🏴‍☠️☠️🤯 NO EXCUSE: BIDEN’S BUMBLING BORDER POLICY MOCKS LAW, MORPHS INTO TRUMPIST RACIALLY-DRIVEN DETERRENCE! — Experts Outraged, Demand Withdrawal Of Wrong-Headed Proposals! — “The answer to long backlogs in asylum processing, and the associated delays in granting meritorious claims and denying unmeritorious ones, is not to devise new ways to shut the door to refugees. It is to allocate adequate resources to the asylum system: to ensure there are enough asylum officers, immigration judges, and administrative staff to fairly, humanely, and expeditiously hear and adjudicate asylum claims,” Says USCIS Asylum Officers’ Union!

Caleb Ecarma
Caleb Ecarma
Staff Reporter
Vanity Fair
PHOTO: Twitter

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/its-getting-harder-tell-difference-between-bidens-trumps-border-failures?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_HIVE_041923&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd67c363f92a41245df49eb&cndid=48297443&hasha=8a1f473740b253d8fa4c23b066722737&hashb=26cd42536544e247751ec74095d9cedc67e77edb&hashc=eb7798068820f2944081a20180a0d3a94e025b4a93ea9ae77c7bbe00367c46ef&esrc=newsletteroverlay&source=EDT_VYF_NEWSLETTER_0_HIVE_ZZ&utm_campaign=VF_HIVE_041923&utm_term=VYF_Hive

Caleb Ecarma reports for Vanity Fair:

More than two years have passed since Joe Biden took office on the promise of a more humane approach to immigration and the border. But in many ways, the president has struggled to distinguish himself from his hard-line predecessor: His administration has expanded Title 42, the anti-immigration loophole authorized by Donald Trump; failed to resolve the family separation crisis; and proposed a new spin on Trump’s “transit ban” that would make a large percentage of migrants ineligible for asylum.

What’s more, the Biden administration has also apparently failed to adequately protect thousands of migrant children from labor trafficking inside the US. On Monday, The New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services did not intervene after receiving repeated warnings about underage migrants the agency had sent to sponsors who then forced them to work grueling hours in dangerous conditions. While the department is required by law to vet sponsors to help ensure that children placed in their care will not be trafficked or exploited, those vetting requirements reportedly went by the wayside in 2021 amid a scramble to home those children.

The Times noted that at least five HHS staffers have said they were pushed out of their roles after sounding the alarm about child safety concerns. Jallyn Sualog, a former HHS official tasked with overseeing the agency’s response to unaccompanied migrant children, told the paper that she went to great lengths to warn her superiors that children were being put at risk. “They just didn’t want to hear it,” said Sualog, who said she was moved to a different post in 2021 after filing a complaint with the department’s internal watchdog. (She later accused the department of retaliation before settling with the agency and resigning.)

The paper traced the crisis back to Susan Rice, the president’s domestic-policy adviser. In 2021, as Rice was attempting to move throngs of unaccompanied migrant children from HHS shelters to homes, she and her aides reportedly received a memo detailing accounts of abusive sponsors but did nothing. (White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told the Times that Rice “did not see the memo and was not made aware of its contents.”

Since the summer of that year, the number of migrant children being trafficked or exploited has skyrocketed. Monthly calls to the HHS reporting trafficking, neglect, or abuse have more than doubled in the two years since Biden entered office, per the Times.

. . . .

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

Read Caleb’s full article at the link.

Two years of ignoring experts, appointing the wrong folks, and NOT FIXING what could and should have been a success in showing how robust, legal, properly generous, refugee and asylum programs, staffed and run by experts, could be a model of good government! Go figure!

The Trumpist GOP “plays” to a right wing extremist base — wedded to un-American and generally unpopular “culture wars” targeting a wide range of groups who basically are America’s future!

By contrast, the Biden Administration “disses, and runs away from” key parts of the Dem Coalition whose humane practical expertise and leadership should be at the core of the message. It’s certainly not that Biden’s misguided “Miller Lite” approach to asylum seekers and children at the border has “peeled off” any Trumpist support or is going to be a “winner” among independent voters!

How bad are the Biden Administration’s proposals? They generated an amazing 51,000+ public comments, the vast majority in opposition, despite a ridiculously short 30-day comment period apparently intended to “squelch” dissent. 

Human Rights First has helpfully “catalogued” and summarized the opposition comments from experts, including, of course, our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges and the USCIS Asylum Officers’ Union!  https://humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Asylum_ban_comments_summary1.pdf

It reads like a “who’s who” of the Dem Social Justice and Racial Equity Coalition! The Dems have a great message to deliver on social justice, immigration, tolerence, women’s rights, individual freedom, and immigration’s positive impact on the economy! Practical, humane, sensible immigration policies are much more “politically salable” on the “grass roots level,” even in some surprising places, than the out of touch “policy wonks” at the Biden White House recognize! See, e.g., https://www.salon.com/2023/04/14/immigration-reformers-quietly-rack-up-series-of-wins-at-state-level/;  https://immigrationimpact.com/2023/03/10/state-bills-banning-immigration-detention-centers/.

Robust, generous, properly staffed, legal refugee and asylum admissions, under existing law, are an essential part of America’s legal immigration system. It both benefits many communities in America and is essential for America’s economic future. See, e.g., https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/4/17/bacow-ace-conference/; https://www.ft.com/content/9974c765-3258-4b5c-a244-95ee6fda419f.

Dems need to stop “running scared” on social justice issues and promote American values including the benefits of immigration and the importance of robust, generous, orderly legal asylum and refugee programs! See, e.g., https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/18/biden-democracy-fight-republican-extremism/ (Perry Bacon, Jr. gets everything right in his critique of Biden’s failure take on GOP extremism, EXCEPT for his glaring omission of immigrants rights as a primary “driver” of social justice in America and vice versa).

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-20-23

😵TIRED OF LISTENING TO POLITICOS & THE MEDIA TOSSING KIDS’ LIVES AROUND LIKE POLITICAL FOOTBALLS? 🏈 — Here’s The Antidote! — Spend Some “Quality Time” With The Experts, 👩🏻‍🎓Wendy Young Of KIND & Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr @ Cornell Law — Get The Facts & Informed Analysis, Not Myths & Fear-Mongering!😎👍🏼🗽

Wendy Young
Wendy Young
President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

 

Protecting unaccompanied children at the US-Mexico border

Cornell Law School and the Cornell Migrations Initiative invite you to an upcoming virtual talk with Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, on Tuesday April 13.Details and registration info below.

Tuesday April 13, 12:15-1:15 pm ET

Wendy Young, President of KIND (Kids In Need of Defense)

A Fresh Focus on the US-Mexico Border: Protection of Unaccompanied Children Grounded in Systemic Reforms

Wendy will discuss recent developments on the U.S.-Mexico border and the need to reform our broken asylum system, especially for unaccompanied children.

Wendy’s talk is free and open to the public. Register at https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dpOtKElOQsCh6KBQPYTcLw

Stephen Yale-Loehr

Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School

Faculty Director, Immigration Law and Policy Program

Faculty Fellow, Migrations Initiative

Co-director, Asylum Appeals Clinic

Co-Author, Immigration Law & Procedure Treatise

Of Counsel, Miller Mayer

Phone: 607-379-9707

e-mail: SWY1@cornell.edu

Twitter: @syaleloehr

Check out my Green Card Stories book:

http://www.greencardstories.com.

See more of my books at amazon.com/author/stephenyaleloehr

You can access my papers on SSRN at: http://ssrn.com/author=109503

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

I’m going to ask the obvious question: Why is Wendy Young, probably America’s leading expert on the rights and treatment of migrant children, giving speeches rather than helping Vice President Harris lead the Biden Administration’s response from the “inside” and being the face of the Administration’s public profile? 

Sports fans, it’s very simple: You can’t win the game with your superstars 🌟 on the bench, or not even on your team! The stunning failure of the Biden Administration to tap the available, recognized experts from the NDPA to re-establish due process, the rule of law, common sense, and humanity in our human rights, immigration, and civil rights policies is both mind-boggling and infuriating!

It’s “designed for failure,” an all too familiar scenario when Dems take on immigration, human rights, and children’s rights. And, not surprisingly, that’s what’s happening so far, particularly in the dysfunctional Immigration Courts, which could be leading the way toward a functional asylum system, and real due process for migrant women and children, but instead continue their “due process death spiral” ☠️⚰️ under Judge Garland!

Let’s hope that Wendy & Steve can find some “light at the end of the (seemingly endless) tunnel” for us! 

One thing even I know: We won’t be able to mindlessly enforce, imprison, deny, abuse, prosecute, kill, lie, deter, or deport our way to an equilibrium! But, as in the past, that doesn’t mean we won’t spend time, money, and human lives recycling all of these past “enforcement only” failures!

More forced migrants will enter the United States! That’s what forced migrants do, until we deal rationally and constructively with the conditions that force them to migrate! The fact that we haven’t been able to do so for the past half-century suggests to me the some different thinking and approaches from some “new faces,” not previously seen in government, is required.

That’s not to say that solving the problem doesn’t involve the private sector. I suspect it does, at least in some significant way. Why not ask folks like Bill & Melinda Gates, McKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos), Warren Buffett, Charles Koch, Diane Hendrickson, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Jose Andres — a philosophically and politically diverse group of highly successful individuals and thinkers to be sure — how they might go about investing in and releasing the positive power of human migration, educating the world’s younger generation for success, addressing racism, and creating viable, mutually beneficial economic opportunities outside our borders while protecting the environment? A tall order to be sure! But, these are all folks with records of thinking and acting creatively to solve problems, overcome challenges, create jobs and opportunities, and succeed at the highest levels.

Our choice as a nation is whether to comply with our Constitution, the Refugee Act of 1980, and our international obligations by setting up a fair, generous, and efficient legal system to screen forced migrants and decide who is entitled to legal protection and admission; or do we continue to ignore the laws and human decency by turning the system over to smugglers and cartels to run as part of a profitable and exploitative extralegal migration apparatus feeding into an exploitable underground population. The latter was the Trump Administration’s approach and the one touted by White Nationalist restrictionists, mostly in the GOP. However, even a few Dems seem pretty happy with it.

GOP politicos and the nativist media are apoplectic that the Biden Administration is spending $60 million per week ($ 3 billion annualized) on fulfilling our legal duties to migrant children. (I guess their preferred alternative would be to let them die in Mexico or their native countries — out of sight, out of mind).Yet, that pales in comparison with the $11 billion in taxpayer funds Trump wasted on his bogus “wall,” some of it misappropriated and many millions doled out in legally questionable contracts. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiN09LI5PPvAhXIKVkFHfjcAycQFjAAegQIAhAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2020%2F01%2F19%2F797319968%2F-11-billion-and-counting-trumps-border-wall-would-be-the-world-s-most-costly&usg=AOvVaw1WBkwkyRq-FwNma0CUt3pm

The GOP is heartless, lawless, and morally degraded. The Dems are clueless and leaderless on immigration and human rights. Neither side pays attention to experts with the skills necessary to rebuild immigration and honor human rights obligations. That’s a dangerous combination. And, it’s the reason why children are needlessly suffering, and will continue to do so, “on our watch” — until we harness the knowledge and skills of those actually capable of making things better!

And, for sure, thousands of desperate, often terrified, tired, hungry kids are no threat whatsoever to our “national security.” Those threats, entirely from home-grown right wing thugs, materialized on January 6 and are now embodied and fanned by the “insurrectionist wing” of the GOP. No wonder hacks like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Tom Cotton want to focus attention elsewhere and pick on defenseless brown-skinned children!

Death On The Rio Grande
“Who needs a fair, functioning, asylum system at legal ports of entry? The GOP has the ‘final solution’ for families fleeing for their lives.” PHOTO: Julia Le Duc/Associated Press

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-10-21

RISKING LIVES TO KEEP THE DEPORTATION RAILWAY RUNNING — FOR UNACCOMPANIED KIDS! — “It is inexplicable and dangerous that the Trump administration has insisted that detained unaccompanied children are still required to go to court,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense.” — Julia Preston Reports For The Marshall Project

Julia Preston
Julia Preston
American Journalist
The Marshall Project
Wendy Young
Wendy Young
President, Kids In Need of Defense (“KIND”)

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/10/migrant-children-still-face-speedy-deportation-hearings-in-covid19-hotspots

Julia writes:

They are children who were caught crossing the southwest border without papers and sent to migrant shelters in New York when the coronavirus was silently spreading. Now the city is a pandemic epicenter in lockdown, but the Trump administration is pressing ahead with their deportation cases, forcing the children to fight in immigration court to stay.

In two courthouses in the center of the besieged city, hearings for unaccompanied children—migrants who were apprehended without a parent—are speeding forward. The U.S. Department of Justice, which controls the immigration courts, has said it has no plan to suspend them.

This week an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a teenage single mother with an infant were preparing for imminent court dates and deadlines in New York, lawyers representing them said. With children trapped indoors in shelters and foster-care homes, many young migrants who don’t have lawyers may not even be aware of ongoing court cases that could quickly end with orders for them to be deported.

Hearings for unaccompanied children are also proceeding in courts in other COVID-19 hotspots, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Boston.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency in charge of the immigration courts, has rejected calls from judges, prosecutors and immigration lawyers to shut down courts nationwide. Although hearings for immigrants who are not detained have been suspended through May 1, cases of people in detention are going forward at the same accelerated pace as before the pandemic.

That includes many unaccompanied children. Since last year, Trump administration officials have instructed the courts to treat those children as detained if they are in shelters or foster care under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, a federal agency. Immigration judges are under pressure to complete detained cases within 60 days—warp speed in immigration court—with no exception for children.

Across the country, about 3,100 unaccompanied children are currently in the custody of the refugee agency. Many have run from deadly violence and abuse at home and hope to find safety with family members in the United States. The demands for them to meet fast-moving court requirements are causing alarm among lawyers, caregivers and families.

“It is inexplicable and dangerous that the Trump administration has insisted that detained unaccompanied children are still required to go to court,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND, which helps provide lawyers for unaccompanied children. Unlike in criminal courts, in immigration court children have no right to a lawyer paid by the government if they cannot afford one.

On April 8, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the immigration bar, and other legal groups asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order to force the Justice Department to suspend in-person hearings of detained immigrants during the pandemic.

Justice Department officials say they are holding hearings for immigrants in detention, including for children, so they can get their cases decided and perhaps be freed quickly.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Julia’s report at the link. 

The idea, as DOJ claims, that this is being done to facilitate the “freeing” of kids is preposterous on its face.

First, there is nothing stopping them from arranging placements for children without the Immigration Court hearings being completed. It used to be done all the time.

Second, the DOJ has intentionally and unethically rewritten asylum laws through “precedents” aimed primarily at making it harder to qualify for asylum. This abuse of process particularly targets those fleeing persecution resulting from various types of systematic government and societal violence in Central America. The approval rates for these types of cases have fallen to minuscule levels under Trump.

Third, no child has any chance of succeeding in Immigration Court without a lawyer. Almost all lawyers who represent children in Immigration Court serve “pro bono” — or work for NGOs who can only provide minimal salaries. 

Yet, the Administration is making these lawyers risk their health and safety, while artificially accelerating the process, all of which actively and aggressively discourages representation. 

Added to that is the constant “Aimless Docket Reshuffling,” with Immigration Courts closing, reopening, and re-closing on a moment’s notice and dockets constantly being rearranged as judges, court support staff, interpreters, and DHS lawyers fall ill.

The Administration could work with groups like KIND and other NGOs to arrange placements, and schedule hearings in a manner that promotes health and safety for everyone while maximizing due process. But, the Administration refuses to do this. 

Instead, those seeking to inject sanity, common sense, best practices, and human decency into the process are forced to sue the Administration in Federal Court. This further dissipates and diverts already scarce legal resources that could have been used to actually represent children in Immigration Court and arrange safe placements for them.

Finally, as I have noted previously, the Administration has simply suspended the operation of the Constitution and the rule of law at the borders. This means that thousands, including unaccompanied children, are “orbited into the void” without any process whatsoever or any effort to ascertain their situations or best interests.

All of this gives lie to the Administration’s bogus claim that this is about looking out for the best interests of these kids. No, it’s about maximizing cruelty, destroying lives (considered an effective and acceptable “deterrent” in nativist circles), and carrying out a noxious racist White Nationalist restrictionist immigration agenda.

And, to date, Congress and the Federal Courts, both of which have the power to put an end to this disgraceful, unlawful, and unconstitutional conduct have been largely “MIA.”

Nevertheless, thanks to courageous and dedicated journalists like Julia and organizations like KIND, a public record is being made. While those responsible for implementing and enabling these abuses directed at the “most vulnerable of the vulnerable” among us are likely to escape legal accountability, they will eventually be tried and found wanting in the “court of history.”

Due Process Forever! Trump’s Child Abuse Never!

PWS

04-10-20

BIA “JUST SAYS NO” TO “ONCE A UAC, ALWAYS A UAC” — Matter of M-A-C-O-, 27 I&N Dec. 477 (BIA 2018)

https://go.usa.gov/xPNUE

Matter of M-A-C-O-, 27 I&N Dec. 477 (BIA 2018)

BIA HEADNOTE:

An Immigration Judge has initial jurisdiction over an asylum application filed by a respondent who was previously determined to be an unaccompanied alien child but who turned 18 before filing the application.

PANEL:  BIA APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGES COLE & WENDTLAND; JUDGE CROSSETT, TEMPORARY BIA APPELLATE IMMIGRATION JUDGE

OPINION BY:  JUDGE CROSSETT

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

When I was a sitting Judge at the Arlington Immigration Court: 1) I generally accepted the DHS designation of who was a UAC; and 2) I followed the general maxim that “once a UAC, always a UAC.” Guess I was wrong on both counts. Interestingly, I don’t remember any real disputes between the ICE Assistant Chief Counsel and the private bar on these points. I guess times have changed (or my recollection has faded).

PWS

10-16-18

 

TRAC: Many Unaccompanied Minors Remain Unrepresented In U.S. Immigration Court, Thus Drastically Diminishing Their Chances Of Success

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/482/

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. Despite a dramatic drop-off in new Immigration Court cases involving unaccompanied children (UAC) this year, the backlog of pending children’s cases has continued to rise. The latest case-by-case court data show that the court backlog of these children’s cases reached an all-time high of 88,069 at the end of August 2017. The current backlog of 88,069 represents four times the number of new UAC cases that reached the court during the first eleven months of FY 2017.

Litigation on some UAC cases necessitate complex applications for relief that may involve other government agencies and can stretch on for several years. There are still 16,693 cases pending that began during FY 2014. However the largest number of UAC cases still pending were initiated during the last two years.

Previous research has shown that individuals who have an attorney have much higher odds of success in Immigration Court. Despite many initiatives to increase the availability of representation in children’s cases, still nearly three out of ten children whose cases began during FY 2015 were unrepresented. (A total of 61 percent of these cases have already been decided.) Although with additional time some children may be able to locate attorneys, the current figure rises to four out of every ten children who remain unrepresented for cases that began during FY 2016, and jumps to three out of four for cases that originated during FY 2017.

For the full report, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/482/

For additional details see the accompanying free web-based tool which provides access to the data TRAC has compiled on these cases:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/juvenile/

In addition, many of TRAC’s free query tools – which track the court’s overall backlog, new DHS filings, court dispositions and much more – have now been updated through August 2017. For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

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

I go back top my blog from yesterday noting former Obama OIL Honcho Leon Fresco’s court argument that counsel was not necessary for due process in cases involving children in Immigraton Court. Simply not true!

Whatever happens with unrepresented children in Immigration Court, it isn’t due process, except in rare cases. We should all be ashamed that two consecutive Administrations have failed “to do the right thing” with children’s due process rights. It’s not about cost, convenience, magnets, or any other such BS. It’s about due process, fairness, justice, and ultimately our Constitutional system and human decency.

PWS

09-28-17