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🇺🇸🗽⚖️😎👏🏽👍🏼NDPA IN ACTION: CARECEN, CLINIC & OTHER NGOs SUE “ILLEGAL” COOCH COOCH ON INSANELY STUPID & UNLAWFUL ANTI-TPS POLICY! — CARECEN v. Cuccinelli (a/k/a “The Illegal”)

NDPA Superstar ⭐️ Michelle Mendez 🎖 reports for CLINIC 🏆:

New Legal Challenge: CARECEN v. Cuccinelli

Greetings,

Representing the CARECEN and seven people with Temporary Protected Status, CLINIC, Democracy Forward, Montagut & Sobral PC and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP sued the Trump administration to block a policy issued by an unauthorized federal executive, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli. The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to stop the Trump administration from denying access to lawful permanent residency to people with TPS who legally qualify for green cards thanks to their U.S. citizen spouse or child. Cuccinelli’s action, couched as a mere “update” to the agency’s policy manual, eliminates the ability for TPS beneficiaries with prior removal orders to apply to adjust status with USCIS even though they departed the United States and returned with USCIS permission. The suit challenges the policy change as unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution’s Due Process Clause, and because its author, Ken Cuccinelli, was not legally appointed to direct USCIS.

Here is our press release.

Here is the complaint.

Here is a CNN story on this challenge.

When the Trump Administration attacks families, we will hold it accountable, be it for the next few months or the next 4 years.

Michelle N. Mendez (she/her/ella/elle)

Director, Defending Vulnerable Populations Program

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)

Mailing Address: 8757 Georgia Avenue, Suite 850, Silver Spring, MD 20910

Physical Address: University of Baltimore School of Law, 1401 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201

Website: www.cliniclegal.org

Embracing the Gospel value of welcoming the stranger, CLINIC promotes the dignity and protects the rights of immigrants in partnership with a dedicated network of Catholic and community legal immigration programs.

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Remember, folks, no human being is illegal. But, Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli is an “illegal” serving in a rogue regime!

Many thanks to all of our NDPA fighters who brought this much needed suit!

And, think of the grotesque stupidity, not to mention cruelty and illegality, behind this USCIS “policy.” Those in TPS are part of our community. Many have been here for years, even decades, working, paying taxes, and raising families (including many US citizens). Many are now fully qualified to adjust to “green card” status under existing law, thereby regularizing their status and getting out of “limbo.”

With LPR status, and eventually US citizenship, they can reach their full potential as humans and as members of our society. That’s a “win-win” that helps us move forward and prosper as a nation.

Yet, “Cooch Cooch” and the rest of the maliciously incompetent kakistocracy at DHS stay up nights thinking of ways to “stiff” our friends and neighbors in the TPS community and to keep them from regularizing their status and achieving their full human and economic potential, not to mention traumatizing US citizen family members. Talk about fraud, waste, and abuse in Government!

Incidentally, current TPS holders would all be entitled to full Immigration Court hearings if the regime attempted to expel them by force after ending TPS. Most have strong claims to relief, from cancellation of removal to asylum and other forms of protection.

Many could apply for adjustment of status in Immigration Court and individually litigate no matter what the USCIS “policy.” With a known backlog of approximately 1.5 million cases and perhaps another 500,000 to 1 million “lost in the docket dysfunction at EOIR,” their Immigration Court dates could easily be a decade, or “2.5 Administrations” from now. So, the Cuccinelli policy is basically a way of inflicting some cruelty and racist harassment on TPS’ers eligible to immigrate, without any realistic chance of “enforced removal.” Wow, talk about using a system already FUBAR’ed, to a major extent by this regime, as an illegal “weapon against humanity!”

Where, or where, have the Article IIIs been in taking a strong, unified stand against racism and stupidity (legal term “unreasonable behavior”) by the Trump immigration regime? Cooch Cooch was determined by a Federal Court to be illegally serving at USCIS! Yet, he contemptuously remains in office inflicting illegal harm and suffering on migrants, chewing up legal resources, and insultingly wasting the time of the Federal Courts.

I sort of understand the feckless performance of the Immigration Courts, wholly owned by “Billy the Bigot.” But, what’s the purpose of an independent Article III Judiciary that performs like it’s the “King’s Court” — unwilling or unable to defend our Constitution, humanity, or even their own prerogatives against the tyranny of a dangerous scofflaw moron like Trump?

What’s their excuse for drawing their salaries? The overall systemic failure of the Article III Judiciary, starting with a tone-deaf, racially insensitive, and often eagerly complicit Supreme’s majority, in the face of Trump’s White Nationalist authoritarianism, demands serious national re-examination of the role, qualities, and character we should expect from our Article III Judiciary, assuming that our nation survives the current legal and moral debacle led by Trump and enabled by judges who failed to do their duties!

“When the Trump Administration attacks families, we will hold it accountable, be it for the next few months or the next 4 years.”

That’s the key! With far too many public officials in all three branches spinelessly “tanking” on their constitutional duties to protect our rights and defend humanity from tyranny, the soldiers of the NDPA are among the courageous defenders of democracy and leaders of the long and challenging climb to equal justice and national decency. Support them by throwing the GOP — the anti-American party of bias, hate, lies, racism, institutionalized stupidity, and chaos — out at every level of government!

We’ll never get to equal justice for all with politicos, legislators, judges, and bureaucrats who don’t believe in it! Folks who quote and “honor” MLK, Jr., one day of the year and spend the rest of it trampling on his dreams and trashing his values!

Thanks to my good friend, colleague, and “NDPA General” Michelle and others for standing up to “Cooch the Illegal” and his toxic anti-American, scofflaw efforts to destroy our nation!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-27-20

GULAG WATCH: DC FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS DHS TO DO BETTER ON DETAINED FAMILIES: “I will order that in a week [April 6], the government has got to come back to me and give me answers about the capacity of these centers, videotapes of living conditions and steps taken toward release.”

Spencer S. Hsu
Investigative Reporter
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/us-judge-widens-order-urging-ice-release-of-migrant-families-with-young-children-in-coronavirus-outbreak/2020/03/30/8226ed06-7296-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html

Spencer Hsu reports for WashPost:

A federal judge in Washington pressed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release migrants held in family detention centers, citing the imminent risk of coronavirus outbreaks in confinement and their rapid spread to surrounding communities.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., stopped short of ordering the immediate release of about 1,350 members of migrant families detained at three centers in Pennsylvania and Texas as part of a lawsuit advocates recently filed. But during a hearing on Monday, the judge directed U.S. immigration authorities to report on their efforts to release families in custody by next week.

“I will order that in a week [April 6], the government has got to come back to me and give me answers about the capacity of these centers, videotapes of living conditions and steps taken toward release,” Boasberg said after a 45-minute hearing.

“Circumstances are changing rapidly, and if there are cases in these centers or there are other problems that are not compliant, I will revisit” the petitioners emergency release request, the judge added.

Boasberg’s order expands on a similar one U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee issued Saturday in Los Angeles related to an emergency hearing seeking the release of 6,900 detained children. Gee had ordered that federal agencies operating detention facilities for migrant children report their efforts to release children in custody by April 6. Boasberg widened the order to cover their parents.

[[Coronavirus could pose serious concern in ICE jails, immigration courts]]

Boasberg also directed U.S. immigration authorities to comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for congregate housing and the Constitution’s guarantee that prisoners be held in safe and sanitary conditions.

[[Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.]]

Boasberg entered his order in a lawsuit filed March 21 by three groups helping migrant families seeking asylum and being held at three centers in Berks County, Pa.; Dilley, Tex.; and Karnes City, Tex., under the Trump administration’s family detention policy.

Lawyers for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, the Rapid Defense Network, and ALDEA — the People’s Justice Center argued that their clients are “trapped and at risk of serious, irreparable harm” in situations they called “a tinderbox.”

The suit alleged that groups of about 60, 500 and 800 detained mothers, fathers and children live, eat and sleep in close quarters at the three facilities and cannot meet hygiene and “social distancing” standards recommended to prevent the spread of the virus.

The complaint asserts that up to 100 people sit “elbow to elbow” in lunchrooms at tables of 10; soap is limited; access to hand sanitizer is limited or nonexistent; and cleaning of centers is typically done by volunteer detainees who are paid $1 a day and not provided hand sanitizer or masks.

“Families in [detention centers] are scared and concerned for their lives,” the complaint alleged. “It is almost certain to expect COVID-19 to infect and spread rapidly in family residential centers, especially when people cannot engage in proper hygiene or isolate themselves from infected or asymptomatic residents or staff.”

The suit said authorities have begun to release some families that include pregnant women or people with asthma from the Karnes and Dilley facilities.

. . . .

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Read the complete story at the link.

It’s clear that DHS has neither the desire nor the ability to comply with CDC guidelines. Delay could be deadly. Indeed, that Judge Boasberg had to order the DHS to do what it should be doing anyway and what it has falsely claimed it was doing actually demonstrates why the whole system should long ago have been removed from the regime’s control

The good news is that in this case the regime’s immigration kakistocracy is finally getting some much-needed “adult supervision” from Judge Boasberg. Let’s hope he can save some lives from a system designed and operated to demean, dehumanize, and endanger as part of an unconstitutional “deterrence” strategy.

But, at some point, both our society and our justice system will have to stop the ongoing “willful blindness” and deal directly with the unconstitutionality, intentional cruelty, immorality, and wastefulness of falsely classifying gratuitous “cruel and unusual punishment” of families and children seeking asylum as “civil detention.” It’s no such thing; it must be outlawed and abolished except in the extremely limited circumstances where it is actually required to protect the public or insure appearance.

And, under our Constitution, it should never be imposed without an individualized order from an independent Federal Judge. Today’s “New American Gulag” is an unconstitutional national disgrace which has been “weaponized,” with disturbingly little actual supervision by the Article III Judiciary, by a regime interested only in furthering a White Nationalist agenda of gratuitous cruelty and oppression of “the other” (primarily, other humans of color)!

PWS

03-31-20

SCOFFLAWS THWARTED: U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE EMMET G. SULLIVAN EXPOSES SESSIONS’ S OUTRAGEOUSLY ILLEGAL WHITE NATIONALIST ATTACK ON U.S. ASYLUM LAW — MATTER OF A-B- EXCEEDED SCOFFLAW A.G.’S AUTHORITY — Grace v. Whitaker

Grace v. Sessions, U.S.D.C. D.D.C., 12-19-18, Hon. Emmet G. Sullivan, Published

Grace 106 12-19-18

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MY STATEMENT ON GRACE V. WHITAKER:

As a former United States Immigration Judge, Chair of the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals, and Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel of the “Legacy INS” involved in developing the Refugee Act of 1980, I am deeply gratified by the decision of U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan today in Grace v. Whitaker. Judge Sullivan strongly supports the rule of law and the generous humanitarian protections and procedural rights afforded by Congress to vulnerable asylum seekers against a lawless and unjustified attack by former Attorney General Sessions in Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (AG 2018) and the largely erroneous Policy Memorandum incorporating that decision issued by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”).

Among the most important holdings, Judge Sullivan:

Reaffirmed the duty of the Executive Branch to comply with the rule of law as enacted by Congress to protect individuals fleeing persecution;
Reaffirmed the generous humanitarian intent of the asylum provisions of the Refugee Act of 1980;
Recognized the generous “well-founded fear” (10% chance) standard for asylum as enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca;
Reaffirmed the “extraordinarily low” bar for applicants in “credible fear” interviews before DHS Asylum Officers: “to prevail at a credible fear interview, the alien need only show a ‘significant possibility’ of a one in ten chance of persecution, i.e., a fraction of ten percent;”
Found that Congress intended that the term “particular social group” must be interpreted generously in accordance with the United Nations’ guidance;
Rejected Sessions’s unlawful attempt to generally preclude domestic violence and gang-related claims from qualifying for asylum;
Reaffirmed the necessity of case-by-case determinations of credible fear and asylum;
Rejected Session’s unlawful attempt to engraft a “condoned or completely helpless” requirement on the interpretation of when a foreign government is “unwilling or unable” to protect an individual from persecution by a private party;
Reaffirmed Congress’s unambiguous understanding that persecution means “harm or suffering . . . inflicted either by the government of a country or by persons or an organization that the government was unable or unwilling to control;”
Rejected DHS’s misinterpretation of the “circularity requirement” in the Policy Memorandum;
Rejected the Department of Justice’s disingenuous argument that Article III Courts must “defer” to administrative interpretations of Article III Court decisions;
Rejected the Policy Memorandum’s illegal requirement that an asylum applicant (usually unrepresented) “delineate” the scope of a particular social group at the credible fear interview;
Emphatically rejected the Policy Memorandum’s attempt to elevate administrative precedents over the conflicting decisions of U.S. Courts of Appeals.

Judge Sullivan’s cogent decision dramatically highlights the problems with an U.S. Immigration Court system that is controlled by political officials, like former Attorney General Sessions, who are not fair and impartial judicial officials and whose actions may be (and in Sessions’s case definitely were) driven by political philosophies and enforcement objectives inconsistent with judicial responsibilities to insure that non-citizens are fairly considered for and when appropriate granted the important, often life-saving, protections conferred by law and guaranteed by due process. A clearly biased political official like Jeff Sessions should ethically never been permitted to act in a quasi-judicial capacity.

As a result of Sessions’s anti-immigrant bias, unlawful actions, and gross mismanagement of the Immigration Courts, innocent lives have been endangered and one of our largest American court systems has been driven to the precipice with an uncontrolled (yet unnecessary) backlog of over 1.1 million cases and crippling quality control issues. When it finally plunges over, it will take a large chunk of our American justice system and the Constitutional protections we all rely upon with it!

Congress must create an independent Article I United States Immigration Court to ensure that the immigration and refugee laws enacted by Congress are applied to individuals in a fair, efficient, and impartial manner.

Many, many thanks to the ACLU and all of the other wonderful pro bono lawyers who stood up for the rule of law and the rights of the most vulnerable among us against the intentionally illegal actions and unethical behavior of this Administration.

PWS

12-19-18

FEDERAL COURTS DELIVER ANOTHER BIG HIT TO ADMINISTRATION SCOFFLAWS ON IMMIGRATION: Attempt To Violate Detainee’s Constitutional Right To Abortion Thwarted!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-judge-orders-government-to-allow-abortion-access-to-detained-immigrant-teens/2018/03/30/19e9fcf8-3128-11e8-94fa-32d48460b955_story.html

Ann E. Marimow, Spencer S. Hsu and Maria Sacchetti report for the Washington Post:

A federal judge issued a nationwide order temporarily preventing the government from blocking access to abortion services and counseling for teens detained in immigration custody, saying current administration policy and practices probably are unconstitutional.

The order came in a case brought last fall on behalf of a Central American girl in a government-funded shelter that set off a national debate over the constitutional rights of such undocumented teens to terminate their pregnancies.

The late Friday ruling, by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Washington, allowed the case to proceed as a class action on behalf of any other teens who have crossed the border illegally and while in federal custody may want to seek abortion services. In filings, the U.S. government acknowledged there were at least 420 pregnant unaccompanied minors in custody in 2017, including 18 who requested abortions.

The Trump administration has refused to “facilitate” such procedures for pregnant teenagers traveling alone on the grounds that they had the option to voluntarily return to their home countries or to find private sponsors in the United States to assist them in obtaining procedures.

The policy position marked a departure from that of the Obama administration, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement did not block immigrants in U.S. custody from having abortions at their own expense, and paid for services for teens in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the woman’s life.

In her 28-page opinion, Chutkan, a 2014 Obama appointee, said the change in policy posed irreparable harm to pregnant teens, writing that “ORR’s absolute veto nullifies a UC’s right to make her own reproductive choices,” referring to unaccompanied children.

“The court concludes that ORR’s policies and practices infringe on female UC’s constitutional rights by effectively prohibiting them from ‘making the ultimate decision’ on whether or not to continue their pregnancy prior to viability — a quintessential undue burden,” the judge wrote.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately comment on the ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the teens, expressed relief at the court action.

“The Trump administration’s cruel policy of blocking young immigrant women in federal custody from accessing abortion is a blatant abuse of power,” Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “With today’s rulings, we are one step closer to ending this extreme policy once and for all and securing justice for all of these young women.”

[Trump official blocked a teen’s abortion, calling it ‘violence against an innocent life’]

In all, four pregnant teens in custody have asked Chutkan to force the administration to stop blocking access to abortion services. The initial case involving the teen in Texas is still pending in the Supreme Court after the Justice Department took the unusual step of asking the justices to consider disciplining the teen’s lawyers.

[Trump administration suggests possibility of disciplinary action against ACLU lawyers in abortion case]

Abortion rights advocates and some Democrats in Congress have called for the firing of E. Scott Lloyd, the head of the refugee resettlement office within the Department of Health and Human Services. Court records show that Lloyd has personally intervened to try to block abortion services.

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Read the full article at the above link.

Hard to figure out why guys like E. Scott Lloyd and Jeff Sessions shouldn’t be both 1) fired, and 2) held personally liable under Bivens for knowing and intentional violations of constitutional rights.

PWS

03-31-18

NDPA Superstar ⭐️ Michelle Mendez 🎖 reports for CLINIC 🏆:

Due Process Forever!

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MY STATEMENT ON GRACE V. WHITAKER:

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