Tag: U.S. Department of Justice

LA TIMES: Immigration Courts Not Only “Broken Piece” Of Trump’s Removal Regime — DHS Can’t Keep Up With Removals Even Now! — “Haste Makes Waste” Rush To Hire More Agents Likely To Dilute Standards, Threaten National Security!” — New IG Report Blasts Current Practices!

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-ice-oig-20170420-story.html

Joseph Tanfani reports:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hampered by poor organization and an overworked staff, will have trouble keeping up with the Trump administration’s plans to ramp up deportations of people in the country illegally, government inspectors have concluded.

ICE has “overwhelming caseloads,” its records are “likely inaccurate” and its deportation policies and procedures “are outdated and unclear,” said a report released Thursday by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department.

“ICE is almost certainly not deporting all the aliens who could be deported and will likely not be able to keep up with the growing number of deportable aliens,” the 19-page report concludes.

The harsh assessment is the latest dash of cold reality for Trump, who was swept into Washington promising vastly tougher enforcement of immigration laws, including more removals, thousands more Border Patrol agents and deportation officers, and construction of a formidable wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!
  3. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  4. JASON DZUBOW IN THE ASYLUMIST: TRUMP’S 101 YEAR PLAN FOR REMOVALS! — “Malevolence tempered by incompetence!”

THE ATLANTIC: Priscilla Alvarez Exposes Nation’s Largest Failing Court System: U.S. Immigration Court — Quoting Me: “A fully trained judge, which new judges won’t be, can do about 750 cases a year. So 125 new judges could do fewer than 100,000 cases a year once they’re up and trained, . . . .” — No Amount Of Resources Can Overcome Screwed Up Priorities, Political Meddling, & Management Problems Inherent In The Current “Designed To Fail” System — Due Processes Takes A Back Seat!

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/trump-immigration-court-ice/523557/

Priscilla writes in an article that also contains quotes from highly respected DC area immigration practitioner Dree Collopy (emphasis added in below excerpt):

“Responding to the 2014 migrant wave, the Obama administration temporarily redirected immigration judges to the southern border to preside over removal proceedings and bond hearings, and review whether any individuals’ claims of fear of persecution were credible. Immigration cases being heard in other parts of the United States had to be put on hold, said Jeremy McKinney, an attorney and board member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “The surge was the first time we saw a deployment of immigration judges to the border, resulting in non-detained dockets in the United States getting much worse,” McKinney said, referring to cases that do not require detention. “That situation already put a strain on the interior immigration courts.”

The Justice Department, which hires judges for immigration courts, was also tied up by the budget sequester from 2011 to 2014, so there weren’t enough judges to try cases, he added. Over time, the backlog grew from around 327,000 cases at the end of the 2012 fiscal year to half a million in 2016.

Judge Paul Schmidt, who was appointed in 2003 by Attorney General John Ashcroft, had around 10,000 immigration cases pending when he left his job last year. “When I retired, I was sending cases to 2022,” he told me. Schmidt, who primarily served in the Arlington Immigration Court in northern Virginia, was assigned to those not considered a priority—say, people who had traffic violations. The current national backlog, Schmidt said, largely consists of cases like the ones he handled.

The Trump administration has taken steps that could quicken the courts’ work. For one, ICE officers can now deport someone immediately, without a hearing, if they fit certain criteria and have lived in the United States for up to two years. Under the last administration, that timeline was up to two weeks, and the individual needed to be within 100 miles of the border.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions also announced, in a speech on the Arizona-Mexico border, that the Department of Justice will add 125 immigration judges to the bench over the next two years: 50 this year and 75 in 2018. He urged federal prosecutors to prioritize the enforcement of immigration laws. “This is a new era. This is the Trump era,” Sessions said. “The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch-and-release practices of old are over.”

“You have to give Sessions credit for this,” Schmidt said. “He took note of the 18-to-24-month cycle for filling judges and said he was going to streamline that.” The math still doesn’t exactly work out, however. “A fully trained judge, which new judges won’t be, can do about 750 cases a year. So 125 new judges could do fewer than 100,000 cases a year once they’re up and trained,” he said. Factor in the fact that it takes up to two years to become “fully productive,” he said, and altogether, it could take five to six years for the 125 new judges to cut down the backlog.

All the while, new cases will continue to come in as the administration enforces its new, broader policies on deportation. Newly detained individuals will be prioritized over other cases, which will be pushed further down the road. “I think it has a particular impact on asylum-seekers, because the sense of being in limbo really seems to prolong their trauma and their sense of statelessness that they have,” said Dree Collopy, an immigration lawyer in Washington, D.C. And hearing delays can affect asylum-seekers’ credibility, as well as evidence to support their cases: “Over time, especially when trauma is involved, memories begin to fade.” If a person can’t testify until years after entering the United States, “that can obviously cause problems.”

When Collopy first started practicing immigration law in 2007, cases generally would take about a year or two to complete. That’s no longer the case: “Now, it’s taking four or five years on average,” she told me. With the Trump administration rounding up undocumented immigrants quicker than courts can process cases, that delay isn’t likely to shorten.”

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Read Priscilla’s full article at the above link.

A “smart” strategy would address the 542,000 pending cases before piling on new priorities. Under a more rational policy, those in the current backlog with equities in the U.S., “clean records,” or only minor criminal histories, could be offered “prosecutorial discretion” (“PD”) and taken off the Immigration Court’s docket to make room for higher priority cases.

However, instead of encouraging more use of PD, which was starting to make some difference by the end of the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration has basically made “everything” a potential “priority.” Moreover, as a “double whammy” the Administration has basically “disempowered” those at DHS who know the Immigration Court system the best, the local ICE Assistant Chief Counsel, from freely exercising PD to take non-criminal cases off the docket.

Ironically, at the same time, DHS appears to be giving line enforcement agents the “green light” to arrest just about anyone who might be removable for any reason. However, the line agents unlikely to understand the limitations of the current Immigration Court system and what is already “on the docket.”

The Immigration Court system is basically the opposite of most other law enforcement systems where prosecutors, rather than policemen or agents, determine what cases will be brought before the court. And, in most functioning court systems, the individual sitting judges control their own dockets, rather than having priorities set by politically-driven non-judicial bureaucrats in other places. It certainly appears to be a prescription for disaster. Stay tuned!

PWS

04-21-17

NOTE: In an earlier version of this article I “blew” Priscilla’s name by calling her “Patricia.” My apologies. I’ve now corrected it.

Related posts:

  1. COURTING DISASTER: NEW AILA REPORT SHREDS DOJ’S “BUILT TO FAIL” IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG REDUCTION PROGRAM — “Malicious Incompetence” Turns Tragedy To Travesty! — McKinney, Lynch, Creighton, & Schmidt Do Press Conference Exposing Injustice, Waste, Abuse — Listen To Audio Here!
  2. TAKE 5 MINUTES TO LOOK INSIDE THE “AMERICAN GULAG” OF CIVIL IMMIGRATION DETENTION BEING PROMOTED BY TRUMP, SESSIONS, KELLY & THE HOUSE GOP!
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  4. NEW EOIR MEMO ENCOURAGES IMMIGRATION JUDGES TO DUMP ON UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN (“UACS”) – “When In Doubt, Kick ‘em Out” New Motto Of Gonzo’s “Captive Courts!” — We’ve Come A Long Way From “Guaranteeing Fairness And Due Process For All” In A Short Time!

“Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money . . . .” — But, Bipartisan Legalization Is What Undocumented Residents REALLY Need, Says N. Rappaport in THE HILL!

Quote from “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” by Warren Zevon, check it out here: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/w/warren_zevon/lawyers_guns_and_money.html

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http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/329310-noncriminal-immigrants-facing-deportation-need-legalization

Nolan writes in a recent op-ed from The Hill:

“The absence of due process protections is permissible because IIRIA “clarified” that aliens who are in the United States without inspection are deemed to be “arriving.” In other words, they are not entitled to the rights enjoyed by aliens who have been admitted to the United States because, technically, they are not in the United States. This legal fiction has been accepted now for more than 20 years.

Previous administrations arbitrarily have limited expedited removal proceedings to aliens at the border and aliens who entered without inspection and were apprehended no more than 100 miles from the border after spending less than 14 days in the country.

But Section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(ll) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes expedited removal proceedings for any alien “who has not been admitted or paroled into the United States, and who has not affirmatively shown, to the satisfaction of an immigration officer, that the alien has been physically present in the United States continuously for the 2-year period immediately prior to the date of the determination of inadmissibility.”

President Trump can use expedited removal proceedings to deport millions of noncriminal aliens without hearings before an immigration judge or the right to appeal removal orders to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

The only way to stop him is to find a way to work with him on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a legalization program. And time is running out.

The Trump administration is quickly identifying ways to assemble the nationwide deportation force that President Trump promised on the campaign trail.

Preparations are being made for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to hire 5,000 new officers and for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hire an additional 10,000. Also, ICE has identified 27 potential locations that could increase its detention space by 21,000 beds, and CBP plans to expand its detention capacity by 12,500 spaces.

But it is not too late to work on a deal that would meet the essential political needs of both parties … yet.”

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Go over to The Hill at the link to read Nolan’s complete op-ed.

I agree with Nolan that given the huge backlogs in the U.S. Immigration Courts, the Administration will use every device at its disposal to avoid the Immigration Courts and completely eliminate due process protections for as many individuals as possible. Moreover, as I have pointed out in a recent blog, to date the Article III Courts have been willing to turn a blind eye to the rather obvious due process and statutory issues involved in expedited removal. See http://wp.me/p8eeJm-IG.

To state the obvious: “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum” is meaningless without a fair opportunity to be heard on the asylum application before an impartial adjudicator, with a meaningful opportunity to present evidence, and represented by counsel of one’s choice. And, the idea that individuals who have spent months in detention in the U.S. aren’t entitled to “due process” in connection with their asylum applications (which are “life or death” applications) is facially absurd.

Yeah, I know that the Third Circuit in Castro v. DHS spent the whole decision on a turgidly opaque discussion of jurisdiction and and “suspension of habeas.” Surprising how folks living in the “ivory tower” with lifetime job security can sometimes drain all of the humanity out of “real life” tragedies.

But, frankly, in four decades of being a “highly interested observer” of immigration litigation, I’ve never seen an Article III Court, including the Supremes, be deterred from running over supposed statutory limitations on judicial review when motivated to do so. Perhaps it will take some Federal Judge’s nanny, maid, gardener, driver, handyman, neighbor, fellow church member, student, or in-law being swept up in the new “DHS dragnet” to “motivate” the courts here.

In the meantime, as pointed out to me by Nolan in a different conversation, there is some hope for due process in the Third Circuit’s dictum in Castro. In “footnote 13,” the court actually indicates that there might be a “constitutional break point” for review of expedited removal:

“Of course, even though our construction of § 1252 means that courts in the future will almost certainly lack statutory jurisdiction to review claims that the government has committed even more egregious violations of the expedited removal statute than those alleged by Petitioners, this does not necessarily mean that all aliens wishing to raise such claims will be without a remedy. For instance, consider the case of an alien who has been living continuously for several years in the United States before being ordered removed under § 1225(b)(1). Even though the statute would prevent him from seeking judicial review of a claim, say, that he was never granted a credible fear interview, under our analysis of the Suspension Clause below, the statute could very well be unconstitutional as applied to him (though we by no means undertake to so hold in this opinion). Suffice it to say, at least some of the arguably troubling implications of our reading of § 1252 may be tempered by the Constitution’s requirement that habeas review be available in some circumstances and for some people.”

I suspect that the Administration eventually will push expedited removal and credible fear denials to the point where there will be some meaningful judicial review. But, lots of folks rights are likely to be trampled upon before we reach that point.

Nolan’s suggestion for a bipartisan legislative solution certainly seems reasonable and highly appropriate from the viewpoint of both sides. The Administration is about to invest lots of resources and credibility in a “war to deport or intimidate just about everybody” that it is likely to lose in the long run. But, advocates are likely to be bleeding resources and losing individual battles for some time before the tide eventually turns, if it ever does. Anything that depends on litigation as the solution has many risks and unpredictable outcomes that might leave both sides unsatisfied with the results.

Sadly, nobody in the Administration seems interested in solving this issue. The policy appears to be driven by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a lifelong opponent of immigration reform who seldom if ever has a kind word to say about any immigrant, legal or undocumented.

Secretary Kelly has become “Sessions’s Parrot,” apparently devoid of any original or constructive thoughts on the subject of immigration. In particular, his recent “put up or shut up” outburst directed at Congressional Democrats who sought some meaningful oversight and clarification of his enforcement policies did not seem to be an entree for better dialogue.

Although there almost certainly is a majority of Democrats and Republicans in favor of reasonable immigration reform, which the majority of the country would also like to see, leadership of both parties seems fairly discombobulated. There seems to be “zero interest” in putting together a legislative coalition consisting of Democrats and a minority of Republicans to get anything done. And, even if such a coalition were to coalesce, President Trump likely would veto any constructive result in the area of immigration.

As I’ve pointed out before, there are a number of reasons why folks don’t always act in their best interests or the best interests of the country. But, I appreciate Nolan’s efforts to promote “thinking beyond conflict.” I want to think that it can come to fruition.

PWS

04-20-17

 

Related posts:

  1. THE HILL: N. Rappaport Believes That Expedited Removal Is the Key To Reducing The Immigration Court Backlog
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: THE HILL: Professor Lindsay Muir Harris — Using REAL Data & Facts — Rips Apart Sessions’s “Ignorant” (& TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE) Anti-Asylum Speech To EOIR!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

PRECEDENT: BIA Gives Guidance On Admin Closing & Avetisyan — PD Should Not Be A Factor Unless Parties Agree — Matter of W-Y-U-, 27 I&N Dec. 17 (BIA 2017)

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/958526/download

BIA Headnotes:

“(1) The primary consideration for an Immigration Judge in evaluating whether to administratively close or recalendar proceedings is whether the party opposing administrative closure has provided a persuasive reason for the case to proceed and be resolved on the merits. Matter of Avetisyan, 25 I&N Dec. 688 (BIA 2012), clarified.

(2) In considering administrative closure, an Immigration Judge cannot review whether an alien falls within the enforcement priorities of the Department of Homeland Security, which has exclusive jurisdiction over matters of prosecutorial discretion.”

Panel: Appellate Immigration Judges Malphrus, Mullane, & Creppy

Opinion by Judge Malphrus.

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While at first blush it might appear that the unrepresented respondent “won” this appeal, the victory is likely to be phyrric at best.

There was a time (now apparently gone) when the DHS gave individual Assistant Chief Counsel broader authority to offer prosecutorial discretion (“PD”) in cases that were not enforcement priorities.

In Arlington, where I was an Immigration Judge, the Assistant Chief Counsel were very reasonable and fair, and usually agreed to “short docket” hearings on well-documented asylum cases that fell squarely within the BIA precedents. Consequently, when they offered “PD” in an asylum case it usually was a “signal” that they saw the equities in the case, but also had difficulties with the asylum application that would require them to fully litigate the case and probably appeal a grant. Since the Assistant Chief Counsel in Arlington did not normally contest asylum cases unless there were significant proof or legal issues involved, their views had great credibility with both the private bar and with me.

Generally, in such situations I “suggested” that counsel accept the proffer of PD and continue to work with the Assistant Chief Counsel on overcoming her or his problem with the asylum case. If the parties eventually were able to reach agreement that the case could be heard on the  “short docket” (30 minutes or less), I would be happy to restore the case to the docket upon joint motion. Usually, counsel got my “message.”

The few cases that went forward after “PD” had been turned down by counsel usually proved to be “losers” for the respondent, either before me or before the BIA. In a couple of cases, where I could see the respondent’s case “going south in a hurry,” I simply stopped the hearing and granted the DHS motion for Administrative Closing for PD over the respondent’s objection. I don’t think anyone ever appealed. But, under Matter of W-Y-U-, I probably could not have done that.

I suspect that when this unrepresented respondent eventually gets his wish and has a merits asylum hearing, he will lose. At that point, the DHS, even prior to the Trump Administration, would be unlikely to exercise PD, even if there were outstanding equities.

Sometimes in litigation you get what you ask for, and later wish you hadn’t asked.

PWS

04-19-17

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. “GONZO APOCALYPTO” SLAMMED: UNANIMOUS PANEL OF 4TH CIR. REJECTS MATTER OF CASTO-TUM — Exposes Irrationality Of Biased, Unqualified Restrictionist Former AG — “ADR” Outed — “Although one of its purported concerns is efficient and timely administration of immigration proceedings, it would in fact serve to lengthen and delay many of these proceedings by: (1) depriving IJs and the BIA of flexible docketing measures sometimes required for adjudication of an immigration proceeding, as illustrated by Avetisyan, and (2) leading to the reopening of over 330,000 cases upon the motion of either party, straining the burden on immigration courts that Castro-Tum purports to alleviate.”
  2. FOURTH CIRCUIT JOINS 9TH, 2d, & 6TH IN REVERSING BIA’S OVERLY RESTRICTIVE READING OF ASYLUM ELIGIBILITY – ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE OF A PRE-EXISTING CLAIM CAN BE A “CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCE” JUSTIFYING “LATE” ASYLUM FILING! — ZAMBRANO V. SESSIONS (PUBLISHED)!
  3. NPR: Sessions Out To Destroy US Immigration Court System — “All the more reason why we need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court removed from the political shenanigans and enforcement bias of Sessions and his DOJ!”
  4. ABIGAIL HAUSLOHNER @ WASHPOST: UNDER TRUMP, MORE JUDGES, MORE DETENTION, MORE RANDOM CRUELTY, FEWER ACTUAL REMOVALS!

DEPORTATION EXPRESS: U.S. Courts Appear Ready To “Green Light” Summary Removal Of Asylum Seekers Without Regard To Due Process — Advocates Striking Out In Attempts To Get Meaningful Judicial Review Of Expedited Removal — Trump Administration’s Plans To Expand Expedited Removal Likely To Deny Thousands Day In Court!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/politics/supreme-court-castro-expedited-removal/index.html

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter  writes:

“(CNN)The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court opinion rejecting claims by undocumented Central American women and children — who were apprehended immediately after arriving in the country without authorization — seeking asylum.

Lawyers for the families sought to challenge their expedited removal proceedings in federal court arguing they face gender-based violence at home, but a Philadelphia-based federal appeals court held that they have no right to judicial review of such claims.
The court’s action means the government can continue to deny asylum seekers placed in expedited removal a chance to have their cases heard by federal court.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has his first full week on the court starting Monday, did not participate in the decision.
The case, initially brought under the Obama administration, comes as the Trump administration has vowed to more strictly enforce immigration laws.
Originally, 28 mothers and their children entered the US border in Texas in late 2015. They were immediately placed in expedited removal proceedings. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, they argue they suffered “gender-based violence, including sexual assault, by men from whom they could not escape” and that they were targeted by gangs because “they are single women residing without a male household member to protect them.” They sought to challenge their removal proceedings in federal court, arguing that they did not receive substantive procedural rights to which they were entitled.
A federal appeals court ruled against the petitioners, arguing that Congress could deny review for those who have been denied initial entry into the country who were apprehended close to the border. The court essentially treated the petitioners as equal to those who arrived at the border but had not yet entered.
“We conclude that Congress may, consonant with the Constitution, deny habeas review in federal court of claims relating to an alien’s application for admission to the country, at least as to aliens who have been denied initial entry or who, like Petitioners, were apprehended very near the border and, essentially, immediately after surreptitious entry into the country,” wrote the majority of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Here’s a link to the Third Circuit’s decision in Castro v. DHS: http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/161339p.pdf
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This could be the real “sleeper” in the Trump Administration’s “get tough” immigration enforcement plan. Given the 540,000+ backlog in the U.S. Immigration Courts, the Administration appears to be looking for ways to circumvent the court process entirely wherever possible.
DHS could easily change the existing regulations to “max out” so called “Expedited Removal” by DHS enforcement officers by applying it to everyone unable to establish at least two years’ continuous residence in the U.S. (Currently, the cutoff is 14 days if apprehended within 100 miles of the border.)
Even individuals who meet the two-year requirement could be subsumed in the Expedited Removal regime. Without a right to be represented by counsel, to have a full hearing before an impartial decision maker, and to appeal to the Article III Federal Courts, an individual wrongly placed in the expedited process would have little chance of avoiding summary removal without a chance to apply for relief that might be available before the Immigration Court.
While the Supreme Court’s refusal to grant certiorari in Castro is not a decision on the merits, to date no circuit has ruled in favor of the claimants. Unless and until that happens, it is unlikely that the Supremes will even consider the advocates’ arguments for at least some degree of judicial review of Expedited Removal.
PWS
04-17-17

Related posts:

  1. JOURNAL ON MIGRATION & HUMAN SOCIETY (“JMHS”) PUBLISHES MY TRIBUTE TO JUAN OSUNA (1963-2017): “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era”
  2. HALLOWEEN HORROR STORY: Opaque & Biased Politicized Judicial Hiring Denies Migrants The Fair & Impartial Adjudication To Which They Are Constitutionally Entitled – Given The Generous Legal Standards, A Worldwide Refugee Crisis, & Asylum Officers’ Positive Findings In Most Cases, Asylum Seekers Should Be Winning The Vast Majority Of Immigration Court Cases — Instead, They Are Being “Railroaded” By A Biased System & Complicit Article III Courts!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

HISTORY: Lest We Forget, The U.S. Justice System & The Supreme Court Have Sometimes Been On The Wrong Side Of History & Justice! — Remembering The Easter Sunday Massacre In Colfax, LA & The Racist Supremes’ Intentional Perversion Of The Constitution!

http://m.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/16/1650660/-The-Easter-Sunday-massacre-in-Colfax-Louisiana-and-the-awful-Supreme-Court-decision-that-followed?detail=facebook

Denise Oliver Velez writes in the Daily Kos:

“When Christians think of the meaning of Easter Sunday, it symbolizes resurrection and hope. When I think of Easter Sunday in the black community, I think of all the ladies in their wonderful hats heading off to church. However, I don’t ever forget that Easter Sunday also marked one of the most horrible massacres of black citizens in U.S. history. It’s hard to erase the images in my mind of black bodies riddled with bullets, blown apart by cannon fire. They died at the hands of white supremacists who lost the Civil War but who won the years ahead, because they were able to destroy Reconstruction. I take a moment of silence and say a prayer for the dead, many of whose names we will never know.

This story from The Root on the Colfax Massacre, written by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., gives the details. It’s worth reading in its entirety.

In Colfax, La., on Easter Sunday 1873, a mob of white insurgents, including ex-Confederate and Union soldiers, led an assault on the Grant Parish Courthouse, the center of civic life in the community, which was occupied and surrounded — and defended — by black citizens determined to safeguard the results of the state’s most recent election. They, too, were armed, but they did not have the ammunition to outlast their foes, who, outflanking them, proceeded to mow down dozens of the courthouse’s black defenders, even when they surrendered their weapons. The legal ramifications were as horrifying as the violence — and certainly more enduring; in an altogether different kind of massacre, United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the U.S. Supreme Court tossed prosecutors’ charges against the killers in favor of severely limiting the federal government’s role in protecting the emancipated from racial targeting, especially at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan.

Historians know this tragedy as the Colfax Massacre, though in the aftermath, even today, some whites refer to it as the Colfax Riot in order to lay blame at the feet of those who, lifeless, could not tell their tale. In his canonical history of the period, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, Eric Foner has called the Colfax Massacre “[t]he bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era.”

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What kind of folks would still have a racist historical marker like this in their community? What kind of state would permit it?

Interesting questions, because we now have an Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who wants to turn civil rights enforcement and local police monitoring back over to the very states and localities with appalling records of racism, exclusion, and brutality directed at African Americans and other minority communities. In other words, Sessions actively seeks a return to U.S. Government inaction in the face of white supremacy, discrimination, and violation of minority rights.

While planning to turn his back on the legitimate responsibilities of the Federal Government to protect its citizens rights from overreaching by states and localities, Sessions disingenuously plans to force those states and localities which are trying to protect the rights of those in their communities to assist in Federal immigration enforcement.

PWS

04-16-17

 

 

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. COLBY KING @ WASHPOST: The “Original Dreamers” Were Disenfranchised African Americans! — “That fight must continue on behalf of today’s dreamers, the disenfranchised, the demeaned and left out, and all freedom-loving people in this nation.“
  3. GEORGE PACKER @ THE ATLANTIC: With Failed Institutions & Lousy Leaders, Including a President Leading the Charge to the Bottom, America Faces An Uncertain Future — “A responsible establishment doesn’t exist. Our president is one of the rioters.” — Joe Biden & The Dems Could Be The Last, Best Hope For American Democracy & Real Progress Toward “Equal Justice For All!”
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: When The Attorney General Of The United States Is An “Equal Opportunity Hater” — NAACP’s Sherrilyn Ifill Says “Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions has made clear that he has no intention of investigating police departments for patterns and practices of discrimination. The Justice Department has essentially all but abandoned civil rights as a priority, and so they are no longer working as a partner with us.”

PRECEDENT: BIA Finds “Assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to produce great bodily injury under California law is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude.” — Matter of Wu, 27 I&N Dec. 8 (BIA 2017)

Here’s the link to the full opinion:

https://www.justice.gov/file/957431/download

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

BIA PANEL: Appellate Immigration Judges Malphrus, Mullane, & Creppy

OPINION BY: Judge Malphrus

PWS

04-14-17

Related posts:

  1. BIA THWARTS CAL’S ATTEMPT TO END RUN REMOVABILITY FOR MINOR OFFENDERS – Matter of VELASQUEZ-RIOS, 27 I&N Dec. 470 (BIA 2018)
  2. NEW BIA PRECEDENT: CAL. ROBBERY IS CATEGORICAL AGFEL — Matter of Delgado, 27 I&N Dec. 100 (BIA 2017)
  3. WELCOME TO BIA-LAND! – Where You Might Be Better Off Committing A Felony Than Concealing It – Matter of Mendez, 27 I&N Dec. 219 (BIA 2018)
  4. 👹AS CURTAIN FALLS ON KAKISTOCRACY, BIA CLOWN SHOW 🤡 ROLLS ON TOWARD OBLIVION! — Latest Travesty Ignores Clear Statutory Language, Elevates AAO Over Circuits, Shafts TPSers Who Qualify For Legal Permanent Immigration, Makes Hash Out Of Uniform Administration Of Laws!🏴‍☠️☠️🤮

JEFF SESSIONS’S DREAM OF AN “AMERICAN GULAG:” Despite Mounting Evidence Of Substandard Conditions, Lack Of Accountability, & Hinky Contracting, Sessions Plans For “American Gulag” Using Private Prisons — Creating Corporate Profits From Human Misery While Ripping Off U.S. Taxpayers!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/prisons-and-profits_us_58ef9886e4b04cae050dc533?t0r

Christopher Brauchli reports in HuffPost:

“It turns out that the immigration crackdown that Donald Trump’s ICE is pursuing, though hard on illegals and their families by producing terrible uncertainty for them, is not without its “bright side.” The light that provides a bright side is shining on the shares of stock in the Geo Group and CoreCivic, and on jails in a number of Texas counties.

Geo Group and CoreCivic operate private, for-profit prisons. Before Trump became president, they were on hard times, and for good reason. In August 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General issued a report that was highly critical of the way those companies treated prisoners entrusted with their care. The report found that inmates in facilities run by those corporations “were nine times more likely to be placed on lockdown than inmates at other federal prisons and were frequently subjected to arbitrary solitary confinement simply because there was not space for them among the general population.”

Although placing them in solitary confinement so they would not add to overcrowding in the general prison population had the desired effect, solitary confinement is generally acknowledged to be equivalent to torture and has been repeatedly criticized for its excessive use in United States prisons. According to the report, the Bureau of Prisons was using the private prisons on a large scale to “confine federal inmates who are primarily low security, criminal alien adult males with 90 months or less remaining to serve on their sentences.” The report stated that “in a majority of the categories we examined, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable Bureau of Prisons institutions.” It said that the contract prisons “do not provide comparable services [to those operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons], do not save substantially on costs, and do not maintain ‘the same level of safety and security.’”

At almost the same time that that report was issued, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, issued instructions to federal officials to reduce the use of private prisons because of the falling prison population throughout the country. The result was that stock in CoreCivic and GEO, the two largest private prison companies in the United States, fell precipitously. The election of Donald J. Trump reversed their fortunes.

The day after the election shares in CoreCivic rose 43 percent and share in GEO rose 21 percent. The investors’ optimism was rewarded when on February 21st, 2017, Attorney General Sessions, rescinded the order that the private prisons be phased out. Following the announcement, the prison companies enjoyed another jump in share prices. The order should not have been a surprise. Notwithstanding the Justice Department report that was highly critical of the private prisons, Trump―for whom facts are notoriously unimportant―said: “I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better.” Of course, private prisons are not the only ones rejoicing in the prospect of more inmates, thanks to the increased attention being paid to illegal immigrants and their incarceration. Jailers in small Texas counties are also excited.

. . . .

. . . . Now many of the counties that eagerly built new jails find themselves trying to pay off the cost of construction without adequate occupants to pay the debt that was incurred to build them. The good news for them is that since Trump has encouraged ICE to round up and jail illegal immigrants, the glut of jail space may soon vanish and cells that were empty and non-income producing, will once again be fully occupied with illegal immigrants and their families.

In a speech delivered to Police Chiefs Association on April 11, 2017, Attorney General Sessions announced a number of increased enforcement policies including a provision that those who get married to avoid immigration laws, will be charged with offenses that carry a two-year mandatory minimum prison sentence. If, notwithstanding the prospect of new occupants, counties no longer want to maintain their facilities, they may be able to sell them to private prison companies that will use the space for housing illegal immigrants. It’s a win-win situation for private prisons and Texas counties. The only loser is the pre-Trump United States we knew and loved.”

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

Hey, the only “losers” here are humanity, values, taxpayers, and our self-respect. What’s not to like about that Sessions-Trump initiative?

And “Gulag” is definitely the right term to describe contemporary immigration detention. Just ask families whose loved ones, and lawyers whose clients are moved from facility to facility, and sometimes removed from the United States, without notice. Even U.S. Immigration Courts sometimes have a hard time locating the “respondents” on their detained dockets in the DHS detention maze. Not to mention that sometimes detainees with cases pending before one Immigration Court are more or less arbitrarily moved to another detention center in another jurisdiction (perhaps to save a few bucks on “bed rates”).

PWS

04-14-17

Related posts:

  1. NPR: INSIDE THE TRUMP-SESSIONS – NIELSEN “AMERICAN GULAG” – DHS INTERNAL REPORT FINDS CRUEL, INHUMAN, LIFE-THREATING CONDITIONS ARE WIDESPREAD – 4 OF 5 (80%) OF PRISONS STUDIED “FLUNK” MINIMUM STANDARDS – WHY AREN’T THE CABINET OFFICIALS & SENIOR EXECS WHO ARE “DOUBLING DOWN” ON THESE UNLAWFUL PRACTICES IN PRISON THEMSELVES (OR AT LEAST BEING SUED IN COURT FOR ORDERING CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS)!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  3. DUE PROCESS DENIED! — NIJC REPORT FINDS THAT DHS DETENTION IN OBSCURE LOCATIONS DEPRIVES MIGRANTS OF MEANINGFUL ACCESS TO COUNSEL! — This Is What Happens When We Enable The “American Gulag!”
  4. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!

“GONZO-APOCALYPTO:” The Ominous Cloud Hanging Over American Justice — In Good Friday Editorials, Both NYT & WashPost Blast Sessions’s Dark, Distorted, “Gonzo-Apocalypto” Vision Of America!

First, the Washington Post ripped Sessions’s “embarrassing” withdrawal of support from African Americans and other minorities challenging the State of Texas’s scheme to disenfranchise them. A Federal Judge has twice found in favor of the plaintiffs — once with the DOJ’s support and once without!

“BLASTING “A PATTERN of conduct unexplainable on nonracial grounds, to suppress minority voting,” U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos on Monday repudiated Texas’s voter-ID law, the strictest in the country. Asked by appeals court judges to reconsider her expansive 2014 ruling against the law using slightly different evidence, Ms. Ramos reaffirmed her previous determination that “the law places a substantial burden on the right to vote, which is hardly offset by Texas’s claimed benefits to voting integrity.” She found that racial discrimination was at least a partial motivation for the law, a step toward reestablishing federal supervision over Texas’s voting procedures, per the Voting Rights Act.

Given the ruling and the mountain of evidence, it is embarrassing that the Trump Justice Department dropped its support for the contention that the Texas voter law is purposely discriminatory.

The legal question is not close. “There has been a clear and disturbing pattern of discrimination in the name of combating voter fraud,” Ms. Ramos wrote in 2014. The only type of fraud the law could combat — voter impersonation — hardly ever happens. Meanwhile, the law’s backers knew it would disproportionately impact minority voters; in fact, they designed it so. “The Texas Legislature accepted amendments that would broaden Anglo voting and rejected amendments that would broaden minority voting,” Ms. Ramos found in her 2014 examination. Texas accepts relatively few forms of identification at the polls, and those it does accept, such as gun licenses, are those white Texans tend to hold. Unlike many voter-ID states, Texas does not relax ID rules much for the elderly or the indigent, though obtaining an accepted ID can be surprisingly time-consuming and expensive.”

Read the complete editorial here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-for-the-justice-department-to-disown-texass-discriminatory-voting-law/2017/04/13/ee63a0e0-1ef7-11e7-ad74-3a742a6e93a7_story.html

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

Meanwhile, A NY Times editorial slammed Session’s disingenuous plan to make immigrants the “#1 target” of law enforcement in the “Trump era.” The emphasis is mine.

Here’s the full editorial:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions went to the border in Arizona on Tuesday and declared it a hellscape, a “ground zero” of death and violence where Americans must “take our stand” against a tide of evil flooding up from Mexico.

It was familiar Sessions-speak, about drug cartels and “transnational gangs” poisoning and raping and chopping off heads, things he said for years on the Senate floor as the gentleman from Alabama. But with a big difference:  Now he controls the machinery of federal law enforcement, and his gonzo-apocalypto vision of immigration suddenly has force and weight behind it, from the officers and prosecutors and judges who answer to him.

When Mr. Sessions got to the part about the “criminal aliens and the coyotes and the document forgers” overthrowing our immigration system, the American flag behind him had clearly heard enough — it leaned back and fell over as if in a stupor. An agent rushed to rescue it, and stood there for the rest of the speech: a human flag stand and metaphor. A guy with a uniform and gun, wrapped in Old Glory, helping to give the Trump administration’s nativist policies a patriotic sheen.

It was in the details of Mr. Sessions’s oratory that his game was exposed. He talked of cities and suburbs as immigrant-afflicted “war zones,” but the crackdown he seeks focuses overwhelmingly on nonviolent offenses, the document fraud and unauthorized entry and other misdeeds that implicate many people who fit no sane definition of brutal criminal or threat to the homeland.

The problem with Mr. Sessions’s turbocharging of the Justice Department’s efforts against what he paints as machete-wielding “depravity” is how grossly it distorts the bigger picture. It reflects his long fixation — shared by his boss, President Trump — on immigration not as an often unruly, essentially salutary force in American history, but as a dire threat. It denies the existence of millions of people who are a force for good, economic mainstays and community assets, less prone to crime than the native-born — workers, parents, children, neighbors and, above all, human beings deserving of dignity and fair treatment under the law.

Mr. Sessions is ordering his prosecutors to make immigration a priority, to consider prosecution in any case involving “transportation and harboring of aliens” and to consider felony charges for an extended menu of offenses, like trying to re-enter after deportation, “aggravated identity theft” and fraudulent marriage.

He said the government was now detaining every adult stopped at the border, and vowed to “surge” the supply of immigration judges, to increase the flow of unauthorized immigrants through the courts and out of the country. He has ordered all 94 United States attorney’s offices to designate “border security coordinators,” no matter how far from “ground zero” they are.

Mr. Sessions and the administration are being led by their bleak vision to the dark side of the law. The pieces are falling into place for the indiscriminate “deportation force” that the president promised. Mr. Sessions and the homeland security secretary, John Kelly, have attacked cities and states that decline to participate in the crackdown. Mr. Sessions has threatened these “sanctuary” locales with loss of criminal-justice funding, on the false assertion that they are defying the law. (In fact, “sanctuary” cities are upholding law and order. They recognize that enlisting state and local law enforcement for deportation undermines community trust, local policing and public safety.)

Mr. Kelly recently told a Senate committee that all unauthorized immigrants are now potential targets for arrest and deportation. And so an administration that talks about machete-waving narco killers is also busily trying to deport people like Maribel Trujillo-Diaz, of Fairfield, Ohio, the mother of four citizen children, who has no criminal record.

“Be forewarned,” Mr. Sessions said in Arizona. “This is a new era. This is the Trump era.”

Let’s talk about this era. It’s an era when the illegal border flow, particularly from Mexico, has been falling for 20 years. When many of those arriving from Central America immediately surrender to border agents — having fled to the United States to find safety, not to do it harm. When American border cities enjoy safety and vitality, thanks to immigrants. When a large portion of the unauthorized population has lived here for years, if not decades, with clean records and strong roots. When polls show that Americans back reasonable and humane immigration policies giving millions a chance to get right with the law.

President Trump has shown his mind to be a place where ideas and principles can morph without warning or explanation. It is a vacuum that allows ideologues like Mr. Sessions — who know their minds — to do their worst. On immigration, that is a frightening thing to contemplate.

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

“Gonzo-Apocalypto” has to be the “word of the day.” What a perfect term to describe Jeff Sessions.

In a grotesque display of disingenuous hypocrisy, Sessions referred to “drug cartels and ‘transnational gangs’ poisoning and raping and chopping off heads.” These are exactly the things causing scared, defenseless women and children to flee for their lives from the Northern Triangle and seek refuge in the U.S. But, instead of refuge they find: well, Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Gen. John Kelly and others anxious to stomp out their humanity in the false name of “law enforcement.”

Turning to civil rights, I watched on the TV news last night two clips of brutal beatings and stompings of African Americans by white police officers. One victim was accused of “jaywalking”  — that’s right, “jaywalking.” The other was “driving without a license plate.” I was wondering how, after all the recent publicity, those officers could have engaged in such conduct, “on camera” no less.

Unfortunately, the answer is pretty simple “Black Lives Don’t Matter,” an attitude that obviously has just become instinctive for too many U.S. police officers. I couldn’t imagine a white pedestrian or a white motorist being treated that way in our multi-racial but predominantly white neighborhood.

Yes, the officers involved were disciplined. I believe that most or all of them were either fired, prosecuted, or both. But, that’s not the point!

The object is to prevent misuse of force by police, not to fire, prosecute, or otherwise discipline more policemen. And, prevention without compromising effectiveness of policing is exactly what the carefully crafted “consent decrees” with some problematic cities developed by the Civil Rights Division under AGs Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder achieved.

Those are the very decrees that Sessions immediately announced an intent to “review” with an obvious eye toward withdrawing or undermining them. Look at the childish behavior in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, MD, when DOJ attorneys, acting on Sessions’s behalf, withdrew their support from the consent decree and basically refused to participate in a long-scheduled public hearing. Fortunately, the judge has the good sense to go ahead and approve and finalize the consent decree without any participation by DOJ, leading to even more childish whining from Sessions about the horrors of infringing on local law enforcement in the name of African American citizen’s constitutional rights.

The very public “green light” that Sessions has given to law enforcement to run over citizen’s rights as they please, without any fear of DOJ intervention, so long as they are “enforcing the law” — like busting jaywalkers, license plate violators, and presumably undocumented aliens — no doubt plays a role in the continuing anti-minority policing being conducted by some law enforcement agencies.

Sessions “bristles” when anyone uses the term “racist” to describe him. Sessions was given a chance to make good on his (obviously false) promise during his confirmation hearings to turn over a new leaf and look at the responsibilities of being Attorney General for all Americans differently from representing Alabama in the U.S. Senate.

Unfortunately,  his actions have proved that all of the charges his detractors made against him are as true now as they were when he was, quite properly, denied a U.S. judgeship many decades ago. If the shoe fits, wear it. And, sadly, this “shoe” fits Sessions “like a glove.” Liz was “right on.”

Finally, DHS Secretary John Kelly will see his distinguished career in public service end in ignomany if he continues “toadying up” to the ethno-nationalist views of the Sessions-Bannon-Miller crowd on immigration enforcement. Most of the arrests, deportations, detentions, denials of asylum, and removals Sessions is touting in his haste to become the new “Immigration Czar,” actually are within the jurisdiction of DHS. But, these days, you’d hardly know that Sessions isn’t in charge of DHS enforcement as well as Justice. If Kelly isn’t careful, he’s going to develop a neck injury from constantly nodding his head to every absurd “gonzo-apocalypto” immigration enforcement initiative announced by Sessions.

PWS

04-14-17

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  2. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: HOMOPHOBIC AG ATTACKS LGBTQ COMMUNITY WITH BOGUS LEGAL MEMO STRIPPING TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS OF CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS!
  4. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!

HUFFPOST POLITICS: Despite Bannon’s Apparently Waning Influence, “Turbocharged” Sessions Will Keep “Ethno-Nationalist Agenda” Rolling At Full Speed At DOJ! Bad News For Immigrants, African-Americans, Refugees, Muslims, LBGT Individuals, Forensic Science, Innocent Defendants, Minor Offenders, Taxpayers, The U.S. Constitution, Many Women, & Social Justice In America!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-steve-bannon_us_58efb376e4b0bb9638e23542

Paul Blumenthal writes:

“No matter what Bannon’s fate, however, his strand of ethno-nationalism will live on in the Trump Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The 70-year-old former Alabama senator has already set the Justice Department on a new path by targeting immigrants, reining in police department reform efforts and curtailing efforts to protect voting rights.

“While many are focused on how Bannon is losing influence in the White House, those concerned with immigrant justice ― and I suspect those concerned with racial justice, police reform and voting rights, too ― are focused on the rise of a turbocharged Sessions,” Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-immigration reform group America’s Voice, said in an email to HuffPost.

Bannon and Sessions share a long history of mutual support and policy agreement. They spent months together with Stephen Miller, a former Sessions aide who now works in the White House, plotting strategy on how to enact their shared agenda of limiting immigration to the U.S. in order to maintain a European and Christian identity. In 2016, Bannon declared Sessions “one of the intellectual, moral leaders of this populist, nationalist movement in this country.” After both moved to Trump’s administration, Bannon called Sessions the White House “clearinghouse for policy and philosophy.” Like Bannon, Sessions declares his policy objective as defeating “soulless globalism.”

. . . .

In another appearance on Bannon’s radio show, Sessions endorsed the Immigration Act of 1924, which specifically limited immigration based on race and religion, in the context of current immigration trends. “In seven years, we’ll have the highest percentage of Americans, non-native born, since the founding of the Republic,” Sessions said, while praising the 1924 law that was used to prevent Jewish immigration before and during the Holocaust.

Like Bannon, Sessions believes immigration from Middle Eastern countries poses a national security risk. He agrees that Western leaders have failed to protect their Judeo-Christian heritage by opening the door to refugees.

In one radio interview, after Bannon compared the migration of Syrian refugees to an infamous racist French book, he asked Sessions.: “Do you believe the elites in this country have the backbone, have the belief in the underlying principles of the Judeo-Christian West to actually win this war?”

“I’m worried about that,” Sessions replied.

The two nationalist Trump supporters share more than immigration policy preferences. The reversal of police reform efforts and reinvigoration of the War on Drugs pushed by Sessions as attorney general fits with Bannon’s efforts at Breitbart to label Black Lives Matter protesters as racists, while perpetuating racist stereotypes of African Americans through the site’s Black Crime section.”

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

For those who hoped that President Trump’s sudden shift to more “centrist” positions on trade and foreign policy might carry over into immigration policy, dream on! Bannon might be “on the ropes,” but Sessions and Stephen Miller still have the President’s ear on their restrictionist, nationalist positions on immigration.

While badly needed, reasonable bipartisan immigration reform would be within Trump’s reach, that’s not going to happen. Buoyed by the immediate decrease in Southern Border apprehensions, Trump, Sessions, and MIller (Gen. Kelly appears to gone AWOL on immigration policy — he just parrots what Sessions and the nationalist restrictionists tell him — his stature as former General with integrity shrinks every day) intend to arrest, detain, deport, and threaten unless and until the Article III Courts stop them. And whether that will happen is still an open question.

Liz was right!

PWS

04-13-17

 

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  3. THE SPLC ANALYZES TRUMP’S CONTORTED AND CONTRIVED MESSAGE OF HATE, INTOLERANCE, & DIVISION!
  4. COURTSIDE COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS: AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions Might Be A Clown 🤡 — But His White Nationalist Plan To Destroy The American Justice System Is No Joke — He Has Already Done Untold Damage To Our Country & Our Rights — And, He And His White Supremacist Buddy Steve Bannon, The Alt-Right, And Other Haters Are Just Getting Started On Their Plan To Turn America Into A “Whites Only” Paradise!

DUE PROCESS CRISIS IN THE U.S. IMMIGRATION COURTS: New Report Finds That Detained Migrants In The Arlington & Baltimore Courts Face Severe Access To Counsel Problems Which Can Be “Outcome Determinative!”

https://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/DC_Access_to_Counsel_rev4_033117 (1).pdf

This report (see link) was prepared and issued by the Center For Popular Democracy. Here are some key findings:

  • Every year, nearly 4,000 people in Washington, D.C. metropolitan area courts, Arlington, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland, face deportation in civil immigration court without the assistance of a lawyer. Based on original data analysis of Department of Justice records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, seven out of ten detained individuals in immigration court removal proceedings in Arlington, VA and eight out of ten in Baltimore, MD did not have any legal representation.
    • ■  People without lawyers faced enormous odds in fighting their deportation cases. Among detained immigrants without lawyers, people in Arlington were only successful in their cases 11 percent of the time and unrepresented people in Baltimore only successful 7 percent of the time.
    • ■  Having a lawyer in Arlington more than doubled a person’s chances of being able to remain in the U.S. and quadrupled a person’s chance of obtaining relief in Baltimore.
  • ■  Between 2010 and 2015, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained nearly 15,000 people in local and county jails2 throughout the states of Maryland and Virginia. In both regions, people who did not have lawyers were more than twice as likely to remain detained during the entirety of their immigration case, even if they may have been eligible for release on bond.
  • **************************************

Read the entire report which has some case histories in addition to charts and graphs.

The findings are disturbing because the Arlington and Baltimore Immigration Courts generally are considered among the best in the nation in striving to provide due process. The judges in each court are committed to representation and often go out of their way to encourage and facilitate the appearance of counsel. The ICE Chief Counsel’s Offices also appreciate and support pro bono representation.

Additionally, as noted in the report, the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area has a number of great organizations dedicated to providing pro bono lawyers, as well as local practitioners, “big law” firms, and numerous outstanding law school clinics, all of which support the pro bono program.

Yet even under these generally favorable conditions, the overwhelming majority of individuals on the detained dockets in both courts appear pro se, without a lawyer. And, the results with a lawyer are very significantly better than for those forced to represent themselves.

I fear that the new program of expanded immigration detention being planned by DHS, with courts operating in obscure, out of the way locations along the Southern Border, will further impede already limited access to counsel and therefore further degrade due process in our U.S. Immigration Courts.

Frankly, I have not seen any mention of the importance of due process or facilitating access to counsel in any of the many Trump Administration pronouncements on immigration. It’s all about enforcement, detention, removals, and prosecutions. Fairness and due process, which should always be paramount concerns, appear to be ignored.

In the end, it likely will be up to the already overworked and stressed pro bono bar, human rights groups, and community-based NGOs to enforce immigrants’ rights to counsel and to full due process. And, ultimately, that’s probably going to require litigation and intervention by the Article III Courts.

Thanks to Adina Appelbaum, who worked on this report, for bringing it to my attention.

PWS

04/13/17

 

Related posts:

  1. DETENTION/BOND: THE “NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY” WINS A BIG ONE IN THE EDVA – Judge Brinkema Orders Individualized Bond Hearings For Four Individuals With “Reinstated” Removal Orders Now In “Withholding Only Proceedings!” — Romero v. Evans, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, 2017 WL 5560659 (EDVA 11-17-17) (published)
  2. AMERICA’S REAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS: THE ATTACK ON DUE PROCESS IN THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COURTS — Read My Keynote Speech FromThe Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center’s “Light Of Liberty Awards” Ceremony Last Night!
  3. ATTN “COURTSIDERS” – HEAR ME “LIVE” ON RADIO IN RICHMOND, VA, THE INTERNET, AND FACEBOOK TOMORROW, FRIDAY, DEC. 8, 2017!
  4. EXPOSED! — AILA’S JOHNSON SHOWS HOW “GONZO” INTENTIONALLY MISUSES DATA TO CREATE A FALSE ANTI-ASYLUM, ANTI-LAWYER NARRATIVE TO CONCEAL THE REAL GLARING PROBLEM DRIVING US IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOGS — AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING (“ADR”) DRIVEN BY POLITICOS ATTEMPTING TO STACK THE COURT SYSTEM AGAINST DUE PROCESS AND TILT IT IN FAVOR OF DHS/ADMINISTRATION ENFORCEMENT INITIATIVES!!!!!!! — SURPRISE — By Far The Biggest Increase In Continuances Comes From DHS & EOIR Itself!

POLITICO: Immigration Advocates Find Area Of Agreement With AG Sessions: Plan To Boost Troubled Immigration Courts — But, Concerns Remain That Judicial Hiring Could Again Be Politicized — Those Who Care About Due Process Should Carefully Watch The Results Of The “Streamlined” Judicial Vetting System!

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-one-area-jeff-sessions-and-immigration-advocates-agree-000411

Danny Vinik reports:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed attorneys from the Department of Justice on Tuesday to increase the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, including laws against unlawful entry, human smuggling and identity fraud. It was yet another escalation of the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, and immigrant-rights groups blasted the policy changes as ineffective and potentially illegal.

For all their opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, though, advocates actually back one of the new policies: the increased support for the immigration courts.

Sessions announced that DOJ will seek to add 75 immigration judges to the courts over the next year and will implement reforms to speed up the hiring process. These changes address a real problem with the immigration system—a nearly 600,000-case backlog at the immigration courts—and the move was a rare occasion in which advocates applauded the administration, though they were concerned how Sessions would implement the changes.

“We are very happy at the notion of increasing the amount of immigration judges and being able to address the backlog,” said Jennifer Quigley, an immigration expert at Human Rights First. “But as a senator and now as AG, we’ve always had concerns that Sessions’ motivation is to increase the number of deportations.”

. . . .

Experts largely blame Congress for the backlog, since lawmakers significantly increased resources for immigration enforcement without a commensurate increase in funding for the immigration courts. But in recent years, Congress has increased the number of authorized immigration judges, most recently in 2016 when it provide funding for an additional 55 judges, raising the authorized number from 319 to 374. However, even with enough money, EOIR has struggled to quickly hire judges, as the hiring process can take more than a year and retirements have created additional openings. Currently, there are 312 immigration judges nationwide, a significant increase over a year ago but still far below authorized levels. Trump’s budget blueprint proposed funding 449 judges in fiscal 2018, a significant increase that could find bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.

More important than the request for additional judges, however, may be the hiring reforms. EOIR and DOJ both declined to comment on how the Justice Department was reforming the hiring process for immigration judges. Speaking to border patrol personnel at the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday, Sessions provided few details. “Today, I have implemented a new, streamlined hiring plan,” he said. “It requires just as much vetting as before, but reduces the timeline, reflecting the dire need to reduce the backlogs in our immigration courts.”

Advocates worry that the hiring process could become politicized, with judges brought on who want to implement specific policies instead of fairly enforcing the law. “The idea of onboarding judges quicker and having more judges is a great thing,” said Joshua Breisblatt, a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council. “But we need to see what it looks like, that it won’t be political.” The language in the budget blueprint was particularly concerning, advocates said, because it seemed to indicate that the courts are a tool for increasing deportations rather than a neutral arbiter of immigration claims.

“We were not happy with the way it was framed,” said Quigley.

It’s not an unrealistic concern. Immigration judges are technically employees of the Department of Justice, a structure that inherently creates a conflict of interest, since their job is to rule on immigration cases that are pushed by DOJ prosecutors, whereas most of the judiciary is independent. Advocates and the immigration judges union have long pushed to remove the immigration courts from the DOJ. And during the Bush administration, a DOJ investigation found that several immigration judges received their jobs due to their political connections, a scandal that serves as a warning today.

Despite those concerns, experts hope that Sessions and EOIR will undertake the hiring process in a timely and impartial manner, filling the bench with qualified judges who have enough time to understand the cases before them. As Sandweg said, “It’s something that’s long overdue.” In such a world, the additional judges could reduce the backlog, increasing the number of deportations, while spending more time on complicated asylum cases, giving asylum seekers more time to fairly present their cases and receive careful consideration.

In such a world, it’s possible that both the Trump administration and advocates could come out happy—a scenario almost impossible to imagine today.”

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

Sessions is certainly right to address the ridiculous 18-24 month hiring cycle for U.S. Immigration Judges, and should get credit for making reform one of his top priorities. He also should be credited with focusing attention on the 542,000 case backlog, something that the Obama Administration seemed to have preferred to ignore as it mushroomed in front of their eyes. (As I said in this blog yesterday, I’m not convinced that even the 125 additional Immigration Judges proposed by Sessions over the next two years will effectively address a pending docket of that magnitude: http://wp.me/p8eeJm-FQ. But, it’s a start.)

However, the devil is in the details. And, the details of Session’s “streamlined judicial hiring” have not been made public, although the Attorney General said they were “implemented” on April 11.

Remarkably, I have learned that as of today, April 12, both EOIR Management and the union representing U.S. Immigration Judges (of which I am a retired member) were “totally in the dark” about the contents of the plan. That means it was “hatched’ at the DOJ without any meaningful input from those in the U.S. Immigration Court system or the court’s “stakeholders” — those representing the interests of the hundred of thousands of individuals with cases currently before the court or who might come before the court in the future. That’s troubling. It also appears that members of Congress had not been briefed on the hiring changes.

What’s even more troubling is that it’s not just about the inexcusably slow and bureaucratic hiring practices of the DOJ and EOIR. It’s also about results. During the Obama Administration, although officials claimed that the system was “merit-based” the results suggest that it was anything but.

According to informed sources who have done the math, an amazing 88% of those selected were from government backgrounds and 64% were from ICE, which prosecutes cases before the Immigration Court. I have had reports of numerous superbly qualified individuals from the private sector whose applications were rejected or put on indefinite hold without any explanation.

So, it looks like the many-layered, glacially slow, inefficient, overly bureaucratized process used by the DOJ and EOIR was actually an elaborate “smokescreen” for a system that was heavily weighted toward selecting “government insiders” and against selecting those who had gained experience by representing immigrants or advocating for their rights. The “Appellate Division” of the U.S. Immigration Court, the BIA — which is supposed to be the “top administrative court” in immigration — hasn’t had a judge appointed from outside the Government since 2000, more than 16 years and two full administrations ago!

Based on performance to date, I’m not particularly optimistic that AG Jeff Sessions is going to make the changes necessary to establish a true merit-based system for Immigration Judge hiring that, in turn, will create an immigration judiciary representing more diverse backgrounds and experiences. But, hope springs eternal, and I’d be happy if he proves my skepticism to be wrong.

Only time will tell. But, the quality and composition of the “Sessions era” immigration judiciary is something that everyone who cares about due process and justice in America should watch closely.

PWS

04/12/17

 

Related posts:

  1. TRUMP’S “GONZO” ENFORCEMENT POLICIES PRODUCE MORE REMOVAL ORDERS BUT FEWER ACTUAL DEPORTATIONS! — CRIMINAL DEPORTATIONS FALL AS DHS PICKS ON NON-CRIMINALS! — MINDLESS ABUSE OF ALREADY OVERWHELMED IMMIGRATION COURT DOCKETS ACTUALLY INHIBITS ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE ON CRIMINALS!
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  3. NEW EOIR MEMO ENCOURAGES IMMIGRATION JUDGES TO DUMP ON UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN (“UACS”) – “When In Doubt, Kick ‘em Out” New Motto Of Gonzo’s “Captive Courts!” — We’ve Come A Long Way From “Guaranteeing Fairness And Due Process For All” In A Short Time!
  4. “THE 5-4-1 PLAN FOR DUE PROCESS IN IMMIGRATION COURT” — My Speech To The Association Of Deportation Defense Attorneys, NY City, March 21, 2019

U.S. IMMIGRATON COURTS: She Must Have Had Writer’s Cramp — EOIR Swears In 14 New Judges Appointed By Former AG Lynch — Almost All From Government Backgrounds!

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/pr/executive-office-immigration-review-swears-14-immigration-judges

“FALLS CHURCH, VA – The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) today announced the investiture of 14 new immigration judges. Chief Immigration Judge MaryBeth Keller presided over the investiture during a ceremony held April 7, 2017, at EOIR headquarters in Falls Church, Va.

After a thorough application process, former Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch appointed Justin F. Adams, Edward M. Barcus, Paula J. Donnolo, Lauren T. Farber, Paul M. Habich, Cara O. Knapp, Maria Lurye, Anthony E. Maingot, Sarah B. Mazzie, Matthew E. Morrissey, An Mai Nguyen, Sean D. Santen, Stuart A. Siegel, and Gwendylan E. Tregerman to their new positions.

“We are happy to welcome these 14 appointees to our growing immigration judge corps,” said Keller. “These new immigration judges will enhance the agency’s ability to process detained cases, our highest priority, while also strengthening the agency’s capacity to address its broader pending caseload.”

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

First, congratulations to all of the new U.S. Immigration Judges. While these days, probably nobody at DOJ or EOIR will tell you, the “Vision” of the U.S. Immigration Court is: “Through teamwork and innovation be the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.” Please don’t forget that, and always let fairness and due process be your guide and inspiration!

Read the new U.S. Immigration Judges’ bios in the full press release at the above link. Interestingly, EOIR seems to have stopped furnishing information on the total number of Immigration Judges on the bench. But, by my “rough count,” it’s around 319. Also, by my “rough count” that would leave around 55 existing judicial vacancies in the U.S. Immigration Courts.

While former AG Lynch had a flurry of last minute appointments, the record will reflect that under her leadership, the DOJ & EOIR did an exceptionally poor job of filling new positions and getting additional Immigration Judges on the bench. The last minute appointments and unfilled judicial positions were from a group of additional positions provided to DOJ/EOIR by Congress some time ago. After years of moaning and groaning about lack of judicial positions, the DOJ/EOIR system was unable to deal with success. To state the obvious: If they can’t fill the ones they have now, why give them more?

Also, without taking anything away from the new judges, this set of appointments continues a two-Administration “tradition” of largely excluding qualified individuals from private practice, academia, and NGOs from the Immigration Judiciary. Although they had ample chance to do so, both former Attorney General Eric Holder and Lynch failed to address, and in fact participated in, this patent unfairness which has a tendency to skew due process in the Immigration Court system at both the trial and appellate levels. Shame on them!

I’ll keep saying it:  We need an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court that operates in much the same manner as the Article III Courts! There is simply no justification for the current sad state of the U.S. Immigration Court system where due process and professional court administration have needlessly deteriorated over Administrations of both parties. Both the public and the individuals who depend on the U.S. Immigration Courts for due process deserve better!

PWS

04/11/17

 

Related posts:

  1. “THE ASYLUMIST” INTERVIEWS RETIRED CHIEF IMMIGRATION JUDGE MARYBETH T. KELLER – Chronicling The Rise & Sad Demise Of EOIR: From Protector To Abuser Of Due Process: “Under Director McHenry, the advice of the agency’s career executives was often not even solicited, and did not appear to be valued. His approach caused many to question the soundness of his operational decisions, and his commitment to the mission of the court, as opposed to accommodating the prosecutorial goals of DHS.”
  2. MARCIA BROWN @ NEW REPUBLIC — There Can Be No Due Process Without An Independent Immigration Court Staffed By Qualified Judges!
  3. HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE: The History Of A Flawed Judiciary; The Intentional Tilting Of Asylum Law Against Asylum Seekers; The Farce Of Justice In The Immigration Courts; The Need For An Independent Article I Court!
  4. BUSY KNIGHTS & KNIGHTESSES: The Round Table Speaks Out Again For Due Process & Judicial Independence On The Eve Of House Subcommittee Hearing

“This Is The Trump Era” — Jeff Sessions Visits S. Border — Announces New Emphasis On Immigration Crimes — Although Majority of Feds’ Prosecutions Already Immigraton-Related, Enough Is Never Enough! — “Incarceration Nation” Coming! Sessions Also Seeks 125 New U.S. Immigration Judges Over Next 2 Years — Sessions “Disses” Forensic Science At DOJ!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sessions-lays-out-tough-policy-on-undocumented-who-commit-crimes-1491930183

Aruna Viswanatha reports in the WSJ:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors to pursue harsher charges against undocumented immigrants who commit crimes, or repeatedly cross into the U.S. illegally, and promised to add 125 immigration judges in the next two years to address a backlog of immigration cases.

The moves are part of the administration’s efforts to deter illegal immigration and is meant to target gangs and smugglers, though non-violent migrants could also face more severe prosecutions.

In a memo issued Tuesday, Mr. Sessions instructed prosecutors to make a series of immigration offenses “higher priorities,” including transporting or harboring illegal immigrants, illegally entering or reentering the country, or assaulting immigration enforcement agents.

In remarks to border patrol agents at the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona on Tuesday, Mr. Sessions spoke in stark terms about the threat he said illegal immigration poses.

“We mean criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens,” Mr. Sessions said, according to the text of his prepared remarks. “It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.”

“This is a new era. This is the Trump era,” Mr. Sessions said.

Former prosecutors said they didn’t expect the memo to dramatically impact U.S. attorneys offices along the southern border, which already bring thousands of such cases each year. They said it could impact those further inland, which haven’t historically focused on immigration violations.

In the fiscal year that ended in September 2016, 52% of all federal criminal prosecutions involved immigration-related offenses, according to Justice Department data analyzed by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

. . . .

Immigration advocates said they worried that the memo and tone set by the administration was describing a closer link between criminal behavior and immigration than statistics show.

“We are seeing an over-emphasis on prosecuting, at the federal level, immigration, illegal entry and reentry cases, and far less paid to criminal violations that implicate public safety,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.”

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

On April 8, 2017, Sari Horowitz reported in the Washington Post on how Sessions’s enthusiastic plans to reinstitute the largely discredited “war on drugs” is likely to “jack up” Federal Prison populations:

“Crime is near historic lows in the United States, but Sessions says that the spike in homicides in several cities, including Chicago, is a harbinger of a “dangerous new trend” in America that requires a tough response.
“Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs is bad,” Sessions said to law enforcement officials in a speech in Richmond last month. “It will destroy your life.”

Advocates of criminal justice reform argue that Sessions and Cook are going in the wrong direction — back to a strategy that tore apart families and sent low-level drug offenders, disproportionately minority citizens, to prison for long sentences.

“They are throwing decades of improved techniques and technologies out the window in favor of a failed approach,” said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM).”

. . . .

Cook and Sessions have also fought the winds of change on Capitol Hill, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers recently tried but failed to pass the first significant bill on criminal justice reform in decades.

The legislation, which had 37 sponsors in the Senate, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), and 79 members of the House, would have reduced some of the long mandatory minimum sentences for gun and drug crimes. It also would have given judges more flexibility in drug sentencing and made retroactive the law that reduced the large disparity between sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

The bill, introduced in 2015, had support from outside groups as diverse as the Koch brothers and the NAACP. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) supported it, as well.

But then people such as Sessions and Cook spoke up. The longtime Republican senator from Alabama became a leading opponent, citing the spike in crime in several cities.

“Violent crime and murders have increased across the country at almost alarming rates in some areas. Drug use and overdoses are occurring and dramatically increasing,” said Sessions, one of five members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted against the legislation. “It is against this backdrop that we are considering a bill . . . to cut prison sentences for drug traffickers and even other violent criminals, including those currently in federal prison.”
Cook testified that it was the “wrong time to weaken the last tools available to federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents.”

After GOP lawmakers became nervous about passing legislation that might seem soft on crime, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

“Sessions was the main reason that bill didn’t pass,” said Inimai M. Chettiar, the director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “He came in at the last minute and really torpedoed the bipartisan effort.”

Now that he is attorney general, Sessions has signaled a new direction. As his first step, Sessions told his prosecutors in a memo last month to begin using “every tool we have” — language that evoked the strategy from the drug war of loading up charges to lengthen sentences.

And he quickly appointed Cook to be a senior official on the attorney general’s task force on crime reduction and public safety, which was created following a Trump executive order to address what the president has called “American carnage.”

“If there was a flickering candle of hope that remained for sentencing reform, Cook’s appointment was a fire hose,” said Ring, of FAMM. “There simply aren’t enough backhoes to build all the prisons it would take to realize Steve Cook’s vision for America.”

. . . .

Sessions’s aides stress that the attorney general does not want to completely upend every aspect of criminal justice policy.

“We are not just sweeping away everything that has come before us.” said Robyn Thiemann, the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy, who is working with Cook and has been at the Justice Department for nearly 20 years. “The attorney general recognizes that there is good work out there.”

Still, Sessions’s remarks on the road reveal his continued fascination with an earlier era of crime fighting.

In the speech in Richmond, he said, “Psychologically, politically, morally, we need to say — as Nancy Reagan said — ‘Just say no.’ ”

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

Not surprisingly, Sessions’s actions prompted a spate of critical commentary, the theme of which was the failure of the past “war on drugs” and “Just say no to Jeff Sessions.” You can search them on the internet, but here is a representative example, an excerpt from a posting by Rebecca Bergenstein Joseph in “Health Care Musings:”

“We Can’t Just Say No
Posted on April 9, 2017 by Rebecca Bergenstein Joseph
Three decades ago, Nancy Reagan launched her famous anti-drug campaign when she told American citizens, “Say yes to your life. And when it comes to alcohol and drugs, just say no.” 1 Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions invoked the former First Lady’s legacy in a speech to Virginia law enforcement when he said, “ I think we have too much tolerance for drug use– psychologically, politically, morally. We need to say, as Nancy Reagan said, ‘Just say no.’”2 As our nation is confronted on a daily basis with the tragic effects of the opioid epidemic, it is important that we understand just how dangerous it is to suggest that we return to the ‘just say no’ approach.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the ‘just say no’ curriculum became the dominant drug education program nationwide in the form of DARE.3 The DARE program– Drug Abuse Resistance Education– was developed in 1983 by the Los Angeles police chief in collaboration with a physician, Dr. Ruth Rich. The pair adapted a drug education curriculum that was in the development process at University of Southern California in order to create a program that would be taught by police officers and would teach students to resist the peer pressure to use alcohol and drugs. With the backdrop of the War on Drugs that had continued from the Nixon presidency into the Reagan era, DARE grew quickly. Communities understandably wanted to prevent their children from using alcohol and drugs. The program was soon being used in 75% of schools nationwide and had a multimillion dollar budget.3 In fact, I would bet that many of you reading this are DARE graduates. I certainly am.

It did not take long for there to be research showing that the ‘just say no’ approach used in DARE was not working. By the early 1990s there were multiple studies showing that DARE had no effect on its graduates choices regarding alcohol and drug use.4 The decision to ignore the research about DARE culminated when the National Institute of Justice evaluated the program in 1994, concluded that it was ineffective, and proceeded to not publish this finding. In the 10 years that followed, DARE was subjected to evaluation by the Department of Education, the U.S Surgeon General’s Office, and the Government Accountability Office.4 The combined effect of these evaluations was the eventual transformation of DARE into an evidence-based curriculum, Keepin’ It REAL, which was released in 2011.5 But this only happened after billions of dollars were spent on a program that did not work and millions of students received inadequate drug education.

And yet, here we are again. The top law enforcement officer in our nation is suggesting that we go back to the days where elementary and middle school students were told that all they needed to do was ‘just say no.’”

Read the complete post here:

https://sites.tufts.edu/cmph357/author/rjosep06/

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

Finally, just yesterday, on April 10, 2017, Spenser S. Hsu reported in the Washington Post that Sessions was “canning” the “National Commission on Forensic Science, a roughly 30-member advisory panel of scientists, judges, crime lab leaders, prosecutors and defense lawyers chartered by the Obama administration in 2013” as a consultant to the DOJ on proper forensic standards.

In plain terms, in Session’s haste to rack up more criminal convictions and appear “tough on crime,” the quality of the evidence or the actual guilt or innocence of those charged becomes merely “collateral damage” in the “war on crime.”

Here’s a portion of what Hsu had to say:

“Several commission members who have worked in criminal courts and supported the input of independent scientists said the department risks retreating into insularity and repeating past mistakes, saying that no matter how well-intentioned, prosecutors lack scientists’ objectivity and training.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of New York, the only federal judge on the commission, said, “It is unrealistic to expect that truly objective, scientifically sound standards for the use of forensic science . . . can be arrived at by entities centered solely within the Department of Justice.”

In suspending reviews of past testimony and the development of standards for future reporting, “the department has literally decided to suspend the search for the truth,” said Peter S. Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, which has reported that nearly half of 349 DNA exonerations involved misapplications of forensic science. “As a consequence innocent people will languish in prison or, God forbid, could be executed,” he said.

However, the National District Attorneys Association, which represents prosecutors, applauded the end of the commission and called for it to be replaced by an Office of Forensic Science inside the Justice Department. Disagreements between crime lab practitioners and defense community representatives on the commission had reduced it to “a think tank,” yielding few accomplishments and wasted tax dollars, the association said.

The commission was created after critical reports by the National Academy of Sciences about a dearth of standards and funding for crime labs, examiners and researchers, problems it partly traced to law enforcement control over the system.

Although examiners had long claimed to be able to match pattern evidence — such as with firearms or bite marks — to a source with “absolute” or “scientific” certainty, only DNA analysis had been validated through statistical research, scientists reported.

In one case, the FBI lab in 2005 abandoned its four-decade-long practice of tracing bullets to a specific manufacturer’s batch through chemical analyses after its method were scientifically debunked. In 2015, the department and bureau reported that nearly every examiner in an elite hair-analysis unit gave scientifically flawed or overstated testimony in 90 percent of cases for two decades before 2000.

The cases include 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison.”

Here is a link to the full article by Hsu: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/sessions-orders-justice-dept-to-end-forensic-science-commission-suspend-review-policy/2017/04/10/2dada0ca-1c96-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?utm_term=.97b814db4eac&wpisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

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

I “get” that some of the advocacy groups quoted in these articles could be considered “interested parties” and/or “soft on crime” in the world of hard-core prosecutors. But, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and the Koch brothers “soft on crime?” Come on, man!

Capitalist theory says that as long as there is a nearly insatiable “market” in the United States for illegal drugs, and a nearly inexhaustible “supply” abroad, there is going to be drug-related crime. Harsher sentences might increase risks and therefore “jack up market prices” for “consumers” of “product,” while creating “new job opportunities” for “middlemen” who will have to take (and be compensated for) more risks and invest in more expensive business practices (such as bribery, or manipulation of the legal system) to get the product “to market.”

But, you can bet that until we deal with the “end causes” in a constructive manner, neither drug trafficking nor trafficking in undocumented individuals is likely to change much in the long run.

Indeed, authorities have been cutting off heads, hands, feet, and other appendages, drawing and quartering, hanging, crucifying, shooting, gassing, injecting, racking, mutilating, imprisoning in dungeons, transporting, banishing, and working to death those who have committed crimes, both serious and not so serious, for centuries. But, strangely, such harsh practices, while certainly diminishing the humanity of those who inflict them, have had little historical effect on crime. The most obvious effects have been more dead and damaged individuals, overcrowded prisons, and angry disaffected families.

125 new U.S. Immigration Judges should be good news for the beleaguered U.S. Immigration Courts. But, even assuming that Congress goes along, at the glacial pace the DOJ and EOIR have been hiring Immigration Judges over the past two Administrations, it could take all four years of Trump’s current term to get them on board and actually deciding cases.

More bad news: Added to the approximately 375 Immigration Judges currently authorized (but, only about 319 actually on the bench), that would bring the total to 500 Immigration Judges. Working at the current 750 completions/year (50% above the “optimum” of 500 completions/year) the currently authorized 375 Immigration Judges could complete fewer than 300,000 cases/year consistent with due process — barely enough to keep up with historic receipts, let alone the “enhanced enforcement” promised by the Trump Administration. They would not have to capacity to address the current “backlog” of approximately 550,000 cases.

If receipts remained “flat,” the 125 “new” Immigration Judges contemplated by AG Sessions could go to work on on the backlog. But, it would take them about 6 years to wipe out the 550,000 case existing backlog.

PWS

04/11/17

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  2. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  3. NICKOLE MILLER IN THE WASHPOST: The Truth About Vulnerable Asylum Seekers Refutes Sessions’s False Narrative!
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: HIS HIGHLY DISINGENUOUS “TRIBUTE” TO DR. KING WHILE ACTIVELY UNDERMINING MLK’S VISION OF RACIAL EQUALITY IN AMERICA OUTRAGES CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES! — Hollow Words From An Empty Man!

“THE GIBSON REPORT” — From “Rolling Stone” To The “Ft. Worth Star Telegram” — Immigration Links For All!

GibsonRpt041017

For those who don’t know her, the amazing Elizabeth Gibson is one of my all-star Georgetown Law Refugee Law & Policy students, a distinguished alum of the Arlington Immigration Court intern program, and a former Judicial Law Clerk at the New York Immigration Court. She now works as an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow/Staff Attorney with the Immigrant Protection Unit at the New York Legal Assistance Group.

Elizabeth was good enough to make her weekly news link update for April 10, 2017 available to us. In reformatting it for the blog, I might have lost the “connectivity” for several links. However, I’m sure you will find it an amazing resource. Great job Elizabeth! Thanks for all you do!

PWS

04-10-17

Related posts:

  1. THE GIBSON REPORT — 04-09-19 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Project — Why Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan Should End Up In Jail If He Follows Trump’s Unlawful & Unconstitutional Plans!
  2. BIA’S “GONZO HIRING PLAN” & OTHER TALES FROM THE TRUMP REGIME TWILIGHT ZONE – The Gibson Report – 01-20-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group
  3. BIA SEEKS TO REPEAL CAT BY MISINTERPRETATION; MUSALO’S FACT FINDING MISSION TO EL SALVADOR SHOWS MALICIOUS ABSURDITY OF REGIME’S BOGUS “SAFE THIRD COUNTRY” ASSAULT ON HUMAN RIGHTS; 9th & 11th CIRCUITS CONTINUE TO TANK ON THE RULE OF LAW; & OTHER LEGAL NEWS ABOUT THE WHITE NATIONALIST REGIME & THE RESISTANCE — The Gibson Report — 12-10-19 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group
  4. A VERY TRUMPY CHRISTMAS:  PERVERTING ASYLUM REGS; USING VULNERABLE KIDS AS BAIT; ORBITING REFUGEES TO DEADLY ASYLUM-FREE ZONES; SCREWING WITH LEGAL IMMIGRANTS; DEATH CAMPS; STAR CHAMBERS; MORE PROSECUTORS AS JUDGES; & OTHER “GIFTS” FROM THE REGIME & ITS ARTICLE III JUDICIAL ENABLERS — Get The “Holiday Horror Update” On All Of America’s Human Rights Abuses & Gratuitous Cruelty From The Gibson Report 12-23-19