are going to happen.

Let’s not forget that the Trump regime entered into a totally corrupt and bogus “Safe Third Country” agreement with Honduras, probably one of the least safe countries in the Hemisphere with no functional asylum system at all. Given this level of overt political fraud by the “bosses,” I doubt that the regime would have appreciated BIA bureaucrats correctly finding that torture with government acquiescence is likely in Honduras.

Sure, these failures were before Garland took over. But, he has made little effort to date to either acknowledge and root out the deep corruption and anti-immigrant weaponization of the Immigration Courts or to address the inadequate “go along to get along judging” that was encouraged at EOIR. In plain terms, respondents did not get, and still do not get, qualified, fair, and impartial judges at EOIR to adjudicate their claims.

You have only to look at the comedy of errors and ineptitude at EOIR in this case “outed” by one of the most pro-Government Circuits in America to see the proof! That’s unconstitutional!

Remand after remand to “get it right” also “jacks backlog.” Just getting a case back on an Immigration Judge’s docket takes time and effort in a non-automated system with no e-filing and traditionally overwhelmed and demoralized staff. Instead of fixing “customer service” @ EOIR, the Trump kakistocracy invested in ludicrous, due-process-destroying “IJ Dashboards” to keep the quotas filled and the unconstitutional “nativist deportation railroad” moving. Yet, Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke pretend that none of these constitutional and civil rights absurdities, not to mention grotesque management fraud, waste, and abuse, happened!

Don’t stand for any of Garland’s dishonest “expedited dockets” which implicitly blame those seeking justice under law and their courageous lawyers for the ungodly mess he and his lieutenants inherited but have failed to address! And, “dedicated docket for asylum seekers” is just a euphemism for more backlog-building, due-process denying “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and continuing mismanagement by Garland.

I’ll bet that qualified experts could cut the largely self-inflicted backlog by at least 50% in 90 days without stomping on anyone’s due process rights merely by administratively closing or terminating without prejudice hundreds of thousands of non-priority aged cases. Many of those could better be handled at USCIS.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to get an Administration that ran and got elected on a “reform” and “return to good government” platform to do the right thing here. But, it is! EOIR needs reform, including a new BIA and competent, expert judges who know asylum law, respect due process, and will treat migrants and their attorneys fairly, respectfully, and humanely. It’s not a “big ask!” So why is it “above Garland’s pay grade?”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-02-21

⚖️🗽🇺🇸TEA IVANOVIC @ IMMIGRANT FOOD INTERVIEWS ME ON DYSFUNCTIONAL IMMIGRATION COURTS: “They are not the courts that you think of when you think of our judicial system. . . . He’s pretty blunt about the ways in which the immigration court system is highly dysfunctional,” Says Tea In Her Intro!

Editor’s Note – July

Dear Reader,

For this month’s Think Table issue, we delve into the dysfunctional U.S immigration court system. The U.S. constitution states that our judicial system is a ‘separate but equal part’ to our democracy. But immigration courts have nothing to do with that. They fall under the Department of Justice, and immigration judges have a boss, the Attorney General. As we’ve seen in recent times, that can be a highly politicized position. Additionally, the lack of technology and the ever-growing backlog of cases leave many immigrants and asylum seekers waiting an average of two years just to schedule a court proceeding!

For this issue, we spoke with Judge Paul Schmidt, a former federal immigration judge. He’s pretty blunt about the ways in which the immigration court system is highly dysfunctional.

We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we do.

Téa

Here’s a link to the “video short:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDV83vSuHY

Here’ the “complete issue” which contains a reprint of an article from Sarah Pierce“Obscure but Powerful: Shaping U.S. Immigration Policy through Attorney General Referral and Review.”

https://immigrantfood.com/the-think-table/

And here’s the terrifically talented Tea:

Tea Ivonovic — Tea Ivanovic
Chief Operating Officer
ImmigrantFood.com
PHOTO: Immigrant Food

Born in Belgium to parents from the former Yugoslavia and recruited to the United States by Virginia Tech’s Division 1 Varsity tennis team, Téa calls herself an immigrant squared. She still can’t figure out if Serbian, Flemish or English is her native language – she speaks all of them equally. Her professional career includes creating and implementing strategic communications for international policy and politics at a Washington D.C. think tank, and global financial matters at a financial public and media relations firm. Téa was the first Washington Correspondent for Oslobodjenje, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s oldest newspaper and leading news outlet in the Western Balkans. She graduated with a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

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

Yeah, I’m pretty blunt! But, this is a totally screwed up system that threatens our democracy!

So, many of us out here in the NDPA think it’s a dire emergency, even if Judge Garland and the Biden Administration prefer to ignore the obvious and shun the immediate solutions!

Judge Garland’s failure to implement basic constitutional, personnel, and management reforms @ EOIR is undermining justice in America and tarnishing his reputation. Also, it’s potentially killing innocent folks. Sure sounds like a “national Constitutional emergency” to me!

Thanks to Tea for making this “accessible” report on a huge, largely unaddressed, democracy threatening problem. Tell Judge G to fix EOIR now!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-01-21

GARLAND’S BIA, OIL “TAKE IT ON THE NOSE” AGAIN: 2d Cir. “Slam Dunks” Matter of J.M. Acosta, 27 I&N Dec. 420 (BIA 2018) (finality of conviction): “The BIA’s burden-shifting scheme and its accompanying evidentiary requirement amounts to an unreasonable and arbitrary interpretation of the IIRIRA.”

Casey Stengel — “Hey Judge Garland! Why not put some REAL judges who can ‘play this game’ into your lineup? What’s with the ‘minor league roster’ left over from the guys who couldn’t shoot straight?”
PHOTO: Rudi Reit
Creative Commons

Here’s the full decision in Brathwaite v. Garland:

https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/1284dac9-6e02-4262-ae63-657649702452/1/doc/20-27_opn.pdf#xml=https://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/1284dac9-6e02-4262-ae63-657649702452/1/hilite/

Court summary:

Petitioner Aldwin Junior Brathwaite petitions for review of an order of removability, entered by the Honorable Joy A. Merriman, U.S. Immigration Judge (“IJ”), on June 11, 2019, and approved by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) on December 11, 2019. Because the BIA’s decision is premised on an unreasonable construction of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), we GRANT the petition for review and REMAND the matter to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

PANEL: CALABRESI, RAGGI, AND CHIN, Circuit Judges.

OPINON BY: Judge Calabresi

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

Man, even with all the ridiculous “built in tilt” favoring Executive interpretations in Chevron, the BIA still blew it! Normally, in their attempt not to burden their comfortable lives with difficult questions of law, the Article III’s will find that any minimally rational interpretation of an ambiguous provision is “good enough for Government work” under Chevron. But, the BIA couldn’t even clear that “low hurdle!” Simply amazing!

Particularly so when you think that one of the (bogus) justifications often given for “Chevron task avoidance” by the Article IIIs is the “superior expertise” of the Executive adjudicators, clearly a mirage in the case of the BIA and EOIR! At least over the past four years, the primary “expertise” for being selected for an EOIR judgeship has been past government experience, preferably in prosecution, a willingness to check the “deny box,” and ability to crank out the required minimum number of final orders of removal without thinking too much, rocking the boat, or, heaven forbid, actually vindicating the rights of migrants over the wishes of “The Partners” at DHS Enforcement! What a total sham that Garland is now presiding over!

Two years of litigation to “get back to ground zero!” And, you wonder why Garland’s Immigration Courts continue to careen out of control and generate backlog faster than they do positive legal guidance and best practices?

At core, courts are about problem solving, and judges are supposed to be “expert practical problem solvers.” Try to unearth those essential qualities in the disgracefully flawed “judicial” hiring practices at EOIR since 2000!

I note that no “outside expert” has been appointed to the BIA since before the 2000 election. Those few who were there in 2000 were rapidly “purged” by Ashcroft, sending the strong message that “expertise and independent voting” will be “career limiting and threatening” at the BIA.

That was followed by thoroughly rotten “jurisprudence” from the BIA that actually provoked widespread outrage among the Article IIIs at the time. The outcry became so loud, that finally even the Bush II Administration had to “tone down” the anti-immigrant rhetoric and abusive treatement of migrants and their attorneys in Immigration Court that Ashcroft’s “purge” engendered and encouraged. Of course, in doing so, DOJ officials disingenuously blamed the Immigration Judges rather than the “perps” in their own ranks who had declared “open season” on migrants’ rights and human dignity.

Not surprisingly, bad, biased hiring practices, which have intentionally excluded and grossly undervalued the most promising expert problem solvers from outside government bureaucracy, have produced a dysfunctional morass at EOIR. The lack of that basic recognition, even from a recently retired Federal Appellate Judge who should know better, is destroying the foundations of our justice system! Enough already! We need, American Justice needs, progressive reforms at EOIR! NOW, not sometime off in the indefinite future!

Yup, there might be problems with an appellate board that almost always tries to skew things against individual applicants. Rushing to crank out those final orders of removal and pushing already overwhelmed IJ’s to “just pedal faster” might not be a very good “strategy.” And, the lack of professional training, competent judicial administration, expert guidance from the BIA, and unwillingness to implement best practices further deteriorates the Immigration Courts every single day.

While fundamental improvements in personnel and administration at EOIR are well within Garland’s reach, he seems relatively uninterested in taking the bold, courageous actions necessary to restore due process. So, litigating his ludicrously broken, unfair, and dysfunctional system to a standstill, while supporting legislation to get an independent court, appear to be progressive advocates’ only viable options at this point.

This issue is likely to end up in the Supremes. In the meantime, however, there should be lots of backlog-building remands in the Second Circuit. And, who knows whether the BIA will get it right this time around. Even after court remands, their record isn’t particularly encouraging.

The BIA probably will have to wait for OIL, their political handlers at DOJ, and DHS enforcement to “signal” what the “preferred result for litigating purposes” is before venturing forth on another precedent. Does this sound like “fair and impartial adjudication” under Matthews v. Eldridge? No way! So why is EOIR continuing to operate as a “Constitution free zone” under Garland?

It’s past time for Garland to pull the plug and give progressive experts a chance to rescue his dysfunctional court system and save many of the individuals caught up in this never-ending due process nightmare! When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Much to the shock, consternation, frustration, puzzlement, and horror of progressive advocates who helped him replace Billy Barr as AG, it’s been three continuous months of “Amateur Night @ EOIR” under Judge Garland! Predictably, many Article IIIs haven‘t been enthralled with this performance! How many cases will be remanded from the Article IIIs and how much more backlog will be unnecessarily generated before Garland wakes up and pays attention?
PHOTO: Thomas Hawk
Creative Commons
Amateur Night

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-25-21

THE EVER-AMAZING NICOLE NAREA @ VOX “GETS IT” — Too Bad The Folks Running Immigration Policy Don’t! — “Knowledge about US deportation and detention policy didn’t have any significant effect on their intentions to migrate. . . . it made them more likely to think outcomes and legal procedures in the American immigration system are unfair.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22451177/biden-border-immigration-enforcement-detention-deportation

Nicole writes @ Vox News:

President Joe Biden has taken some steps toward reversing his predecessor’s legacy of broad, indiscriminate immigration enforcement, including a recent announcement that it will no longer detain immigrants at two locations under scrutiny for alleged abuses.

But Republicans are adamant that increased immigration enforcement be a prerequisite to any broader immigration reform.

“There’ll be no immigration reform until you get control of the border,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Roll Call last month.

There are now nearly 40 percent more people in immigration detention compared to when Biden first took office, and his administration is continuing to turn away most migrants arriving on the border under pandemic-related restrictions put in place by his predecessor, President Donald Trump, which have led to the expulsions of more than 350,000 people this year alone.

But research shows that the threat of detention and deportation in the US doesn’t dissuade migrants from making the journey to the southern border, especially if they are victims of violence and may be seeking to escape the “devil they know” in their home countries.

“Managing migration at the border, particularly the kind of migration we’re seeing now, from a strictly deterrence, enforcement lens is just not sustainable in the long run and is not having the impact that people think it should have,” Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said. “That’s why we need to rethink our paradigm for how we talk about migration and everything that we do at the border.”

. . . .

Knowledge of US immigration detention, however, did have an unintended effect on survey takers in Ryo’s experiment — it made them more likely to think outcomes and legal procedures in the American immigration system are unfair. That is worrisome, given that perceptions of fairness are significant predictors of people’s willingness to obey the law and cooperate with legal authorities, Ryo said.

“We really ought to be concerned about the extent to which generating these kinds of perceptions of unfairness can backfire in terms of more people disregarding our laws and undertaking that dangerous journey in order to get to our border and try to cross it,” she added.

. . . .

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

First, let me congratulate Nicole on her spectacularly high level reporting and mastery of the English language: Clear, accessible, well-organized, informative, persuasive. Compare Nicole’s prose with the vapid, often misleading nonsense and gibberish spouted by legislators, government officials, bureaucrats, and right wing White Nationalist shills of all types. Just yesterday, Trump and his pathetic “wannabe” Greg Abbott were down at the border spouting their unadulterated, fact-free, racist blather and restrictionist nonsense (when Trump wasn’t rambling on incoherently about the “Big Lie” or himself). I encourage everyone to read Nicole’s full article at the link!

“Enforcement only doesn’t work” has been one of the key “themes” of Courtside since “Day 1.” The answer has also been clear — due process, fundamental fairness, racial equity, practical scholarship leading to durable solutions.

The converse of “enforcement only doesn’t work” is also true: A more realistic, more generous legal immigration system that advances due process and equality while taking advantage of “market factors” that attract and drive migration would also lead to more efficient and effective enforcement. Many, perhaps the majority, of those we are now wasting time and money on cruel and ultimately futile attempts to detain, deter, and remove would actually be a huge benefit to our nation if they were allowed to migrate legally on either a permanent or temporary basis.

I’ve been saying for a long time now that convincing folks that our legal system is basically bogus — falsely promising a fairness and dignified treatment we aren’t delivering — merely serves to drive migrants to enter the “extralegal” or “black market” system that helps support our economy. The real “beneficiaries” of “mindless immigration enforcement” and a dysfunctional legal system are smugglers, cartels, and exploitative employers. Also, obviously, corrupt GOP politicos benefit from having a permanent, disenfranchised, traumatized, largely non-White “black market labor pool” to prop up their economy while serving as an easy target to “whip up” their racist base.

Bad policies, driven by ignorance, myths, bias, cowardice, and racism will continue to produce lousy results — for the migrants and for our nation. Smarter, more courageous, more intellectually honest legislators and public officials are necessary. Whether voters will be wise enough to elect them remains to be seen.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-01-21

🆘ABOVE THEIR PAY GRADE: VOLUNTARY DEPARTURE & ADJUSTMENT OF STATUS AREN’T “ROCKET SCIENCE” 🚀 — But, Garland BIA’s Failure To Master The Basics Draws Two More Stinging Rebukes From Circuits!

EYORE — Sloppy decision-making and institutional bias in favor of DHS Enforcement remain endemic problems at EOIR that Garland has failed to address. “Eyore” isn’t the only one suffering from this failure to bring progressive reforms to “America’s worst and deadliest courts!” “Eyore In Distress”
Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”

9th Circuit on VD: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/06/25/19-72893.pdf

“But here there was no indication that the IJ implicitly considered any favorable factors in making its voluntary departure determination.”

1st Circuit on adjustment of status: https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-el-salvador-gang-membership-jurisdiction-hardship-evidence-perez-trujillo-v-garland

“. [T]he government is right that we have no jurisdiction to re-weigh the evidence of hardship. But, a reweighing could only occur if there had been a weighing of that evidence in the first place. And, here, we conclude that there was no weighing of that evidence at all. We thus reject the government’s argument that the BIA, in overturning the immigration judge’s ruling granting Perez-Trujillo adjustment of status, did consider hardship as he contends that it was required to do under Matter of Arai.”

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

Notice a theme here: No need to actually consider the evidence, just deny, particularly when that’s the result demanded by the “partners” over at DHS enforcement? What kind of “court” operates in this manner? Where is the “fair and impartial adjudication” required by Due Process and Matthews v. Eldridge?

Clearly, these are signs of “denial-oriented assembly line decision-making by the BIA.” And, how does Garland explain OIL’s “defense” of weighing and considering factors that NEVER OCCURRED — essentially fabricated? Sounds like intentionally misleading courts to me! THIS is our Department of “Justice” under Garland?

Bias, poor judging, a culture of denial, and political interference with docket management are endemic problems at Garland’s BIA! That’s a prime reason why under DOJ’s “maliciously incompetent” administration and weaponization EOIR has built a still out of control 1.3 million case plus backlog!

Easy cases become endless exercises, as EOIR and OIL waste the time of the Circuits trying to “paper over” shoddy and biased decision-making on the “deportation assembly line.” Cases that should have been favorably resolved years ago instead keep bouncing around the system on “Circuit remands.”

Some then become the victims of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by DOJ politicos and their EOIR toadies and never get resolved at all! All these problems are magnified by two-decades of grossly incompetent DOJ/EOIR “management” that has elevated political agendas and bureaucratic nonsense over implementing a functioning e-filing system like every other comparable “court” in America! Due Process and customer service continue to come last at Garland’s EOIR!

DON’T let Garland and Mayorkas claim that the “solution” is more improperly “expedited” special dockets and less due process. NO, NO, NO! The solution is better judges (now, not later), granting more deserving cases rather than “looking for reasons to deny,” better judicial training, positive precedents from a new expert BIA, and an end to bogus “quotas,” stupid and unethical “performance work plans,” and political interference with docket management by DOJ and EOIR HQ!

Without aggressive progressive interventions and a massive infusion of new progressive expert personnel into EOIR, the Immigration Courts will continue to flounder and fail under Garland. Then, in the finest DOJ tradition, looking for a way to cover himself, he and his team will attempt to shift the blame to their victims — hapless, abused respondents and their long-suffering lawyers! Don’t let them get away with it!

Garland’s failure to institute “no brainer” progressive reforms @ EOIR and to replace bad judges is life-threatening and an incredible drag on our entire legal system! Tell him you have had enough! Demand better! Let your voices be heard in protest every day until we get the long overdue, readily achievable, EOIR reforms progressives have worked for and were promised!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-29-21

⚖️🗽👍🏼TOUGH, SMART NDPA LITIGATORS DEFEAT GARLAND’S BIA AGAIN — Latest 7th Circuit Beat-Down Of BIA On “Modified Categorical Approach” Also Illustrates Clear Unconstitutionality Of Immigration Courts — NO Unrepresented Individual Would Have Had A Chance Of Producing This Result!

Subject: Illinois burglary

More good news from the Seventh Circuit – generic Illinois burglary is not an aggravated felony nor a turpitude offense!

Parzych v. Garland, __ F.3d __ (7th Cir. June 28, 2021)

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2021/D06-28/C:20-2317:J:Brennan:aut:T:fnOp:N:2726021:S:0

If you congratulate anyone, you might include Hena Mansori, now at Cook County PD office, who represented Chester for years before leaving NIJC (and Diana Rashid handled it after Hena left). It’s not fair that us appellate folks get all the glory.

Regards,

Chuck

Charles Roth

Director of Appellate Litigation

National Immigrant Justice Center

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

Thanks, Chuck. And, congrats to Hena Mansori, Diana Rashid, and you on another great victory!

Unrepresented individuals appearing before non-expert judges “supervised” by a BIA tilted in favor of DHS enforcement is not due process! Yet, that’s what happens every day in Immigration Courts.

Too many of these “courts” are “embedded” in the DHS “New American Gulag,” an inherently coercive environment that makes mincemeat out of fundamental fairness and mocks due process.

Tell AG Garland you’ve had enough of this scofflaw farce! Demand progressive changes starting with a new BIA with progressive expert judges, merit-based judicial selections, universal representation, and an end to Gulag courts and overused televideo “adjudication centers” that dehumanize and mechanize “justice” in a totally improper manner!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-29-21

KAKISTOCRACY: Billy The Bigot Barr Gives CYA Interview, Perhaps In Attempt To Save Law License!

Barr Departs — Lowering The Barr by Randall Enos, Easton, CT
Republished By License

Bill Barr Consigliere
Artist: Pat Bagley
Salt Lake Tribune
Reproduced under license

https://u1584542.ct.sendgrid.net/ss/c/atcYNHk4Eh2YdGnwBh-YDCxDIu4OO3SBv2TLoLPFt2eTpAvae7fHQQN2d_SDia6UQbQMe94On-beG5oDl7xvTP4QLcPK6rzmOKrq-bY0_AB0gbaGO4UoNJkuN1E11z2G_0u3z0IHvPah30HQBG80ceR05_osO7-fKevf5maXWBmIuPADLuoLLC3WKCtXFpVntBozJaJ6MBdvAvn5Bz4kYZu_hKw1spjA3P3RuJD2shs/3d5/C1BIO3ORRy-VZMckpvAtNQ/h4/wbnioxNkjTzjHaWMl6mT1586GErNsh1e87hY1TA37K8

From The Daily Kos:

In The Atlantic, journalist Jonathan Karl gives us a short look at Trump attorney general William Barr’s last weeks in power according to William Barr himself, who was kind enough to grace Karl with a series of interviews out of the innate goodness of his heart. Oh, and because Barr is now seen by many as the most thoroughly partisan and corrupt attorney general in a generation, which is going to seriously cut down on future speaking fees if he can’t figure out how to massage the record back into something vaguely defensible.

The actual news out of it is Not Damn Much, but this is a good opportunity to revisit the First Rule Of News Consumption: Be aware of the source. From the nation’s top powerbrokers to man-on-the-street interviewees, anyone talking to a reporter about their own doings is going to tell that reporter the most flattering version of events they think they can get away with. Many of the most important details about what Trump and his core team did in their attempts to overturn a United States election remain murky because those most in the know, like ex-House Republican turned chief of staff Mark Meadows, are clamming up.

. . . .

Great, super. So again we have a situation in which everyone around Trump was pretty damn certain he had gone off the rails, jumped the trolley, sprung a brain-leak, and had become devoid of marbles but nobody in government, from Secret Service on down, was willing to toss him in a burlap sack, tie it shut, and declare that Mike Pence was taking charge because the sitting president had developed a serious case of bananapants.

. . . .

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

You an read the full story at the link.

The key takeaway for progressives is that Barr is the guy that AG Merrick Garland HONORED by appointing 17 of his flawed selections to an Immigration Judiciary already reeling from a one-sided infusion of judges with questionable qualifications into a system weaponized against individual asylum seekers, other migrants, and their lawyers.

So far zero (0) progressive judges from the community of experts and advocates who helped show Barr the exit and elect Biden and Harris have been tapped for these “life or death” quasi-judicial positions. Rumor has it that’s about to change. But, that will hardly restore scholarship, due process, and balance to a disastrously “out of wack” deportation railroad!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-28-21

HISTORY: YOUNGER THEN THAN NOW! — “Sir Jeffrey” Chase & Me @ The International Association of Refugee Law Judges’ Seminar in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 1997

“Sir Jeffrey and Me — “Sir Jeffrey & Me
Nijmegen, The Netherlands 1997
PHOTO: Susan Chase

Well, we’re not as young as we were. But, we’re still working together to raise awareness and advance the principles of the U.N.Convention & Protocol on the Status of Refugees and to restore due process and fundamental fairness to the dysfunctional Immigration Courts through all of our amazing colleagues on the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges.

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-27-21

“DUH” OF THE DAY: GOP WHITE NATIONALIST RACISM & STUPIDITY, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BUMBLING LEAD TO ONGOING BORDER CHAOS: “For people like Medina, neither restrictive immigration policies nor dangerous journeys through several countries, border walls, or even statements from politicians deter them from seeking to rebuild their lives in the United States.”

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2021/06/25/threat-of-death-in-their-homelands-continues-to-push-migrants-toward-us-mexico-border/

Maria Ramos Pacheco reports for the Dallas Morning News:

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — While Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday the goal of her trip to El Paso was to understand the “root causes” of the rising influx of migrants from recent months, just across the border Honduran migrant Manuel Medina had a simple explanation for why thousands of people from other countries will continue to try to reach the United States: To stay alive while fleeing countries where their families are threatened by crime and violence.

“I did not leave my country and my wife because I wanted to. [Rising] crime forced me to leave everything; the only thing I want is for my family and me to be safe,” said Medina, 37, who left Honduras in May 2019 after receiving threats from gang members.

Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas; Sen. Dick Durbin, D- Ill; and El Paso Rep. Verónica Escobar.

Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro MayorkasSen.

For people like Medina, neither restrictive immigration policies nor dangerous journeys through several countries, border walls, or even statements from politicians deter them from seeking to rebuild their lives in the United States.

Medina has lived for two years in this city’s El Buen Samaritano shelter, managed by a religious organization, along with his 15-year-old son Nahúm Medina. Their asylum petition was initially rejected in 2019 and he stayed in Ciudad Juárez under the Migrants Protection Protocols, waiting for a second chance.

The MPP or “Remain in Mexico” program was created in 2019 by the Trump administration, which forced people seeking asylum to remain in Mexico. As of May, there were 71,002 active cases.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Maria’s article at the link.

Desperate people do desperate things! Duh!

You’ve heard it before on Courtside:

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/06/24/%e2%9a%a0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%9a%b8v-p-harris-is-going-to-the-border-she-should-talk-with-the-real-victims-of-her-governments-illegal-wrong-headed-immoral-and-ineffective-border-deterrence-p/

Indeed, since the day of inception in Dec. 2016, Courtside has been very consistent in speaking truth to bigots and misguided inept policy makers:

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2016/12/31/family-detention-raids-expediting-cases-fails-to-deter-scared-central-americans/

Restrictionism, racism, nativism, cruelty, and scofflaw behavior will only continue to make things worse. And, AG Merick Garland, staffing your “courts” with “Miller Lite” holdovers and Trump toadies won’t stop the downward spiral of American justice on your watch!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-27-21

😎👍🏼🧑🏽‍⚖️GOOD NEWS FROM THE NAIJ — DOJ Drops Opposition To Reconsideration Of Decertification!

June 25, 2021

EOIR Withdraws Opposition to
NAIJ Motion to Reconsider,
Does Not Oppose Motion to Remand

Judges:

In a filing this morning, EOIR withdrew its opposition to our motion to reconsider before the FLRA and agreed to a remand to the Regional Director. Here’s their brief.

This is a major step forward in our fight against the previous administration’s effort to decertify NAIJ. NAIJ thanks EOIR and DOJ for taking this important step.

EOIR’s actions come after NAIJ filed with the FLRA earlier this week a Motion to Remand and for Stay. NAIJ’s motion was part of a coordinated effort by NAIJ and our parent union IFPTE to bring the importance of the decertification issue to the attention of the highest levels of this administration. It looks like we succeeded.

Although there are many reasons for optimism, this fight is not yet over. The decertificaton matter remains pending before the FLRA. As we are well aware, the FLRA is still composed of the same members who, over a vigorous dissent, reversed the decision of the FLRA Regional Director who had previously upheld our right to unionize. We are closely monitoring the situation with our litigation team to assure this favorable progress continues until our case is definitively resolved, once and for all.

Thank you for your unwaivering support of NAIJ.

We will keep everyone updated with any further developments.

The NAIJ Board

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

As pointed out by the NAIJ Board, it’s not over till it’s over! But, definitely a big step in the right direction for the NAIJ, the Garland DOJ, and the Biden Administration!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a retired member of the NAIJ!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-26-26

🇺🇸⚖️🗽DT-21 SPEAKS AGAIN! — All The News “They” Don’t Want You To Hear From Deep Inside The Bowels Of The Dysfunctional EOIR Bureaucracy! — Garland Moves In Slow-Mo As Democracy Crumbles & Voldemort’s Power Grows!🆘

Parking Garage — Is DOJ/EOIR “Management” staking out every one of these in the DELMARVA area to catch “DT-21?” Is that why they don’t have time to reform EOIR? — Creative Commons

The EOIR Tower in Falls Church might appear shiny from the outside, but inside it’s still just about as opaque as the lives of those caught up in Garland’s Star Chambers!

1) The Richmond video “court” is opening soon to hear more cases in secret without public access.

2) Several IJs working from home are now hearing cases by VTC from their residences. But, there’s no provision for those hearings to be open to the public contrary to the regulations. More VTC just means more problems.

3) EOIR has hired 10 or 11 new IJs but hasn’t disclosed the names publicly. Can “Dandy Dan” Kowalski & other news-hounds smoke out the names again?

4) At least one inexcusable, major setback on long overdue progressive judicial leadership @ EOIR! Unfortunately, the AG decided not to remove Wetmore as Chairman and his probation period has passed.

So, are we stuck with a Miller/Barr/Trump toady “plant” in charge of a “court” that probably has more to do with racial and gender justice in America than any “judicial” (using the term lightly) body short of the Supremes and that “gets it wrong” — often dead wrong — in well-publicized bad opinions “outed” by the Article IIIs on a regular basis? No, doesn’t make sense!

Progressives, the NDPA, and anybody who cares about due process and equal justice in America should be raising hell with the Administration until we get the change we voted for!

“Passing probation” doesn’t guarantee anyone a particular SES position or a quasi-judicial position at EOIR. Just ask legions of past DOJ “Hallwalkers!”

Garland was sitting around the Ivory Tower while the NDPA was fighting in the trenches for human lives and the survival of Americans democracy. That’s a big reason why Garland, Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Administration have their jobs now! Don’t stand for an immigration bureaucracy and justice system controlled and populated by disciples and plants of “Gauleiter Miller,” “Billy the Bigot,” and “Gonzo Apocalypto.”

5) On the much brighter side, Courtside has confirmed from several sources that the long-extinguished flames of due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, humanity, compassion, and intellectual courage should soon be re-ignited in the opaque darkness and “rabbit warrens” of the 24th Floor of the Tower where the BIA hangs out.

Will the “walls of bias and intentional exclusion of the best and brightest American justice has to offer from outside government” that has plagued the BIA and demeaned American Justice for the past two decades finally be cracked? Will that crack become a breach that eventually becomes a flood of scholarship, fairness, efficiency, respect, and teamwork that will transform a “Tower of Darkness” in to a “Beacon of Justice” that can be seen from coast to coast?

6) Stay tuned! And, keep demanding better, much much better, from Garland, Monaco, Gupta, Clarke, and the rest of the Biden immigration, civil rights, human bureaucracy at DOJ! They seem to think that “elections only have consequences” in immigration and human rights when the GOP wins.

Evidently, they view themselves as above the fray just treating EOIR like another piece of their dysfunctional DOJ bureaucracy. Nothing very proactive or bold! Just let the abuses be unearthed by others and dribble out a bit at a time.Then do a little damage control and “message massaging.”

That’s a prime reason why, despite representing the majority of Americans, and having access to better ideas, the Dems have had trouble governing, retaining power, and turning their agenda into action over the past half-century! It’s also a prime reason why humanity is suffering in our dysfunctional Immigration “Courts,” in a broken DHS that continues to run Gulags and has shamefully retaliated against NDPA members fighting for justice, and in the inexcusable human carnage at our borders fueled by the DOJ’s participation in corruption, intellectual dishonesty, and the illegal suspension of the rule of law! 150 days in and still no functioning asylum system? Come on man!

Five years ago, after retiring, I tried to tell the Clinton folks that not appointing a progressive immigration/human rights expert to be Attorney General would be a huge mistake. Obviously, that became a “moot point” in November 2016.

Ironically, however, the Trump Administration got my message in a negative way. They turned the DOJ over to radical White Nationalist nativists determined to use the negative power of bureaucracy and immigration to batter down the foundations of Americans democracy and spread the gospel of racism, misogyny, and unbridled xenophobia. And, it worked! Big time!

I’m certainly not the only one who vainly tried to tell the Biden Administration NOT to repeat the same mistakes at Justice. Better candidates for AG, folks like the Castro brothers, Chairman Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Jamie Ruskin, and Dean Kevin Johnson were out there. Real, courageous, dedicated progressive leaders and due process mavens! Folks who would have shaken up EOIR, gotten rid of the deadwood and incompetence, cut the unnecessary backlog, instituted best practices, and reestablished a robust, functioning asylum system at the border by now! Folks with the proven backbone to stand up for justice, against all threats, internal and external! Folks who would take seriously their oaths “to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic!”

The slow and ineffectual pace of personnel and other achievable internal reforms at EOIR continues to be an insult to those who are the future of American democracy — if American democracy indeed has a future! That’s still up in the air!

We can see the effect of delay in making the necessary bold progressive immigration and human rights reforms in VP Harris’s foundering performance at the border. No rule of law, no program for fairly and efficiently adjudicating asylum, no open ports of entry, no coherent message on the realities of human migration, no order, kids in bad placements, Border Patrol agents “apprehending” folks who only want their prompt, fair asylum screening from Asylum Officers! What an (avoidable) mess!

The nativist opposition hasn’t folded their tents! Stephen Miller & co. are energized by Garland’s failure to heed the advice of and bring in the expertise of progressives at EOIR. He’s like “Voldemort” — every day Garland dawdles, Miller gets stronger.

Voldemort — His power grows every day that Garland dawdles and progressives find themselves still playing defense, rather than running the show under tone deaf “management” that owes its very existence to them and their support! After 8 years of “lockout” by Obama — yielding a quite predictable human rights and legal disaster — are the folks who revived democracy and kept the fires burning in Immigraton Court REALLY willing to put up with another four years of THIS? Are Dems REALLY THIS DUMB (not to mention ungrateful)?
By Blanca Toth, OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Creative Commons

Keep the outrage and opposition to intransigence and failure to bring reform to EOIR coming! NDPRers, my time on the stage is winding down! It’s YOUR future and YOUR CHILDREN’S future on the line today!

Opaque procedures, regressive leadership, secret hearings, Miller cronies, bad precedents, lack of progressive jurisprudence, Article III embarrassments and travesties, mindlessly “expedited” dockets, Aimless Docket Reshuffling, idiotic due-process denying production quotas and “performance work plans,” contempt for advocates and experts, defense of the indefensible, and treating human lives and advocates as “fungible” at EOIR are NOT OK!

Keep the resistance building! Be outraged! Turn up the decibels until even Garland and the West Wing can’t ignore the uproar!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-25-21

Daniel Paz writes in Newsweek:

Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

The Happy Patriot, the Unhappy Nationalist

Related posts:

In the strangely disingenuous world of Judge Garland’s DOJ:

This is unacceptable treatment of convicted felons:

But, this is “A-OK” treatment of those seeking asylum @ EOIR:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever,

Related posts:

This video short by Julissa Arce, Activist, Writer, and Producer says it all:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Here’s a link to the “video short:”

Here’ the “complete issue” which contains a reprint of an article from Sarah Pierce“Obscure but Powerful: Shaping U.S. Immigration Policy through Attorney General Referral and Review.”

And here’s the terrifically talented Tea:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Here’s the full decision in Brathwaite v. Garland:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Nicole writes @ Vox News:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

9th Circuit on VD: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/06/25/19-72893.pdf

1st Circuit on adjustment of status: https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca1-on-el-salvador-gang-membership-jurisdiction-hardship-evidence-perez-trujillo-v-garland

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Thanks, Chuck. And, congrats to Hena Mansori, Diana Rashid, and you on another great victory!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

From The Daily Kos:

Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

Maria Ramos Pacheco reports for the Dallas Morning News:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a retired member of the NAIJ!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts:

1) The Richmond video “court” is opening soon to hear more cases in secret without public access.

2) Several IJs working from home are now hearing cases by VTC from their residences. But, there’s no provision for those hearings to be open to the public contrary to the regulations. More VTC just means more problems.

3) EOIR has hired 10 or 11 new IJs but hasn’t disclosed the names publicly. Can “Dandy Dan” Kowalski & other news-hounds smoke out the names again?

4) At least one inexcusable, major setback on long overdue progressive judicial leadership @ EOIR! Unfortunately, the AG decided not to remove Wetmore as Chairman and his probation period has passed.

Progressives, the NDPA, and anybody who cares about due process and equal justice in America should be raising hell with the Administration until we get the change we voted for!

“Passing probation” doesn’t guarantee anyone a particular SES position or a quasi-judicial position at EOIR. Just ask legions of past DOJ “Hallwalkers!”

6) Stay tuned! And, keep demanding better, much much better, from Garland, Monaco, Gupta, Clarke, and the rest of the Biden immigration, civil rights, human bureaucracy at DOJ! They seem to think that “elections only have consequences” in immigration and human rights when the GOP wins.

Evidently, they view themselves as above the fray just treating EOIR like another piece of their dysfunctional DOJ bureaucracy. Nothing very proactive or bold! Just let the abuses be unearthed by others and dribble out a bit at a time.Then do a little damage control and “message massaging.”

Five years ago, after retiring, I tried to tell the Clinton folks that not appointing a progressive immigration/human rights expert to be Attorney General would be a huge mistake. Obviously, that became a “moot point” in November 2016.

The slow and ineffectual pace of personnel and other achievable internal reforms at EOIR continues to be an insult to those who are the future of American democracy — if American democracy indeed has a future! That’s still up in the air!

The nativist opposition hasn’t folded their tents! Stephen Miller & co. are energized by Garland’s failure to heed the advice of and bring in the expertise of progressives at EOIR. He’s like “Voldemort” — every day Garland dawdles, Miller gets stronger.

Keep the outrage and opposition to intransigence and failure to bring reform to EOIR coming! NDPRers, my time on the stage is winding down! It’s YOUR future and YOUR CHILDREN’S future on the line today!

Keep the resistance building! Be outraged! Turn up the decibels until even Garland and the West Wing can’t ignore the uproar!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

Related posts: