"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals PAUL WICKHAM SCHMIDT and DR. ALICIA TRICHE, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
“A federal judge has determined the government was unjustified in its fight to keep a woman locked up in an Aurora immigrant detention center while her deportation case proceeded. U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney ordered the federal government last September to hold a hearing to determine whether Brenda Viruel Arias should be released from custody. Sweeney found the circumstances of Viruel Arias’ 14-month confinement required a bond hearing to avoid infringing on her constitutional right to due process. Shortly afterward, an immigration judge permitted Viruel Arias’ release after the government failed to prove she should remain behind bars. Viruel Arias’ lawyers then requested $22,601 in attorney fees from the government. Under federal law, victorious parties in civil cases against the government may receive attorney fees if, among other things, the government’s position was not “substantially justified.” On July 12, Sweeny agreed the government was not substantially justified in resisting a release hearing for Viruel Arias. In recent years, she observed, federal judges in Colorado have been sympathetic to non-citizens’ claims of unconstitutional confinement where the detention has exceeded one year. The government, as a party those cases, was aware of the judiciary’s attitude toward prolonged detention. “(T)hey do not justify why they did not follow a clear legal trend,” Sweeney wrote.”
Here’s my favorite quote from Judge Sweeney’s decision: “At bottom, Respondents were not substantially justified in their pre-litigation and litigation practices because they disregarded a clear legal trend in the District and their own agency policies in the underlying action.”
Similar to the Trump Administration, the Biden Administration is wasting taxpayer money on cruel, unnecessary, expensive, illegal detention, and then squandering even more money on the arguably frivolous, and clearly mindless, defense thereof! Somebody should be asking Garland why?
