"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
On the eve of a U.S. presidential election year and under the shadow of wars in Ukraine and Gaza, asylum seekers and refugees have become chips on the Capitol Hill bargaining table.
What risks being lost in this high-stakes game is a recognition that fundamental human rights are not negotiable, including “the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution” enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Read the rest of Bill’s article at the link.
Echoes what many of have saying for a long time! The problem is that the politicos of both parties have abandoned due process (except as it applies to them personally or to their cronies) and human rights.
Amy E. Pope Director General International Organization for Migration PHOTO: IOMFilippo Grandi United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees PHOTO: UNHCR
Pope is the Director General (DG) of the International Organization for Migration; Grandi is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
F
rom the sands of the Sahel to the waters of the Mediterranean, from the wilderness of the Darien in Central America to the Bay of Bengal, millions of refugees and migrants journey along routes that are synonymous with desperation, exploitation and lost lives. As the heads of the two U.N. agencies that protect and support people on the move, we believe this is one of the great global challenges of our time.
The loudest political response has been to claim that only tougher action can resolve it. Most recently, a number European states have announced plans to “offshore” or simply deport asylum seekers and/or make conditions around immigration and asylum more hostile.
Such plans are increasingly in vogue. They are also wrong. They overly concentrate on deterrence, control and law enforcement, and disregard the fundamental right to seek asylum. This approach is ineffective and irresponsible, leaving people stranded or compelling them to take even greater risks.
We do not want to understate the scale of the challenge created by today’s population movements. But to meet it, bigger thinking and bolder leadership are needed. The right strategy would tackle every stage of the journey, through a comprehensive and route-based approach of engagement. So, what should such a strategy look like?
First, we need to address the issues that compel people to leave home in the first place. Resolving conflicts, improving security, reinforcing human rights, providing sustained and reliable financial support to boost growth and resilience—all address the root causes of displacement and migration by investing in people’s futures. Failing to make these investments and cutting development aid are false economies.
Nonetheless, millions of people have no choice but to leave home—protracted conflicts, widescale rights abuses, intolerable poverty, and the devastating effects of climate change are just some of the causes. Yet the same point applies: offer hope and opportunity and people will take it.
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Two ingredients are essential for our proposals to succeed: cooperation and real responsibility-sharing between governments, even in these divisive times; and attention to every part of the journey. An approach focused mainly on deterrence will fail—indeed, it is already failing.
“Offer hope and opportunity and people will take it!” That’s essentially what the Supremes said 35 years ago in the landmark decision INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca requiring a suitably generous interpretation and application of the international “refugee” definition that also governs asylum.
Over the next several decades, slow but noticeable progress was made toward “realizing the full promise of Cardoza.” At one point, largely as a result of some Court of Appeals interventions, and a few positive BIA precedents granting asylum in the mid to late 1990’s, the “combined protection granted rate” for asylum, withholding, and CAT by EOIR, the primary precedent-setter and adjudicator of asylum law in the Executive Branch, exceeded 60% for those actually able to get to merits hearings in the somewhat haphazard system.
However, over the past several Administrations most of that progress has been reversed, sometimes intentionally, other times negligently. The dysfunction, mounting backlogs, poor precedents, lack of asylum expertise, endless “any reason to deny gimmicks,” and the dreaded “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” have made a mockery of justice for asylum seekers at EOIR. It has also generated a tidal wave of failure and mindless attempts by the USG to evade the rule of law and their responsibilities to fairly adjudicate asylum claims that goes far beyond our borders.
None of the nativist, restrictionist, proposals now being discussed in the Senate would help this situation! Indeed, they would undoubtedly make everything worse in the long run! They will also compromise our national security and enrich and embolden human smugglers and cartels. Nativist deterrence is definitely a “lose-lose proposition” even if many U.S. politicos are unwilling or unable to admit that!
In many ways, the “head in the sand” approach of prosperous nations to human migration reminds me of their past attempts to deny or ignore the effect of climate change — something that is directly related to forced migration and not adequately addressed by the post WW II refugee framework.
I was heartened to see among the recommendations in this article:
But this is not just about policies and strategies. It means engaging more closely with the people in mixed movements, such as offering practical and legal advice on accessing protection, to guidance on applying for third-country options. Such a chain of engagement might require new, bespoke models of collaboration but, if done strategically, would address a range of situations.\
Volunteer retired judges from various State and Federal systems could potentially assist the USG and NGOs by advance screening applicants, inside and outside the U.S., for asylum with an eye toward helping individuals make good choices and directing those unable to meet the current refugee and asylum criteria to humane alternatives. It’s exactly the type of new, creative, “model of collaboration” (and cost efficiency) that the authors recommend!
Given the current state of the world, with active wars on several fronts, and many corrupt and/or repressive governments, it’s highly likely that forced migration will continue to increase in the foreseeable future. That makes it essential that developed nations work with each other and humanitarian experts on viable, durable solutions that recognize the complexity, the opportunities, and the inevitability of human migration.
On Meet the Press today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spouted virtually every “border myth” in the book, without much effective pushback from moderator Kristen Welker. In particular, Welker continued her practice of not featuring any experts who actually work with forced migrants at the border. Meanwhile, Graham was unwilling to condemn Trump’s Hitlerian language about immigrants “poisoning the blood” despite numerous opportunities by Welker for him to do so.
What Graham didn’t do, and Welker didn’t press him on, was establish any connection between eliminating asylum and either reducing terrorist threats or fighting drug smuggling which has been shown time and again to have little or nothing to do with individuals struggling to get appointments through “CBP One” or turning themselves in to CBP upon entry to submit to asylum screening.
Additionally, Graham continued to repeat, without evidence (other than one lame anecdote), the nativist claim that almost nobody coming to the border has a legitimate fear of return. That contradicts almost all reports from those who actually work with forced migrants at the border and elsewhere. It’s also remarkable because the vast majority of those who have been allowed into the U.S. in the past year have not had an opportunity to document and present their claims in the fair merits hearing required by law. Yet the “border debate” remains largely one-sided and reality free!
That’s not to minimize the failure of the Biden Administration to heed expert advice and make major administrative, personnel, and expertise changes in the asylum adjudication system and the Immigration Courts on “Day One.” Nor does it excuse their failure to set up an organized, mutually beneficial, system for resettling those screened the into the country away from border points of entry.
Again, the absence of coherent rational discussion of asylum adjudication by experts by Meet the Press and other so-called “mainstream media” is both telling and disturbing. Certainly, internationally-recognized experts like Filippo Grande and Amy Pope must be available to Welker. Why don’t we ever hear from them?
Demand that Congress and the Biden Administration stop the toxic nonsense of “trading” the lives and rights of forced migrants for bombs and weapons to fight foreign wars. It’s time to get serious about developing immigration and refugee policies that operate in the “real world” of human migration, eschew expensive, cruel, proven to fail “deterrence only,” and give primacy to the humanity and rights of migrants and the opportunities they present for our world’s future!
Melissa Del Bosque Border Reporter PHOTO: Melissadelbosque.comCaitlyn Yates Fellow Strauss Center for International Law & Security PHOTO: Strauss Center
This podcast from Melissa Del Bosque of The Border Chronicle and Caitlyn Yates, who actually works with migrants in the Darien Gap, gives real life perspective on the humanitarian crisis and all the reasons why more cruelty, punishment, and deadly deterrence isn’t going to solve the flow of forced migrants. But, unhappily, policy makers aren’t interested in the voices of those who actually have experience with forced migrants, nor are they interested in learning from the forced migrants themselves — a logical — if constantly ignored — starting point for making sound policy decisions!
Migration and human rights experts have excelled in court and academia. Yet, they have been consigned to wander the political wilderness, their wisdom, expertise, and real world solutions are routinely ignored or mindlessly rejected by both political parties. Colmar – Unterlinden Museum – The Isenheim Altarpiece 1512-16 by Matthias Grünewald (ca 1470-1528) – Visit of Saint Anthony the Great to Saint Paul the Hermit in the Wilderness Creative Commons
Four “takeaways” on what a consensus on migration should be:
Human migration is real;
Forced migration is largely beyond the unilateral control of any one nation;
Deterrence alone won’t stop migration;
More legal pathways for migration are necessary.
We’re a long way from that needed consensus right now!
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden is taking a more active role in Senate negotiations about changes to the immigration system that Republicans are demanding in exchange for providing money to Ukraine in its fight against Russia and Israel for the war with Hamas.
The Democratic president has said he is willing to make “significant compromises on the border” as Republicans block the wartime aid in Congress. The White House is expected to get more involved in talks this week as the impasse over changes to border policy has deepened and the money remaining for Ukraine has dwindled.
Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who is leading the negotiations, pointed to the surge of people entering the U.S. from Mexico and said “it is literally spiraling out of control.”
But many immigration advocates, including some Democrats, say some of the changes being proposed would gut protections for people who desperately need help and would not really ease the chaos at the border.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democratic bargainer, said the White House would take a more active role in the talks. But he also panned Republican policy demands so far as “unreasonable.”
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Critics say the problem is that most people do not end up getting asylum when their case finally makes it to immigration court. But they say migrants know that if they claim asylum, they essentially will be allowed to stay in America for years.
“People aren’t necessarily coming to apply for asylum as much to access that asylum adjudication process,” said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration court judge and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for less immigration in the U.S.
Some of what lawmakers are discussing would raise the bar that migrants need to meet during that initial credible fear interview. Those who do not meet it would be sent home.
But Paul Schmidt, a retired immigration court judge who blogs about immigration court issues, said the credible fear interview was never intended to be so tough. Migrants are doing the interview soon after arriving at the border from an often arduous and traumatizing journey, he said. Schmidt said the interview is more of an “initial screening” to weed out those with frivolous asylum claims.
Schmidt also questioned the argument that most migrants fail their final asylum screening. He said some immigration judges apply overly restrictive standards and that the system is so backlogged that it is hard to know exactly what the most recent and reliable statistics are.
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WHAT MIGHT THESE CHANGES DO?
Much of the disagreement over these proposed changes comes down to whether people think deterrence works.
Arthur, the former immigration court judge, thinks it does. He said changes to the credible fear asylum standards and restrictions on the use of humanitarian parole would be a “game changer.” He said it would be a “costly endeavor” as the government would have to detain and deport many more migrants than today. But, he argued, eventually the numbers of people arriving would drop.
But others, like Schmidt, the retired immigration court judge, say migrants are so desperate, they will come anyway and make dangerous journeys to evade Border Patrol.
“Desperate people do desperate things,” he said.
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Ignoring both the powerful forces that drive human migration and folks who actually work with migrants at the border and in foreign countries seems like a totally insane way to “debate policy.” But, then, whoever said this “nativist-driven debate” on enhanced cruelty, dismantling the rule of law, and de-humanization is rational?
You can read Rebecca’s full article, with an “accessible” explanation of what’s at stake and what’s being proposed at the above link.
U.S. immigration law and policy, including border security and asylum, have nothing to do with Ukraine, NATO, Russia and Putin. Right?
Wrong, if you are a Republican in Congress. Here, let Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) explain: “I think … Schumer will realize we’re serious … and then the discussions will begin in earnest.”
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If you are still having trouble with the concept, I’ll translate for you: “Yes, we understand and agree that Russia cannot be allowed to take over Ukraine, and we will fund aid to Ukraine, but in exchange, we insist on fundamental changes to our immigration laws to make sure no more Brown people come to America, starting right effing now.” (“Brown,” in this context, means anyone who is poor, Latin American, Asian, African, non-Anglophone…you get the idea.)
How will this play out in the next few weeks? I see three options: 1) Biden and the Dems cave, so the 1980 Refugee Act is scrapped, Dreamers get deported, the southern border is further militarized, and the economy tanks because a good chunk of the workforce is afraid to come to work; or 2) the GOP does a Tuberville and caves; or 3) the Unknown Unknown.
Stay tuned…
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Thanks for telling it like it is, Dan! There is no validity to the GOP’s attempt to punish asylum seekers by unconscionably returning them to danger and death with no process.
The cruelty and threat to life from forcing desperate seekers to wait in dangerous conditions in Mexico, pushing them to attempt entry in ever more deadly locations along the border, detaining them in inhumane substandard prisons in the U.S., and or returning them without meaningful screening by qualified independent decision-makers is overwhelming. That Congress, the Administration, and much of the “mainstream media” choose to ignore, and often intentionally misrepresent, truth and reality about the horrible human and fiscal wastefulness of “border deterrence” doesn’t change these facts!
The Administration’s three year failure to build a functional, robust asylum system at the border with humane reception centers, access to legal assistance, a rational resettlement system, and sweeping, readily achievable, administrative reforms and leadership changes at EOIR and the Asylum Office (as laid out by experts, whose views were dismissed) is also inexcusable.
Yet, the media misrepresents this farce as a “debate.” It’s a false “debate” in which neither disingenuous “side” speaks for the endangered humans whose rights and lives they are bargaining away to mask their own failures and immorality.
WASHINGTON — The scenes witnessed by journalists and humanitarian workers in recent months have been striking: In Sudan, swollen-bellied babies are looking for anything to eat. In Yemen, where warring parties have blocked humanitarian aid, hollow-eyed children and their mothers languish on the brink of death from starvation. In Ukraine, the elderly are collecting rancid rain runoff for drinking water.
Malnourishment and hunger were big problems even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February and cut off Europe’s breadbasket from its markets, sparking a flurry of dire warnings about the world’s food supplies. Dozens of countries across the globe are already suffering from devastating food shortages, so much so that the number of people facing starvation more than doubled in just the last two years, to 345 million, according to United Nations figures.
The causes are myriad: drought and flooding, and the interruption of supply chains triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in China. An estimated 20 wars or conflicts — the latest in Ukraine — have also seriously disrupted access to food and water.
“The current food security challenge that we’re facing [is] due to these three Cs: climate, COVID and conflict,” said Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of State for economic affairs, one of several Biden administration officials tasked to food-security issues.
The bleak situation drew the attention of powerful diplomats Friday when U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the foreign ministers of six other of the world’s largest economies met in Germany to map out plans for easing global food shortages. Few observers expect real solutions to emerge but hope the summit will highlight the crisis and boost funding for anti-hunger efforts.
The Biden administration has committed about $8.5 billion to emergency food assistance and related programs, focusing initially on the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Lebanon and Haiti, Blinken said.
“We hear all these numbers; we’ve all cited numbers of this growing food insecurity,” Blinken said in Berlin. “But what we know is this: We know that those numbers are people, real people, real lives, real livelihoods, mothers, fathers, children. … As human beings, all of us have to be seized with this.”
The U.N.’s World Food Program calculates that eight of the 10 largest food crises worldwide are being primarily driven by conflict — in Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Such wars force people from their homes into long desperate treks for safety. They devastate farms and wreak havoc on food distribution systems.
In Latin America, food scarcity is also driving tens of thousands of people to abandon parched or hurricane-leveled farms and migrate to the United States.
These were the disasters already in motion when Russia invaded Ukraine. Now, the U.N. says the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports could lead 40 million more people to go hungry.
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Caitlin Welsh, a veteran expert in global food security who heads that program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said hunger and famine have consequences for both health and politics.
Hungry people can be angry people, and the rising price of food or fuel have led to coups throughout history. The health effects of going hungry can be far-reaching and insidious, Welsh said.
“The sudden elevation in prices [of foodstuffs like bread] can make people shift from more nutritious food to items of lower nutrition,” she said. And for pregnant women and young children, that can cause lifelong disabilities, Welsh said.
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Read Tracy’s complete article at the link.
War is bad, particularly when those who needlessly start them for their own amusement, ego, and nationalistic jingoism escape accountability. See, e.g., V. Putin.
