"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.
Then there’s the outrageous domestic terrorist attack against our very nation — the Jan. 6 insurrection, when mobs of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed and pillaged the U.S. Capitol to disrupt a joint session of Congress assembled to formalize the election of President-elect Joe Biden.
That was no spontaneous outburst of rage by a ragtag bunch of thugs. Jan. 6 was a deliberate attack on revered democratic institutions and was as evil in intent as Osama bin Laden’s launch of hijacked airliners at the heart of America’s symbols of economic and military power.
Review the record. The litany of domestic terrorism attacks manifests an ideological hatred of social justice as virulent as the Taliban’s detestation of Western values of freedom and truth.
But again, another profoundly different distinction.
The domestic terrorists who invaded and degraded the Capitol are being rebranded as patriots by Trump and his cultists, who perpetuate the lie that the presidential election was rigged and stolen from him. Respect for the vision of democratic government has sunk so low that 21 members of Congress objected when the House voted to honor Capitol and D.C. police officers for their heroism on Jan. 6.
The “core of strength” cited in the Post’s editorial on Sept. 12, and so evident in the response to the Jan. 6 insurrection, is needed now more than ever.
The taste for despotism, stimulated by Trump’s unraveling of American political culture, is loose in the land.
Be on guard. Because more post-9/11 attempts at domestic terrorism are surely yet to come.
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Read the rest of the op-ed at the link.
Immigrants have felt the brunt of the post-9-11 attack on truth, Constitutional rights, and liberal American values by the right-wing neo-fascists.
Interestingly, former President George W. Bush’s remarks yesterday echoed Colby’s main point about insurrectionists on the right. Sadly, W’s epiphany is about 20 years too late — long after he unleashed Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft and others of their ilk on America. It didn’t have to be that way! But, it was, and our nation is still reeling from the continuing assault from the right!
Torture? What torture? It’s merely “enhanced fact-finding!”
Public realm“They all want to voluntarily waive further hearings and take final orders!” Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The phrase appears in multiple 9/11 volumes, usually uttered by top officials adamant that they were going to get things done, laws and rules be damned. Anti-terrorism efforts were always “lawyered to death” during the Clinton administration, Tenet complains in “Bush at War,” Bob Woodward’s 2002 book on the debates among the president and his national security team. In an interview with Woodward, Bush drops the phrase amid the machospeak — “dead or alive,” “bring ’em on” and the like — that became typical of his anti-terrorism rhetoric. “I had to show the American people the resolve of a commander in chief that was going to do whatever it took to win,” Bush explains. “No yielding. No equivocation. No, you know, lawyering this thing to death.” In “Against All Enemies,” Clarke recalls the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, when Bush snapped at an official who suggested that international law looked askance at military force as a tool of revenge. “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass,” the president retorted.
The message was unmistakable: The law is an obstacle to effective counterterrorism. Worrying about procedural niceties is passe in a 9/11 world, an annoying impediment to the essential work of ass-kicking.
Except, they did lawyer this thing to death. Instead of disregarding the law, the Bush administration enlisted it. “Beginning almost immediately after September 11, 2001, [Vice President Dick] Cheney saw to it that some of the sharpest and best-trained lawyers in the country, working in secret in the White House and the United States Department of Justice, came up with legal justifications for a vast expansion of the government’s power in waging war on terror,” Jane Mayer writes in “The Dark Side,” her relentless 2008 compilation of the arguments and machinations of government lawyers after the attacks. Through public declarations and secret memos, the administration sought to remove limits on the president’s conduct of warfare and to deny terrorism suspects the protections of the Geneva Conventions by redefining them as unlawful enemy combatants. Nothing, Mayer argues of the latter effort, “more directly cleared the way for torture than this.”
To comprehend what our government can justify in the name of national security, consider the torture memos themselves, authored by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 to green-light CIA interrogation methods for terrorism suspects. Tactics such as cramped confinement, sleep deprivation and waterboarding were rebranded as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” legally and linguistically contorted to avoid the label of torture. Though the techniques could be cruel and inhuman, the OLC acknowledged in an August 2002 memo, they would constitute torture only if they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or death, and if the individual inflicting such pain really really meant to do so: “Even if the defendant knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent.” It’s quite the sleight of hand, with torture moving from the body of the interrogated to the mind of the interrogator.
After devoting dozens of pages to the metaphysics of specific intent, the true meaning of “prolonged” mental harm or “imminent” death, and the elasticity of the Convention Against Torture, the memo concludes that none of it actually matters. Even if a particular interrogation method would cross some legal line, the relevant statute would be considered unconstitutional because it “impermissibly encroached” on the commander in chief’s authority to conduct warfare. Almost nowhere in these memos does the Justice Department curtail the power of the CIA to do as it pleases.
In fact, the OLC lawyers rely on assurances from the CIA itself to endorse such powers. In a second memo from August 2002, the lawyers ruminate on the use of cramped confinement boxes. “We have no information from the medical experts you have consulted that the limited duration for which the individual is kept in the boxes causes any substantial physical pain,” the memo states. Waterboarding likewise gets a pass. “You have informed us that this procedure does not inflict actual physical harm,” the memo states. “Based on your research . . . you do not anticipate that any prolonged mental harm would result from the use of the waterboard.”
You have informed us. Experts you have consulted. Based on your research. You do not anticipate. Such hand-washing words appear throughout the memos. The Justice Department relies on information provided by the CIA to reach its conclusions; the CIA then has the cover of the Justice Department to proceed with its interrogations. It’s a perfect circle of trust.
Yet the logic is itself tortured. In a May 2005 memo, the lawyers conclude that because no single technique inflicts “severe” pain amounting to torture, their combined use “would not be expected” to reach that level, either. As though embarrassed at such illogic, the memo attaches a triple-negative footnote: “We are not suggesting that combinations or repetitions of acts that do not individually cause severe physical pain could not result in severe physical pain.” Well, then, what exactly are you suggesting? Even when the OLC in 2004 officially withdrew its August 2002 memo following a public outcry and declared torture “abhorrent,” the lawyers added a footnote to the new memo assuring that they had reviewed the prior opinions on the treatment of detainees and “do not believe that any of their conclusions would be different under the standards set forth in this memorandum.”
In these documents, lawyers enable lawlessness. Another May 2005 memo concludes that, because the Convention Against Torture applies only to actions occurring under U.S. jurisdiction, the CIA’s creation of detention sites in other countries renders the convention “inapplicable.” Similarly, because the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment is meant to protect people convicted of crimes, it should not apply to terrorism detainees — because they have not been officially convicted of anything. The lack of due process conveniently eliminates constitutional protections. In his introduction to “The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable,” David Cole describes the documents as “bad-faith lawyering,” which might be generous. It is another kind of lawyering to death, one in which the rule of law that the 9/11 Commission urged us to abide by becomes the victim.
Years later, the Senate Intelligence Committee would investigate the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation program. Its massive report — the executive summary of which appeared as a 549-page book in 2014 — found that torture did not produce useful intelligence, that the interrogations were more brutal than the CIA let on, that the Justice Department did not independently verify the CIA’s information, and that the spy agency impeded oversight by Congress and the CIA inspector general. It explains that the CIA purported to oversee itself and, no surprise, that it deemed its interrogations effective and necessary, no matter the results. (If a detainee provided information, it meant the program worked; if he did not, it meant stricter applications of the techniques were needed; if still no information was forthcoming, the program had succeeded in proving he had none to give.)
“The CIA’s effectiveness representations were almost entirely inaccurate,” the Senate report concluded. It is one of the few lies of the war on terror unmasked by an official government investigation and public report, but just one of the many documented in the 9/11 literature.
. . . ,.
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Sound painfully familiar? It should, to those of us “DOJ vets” who lived through this period. The use of the “third person,” “double and triple negatives,” “weasel words” like “you have given us to understand that,” “decision by committee” where a memo is routed through so many layers of bureaucracy that the original author or authors don’t even appear on its face — are all “devices” to diffuse and obscure responsibility and avoid clear accountability for controversial(and too often wrong) decisions!
During our time at the BIA, my fellow U.W. Badger, Judge Mike Heilman and I were often at odds on the law, particularly when it came to asylum. Anybody who doubts this should read Mike’s remarkable and famous (or infamous) “rabbi dissent” in Matter of H-, 21 I&N Dec. 337, 349 (BIA 1996) (Heilman, Board Member, dissenting). Nevertheless, one thing we agreed upon was requiring any decisions written for us to use the first person to reflect whose decision it actually was!
“Lawyers enable lawlessness.” How true! In 2002, DOJ lawyers (hand-chosen by the politicos) “tanked” and enabled, even encouraged, gross law violations by the CIA.
Fast forward to 2018. Then, White Nationalist AG Jeff Sessions exhorted his wholly-owned “judges” at EOIR not to treat DHS enforcement as a party before the court, but rather as a worthy “partner” in combatting the largely-fabricated “scourge” of illegal immigration (that actually, as we can now see, was propping up Trump’s economy). Is it surprising that precedent decisions by Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr favored DHS nearly 100% of the time and the BIA thereafter issued almost no precedents where the individual prevailed (not that there were many of those following “the Ashcroft purge,” even before Sessions)?
Asylum grant rates in Immigration Court tumbled precipitously, while both the trial, and particularly appellate, levels at EOIR were “packed” with judges whose main qualification appeared to be an expectation that they would churn out large numbers of removal orders without much analysis or consideration of the factors favoring the individual. Misogyny and anti-asylum, anti-private-lawyer attitudes (those “dirty lawyers”) were encouraged by Sessions as part the “culture” at EOIR, sometimes visibly rewarded by “elevation” to the BIA.
Interestingly, at the same time in 2002 that the group of DOJ attorneys was furiously working in secret to justify torture, in clear violation of the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), another group in the DOJ, the BIA, was struggling to make the CAT work in “real world” litigated cases. A number of us dissented from the majority of our BIA colleagues’ wrong-headed and rather transparent attempt to “neuter” CAT protection from the outset. Unlike the “secret lawyers” at the DOJ, our work was public and had consequences not only for the humans involved, but for those of us who had the audacity to stand up for their rights under domestic and international law!
Here’s an excerpt from my long-forgotten dissenting opinion in Matter of J-E-, 22 I&N Dec. 291, 314-15 (BIA 2002) (Schmidt, Board Member, dissenting):
The majority concludes that the extreme mistreatment likely to befall this respondent in Haiti is not “torture,” but merely “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” The majority further concludes that conduct defined as “torture” occurs in the Haitian detention system, but is not “likely” for this respondent. In short, the majority goes to great lengths to avoid applying the Convention Against Torture to this respondent.
We are in the early stages of the very difficult and thankless task of construing the Convention. Only time will tell whether the majority’s narrow reading of the torture definition and its highly technical approach to the standard of proof will be the long-term benchmarks for our country’s implementation of this international treaty.
Although I am certainly bound to follow and apply the majority’s constructions in all future cases, I do not believe that the majority adequately carries out the language or the purposes of the Convention and the implementing regulations. Therefore, I fear that we are failing to comply with our international obligations.
I conclude that the respondent is more likely than not to face officially sanctioned torture if returned to Haiti. Therefore, I would grant his application for deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture and the implementing regulations. Consequently, I respectfully dissent.
Within a year of that decision, my dissenting colleagues and I were among those “purged” from the BIA by Ashcroft because of our views. I’d argue that EOIR has continued to go straight downhill since then, and is now in total free fall! Surely, any “facade” of quasi-judicial independence at the BIA has long-since crumbled. Yet, AG Garland pretends there is no problem. Garland’s apparent belief that this is still Judge Bell’s or Ben Civiletti’s or even Ed Levi’s DOJ is simply, demonstrably, wrong.
Today’s DOJ has been part and parcel of a highly inappropriate “weaponization” of the law and “Dred Scottification” directed against individual civil rights, migrants, voters, women, people of color, and a host of “others” who were on the far right “hit list” of the Trump kakistocracy. Nowhere has that been more evident than at the dysfunctional and institutionally biased EOIR. The problems plaguing American justice today have increased since 9-11. They will continue to fester and grow unless and until Garland faces reality and makes progressive leadership and judicial changes at EOIR to addresses the toxic culture of complicity and abusive use of the law to degrade individual and human rights. And, some real accountability at the rest of the badly-damaged DOJ should not be far behind.
Phan Quang Tue is a retired San Francisco Immigration Court judge.
As I sit down to start writing this piece, the chaotic scenes of group panic at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan continue to unfold. They bring back memories of similar painful images at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Saigon 46 years ago.
Our family of four, including my pregnant wife and our two small children, then 4 and 8 years old, were sitting on the floor of a C-130 about to take off. The aircraft was crowded but strangely quiet. Everyone stared down and avoided eye contact. It was a moment of collective humiliation, to have to leave one’s country under these circumstances. The irony was that we knew we were being saved by the very same foreign government that did not stand behind its commitment to its allies in South Vietnam. We did not know where exactly we were heading, or what to expect in the days and months ahead of us. It was a moment of total uncertainty.
Although 46 years apart, the parallels between the events in Saigon and Kabul are striking. Once again, we see scenes of a capital in agony, with everyone taking to the streets with no clear direction. We remember images of people climbing over the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon; now in Kabul, it’s people climbing over barriers at Hamid Karzai International Airport or chasing military airplanes on the tarmac. But the similarities do not stop there.
The Americans are withdrawing their troops after 20 years in Afghanistan. That is almost the same as the 21 years between the beginning of U.S. political involvement in Vietnam starting with the 1954 Geneva agreements and the Communist takeover of Saigon on April 30, 1975. And there is more. As in Vietnam, the Americans in Afghanistan treated their opponents with more respect than their allies. Though their opponents have easily identified names — the Vietcong and then the Taliban — they minimized their own allies as temporary “regimes” based in Saigon or Afghanistan.
The Vietnamese refugees who arrived in the United States starting in April 1975 were not always made welcome, as the winners of a popular war might have been. Even the veterans — American and Vietnamese alike — were not warmly received everywhere, despite the service they had given to their countries. This country does not like to lose and does not know how to lose. Afghan refugees should not expect to be welcomed with parades like the gold medalists returning from the Tokyo Olympics.
. . . .
The United States did not win the war against the Taliban. But now is when the American people can step in and provide the Afghan refugees a haven whereby they can join “we the people” to “form a more perfect Union” for themselves, their children and their grandchildren.
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Read the rest of the op-ed at the above link.
Thanks, my friend and colleague, for sharing, for all you have done for America, and for your continuing important contributions. It’s an honor to know you and to be working with you on our Round Table!🛡⚔️
Trumpy nativists, posing as fiscal conservatives, want you to question whether the United States can afford to take in Afghan allies and refugees.
The better question is whether we can afford not to.
The Republican Party has cleaved in recent weeks over the issue of Afghan refugees, specifically those who served as military interpreters or otherwise aided U.S. efforts. On the one hand, Republican governors and lawmakers around the country have volunteered to resettle Afghan evacuees in their states. Likewise, a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that bringing these allies to the United States is phenomenally popular, garnering support from 76 percent of Republican respondents. Influential conservative constituencies are invested in this issue, too, including veterans’ groups and faith leaders.
On the other hand, the Trump strain within the GOP has been fighting such magnanimous impulses with misinformation.
Xenophobic politicians and media personalities have been conspiracy-theorizing about the dangers of resettling Afghan allies here — even though we had previously entrusted these same Afghans with the lives of U.S. troops and granted them security clearances. And even though they go through additional extensive screening before being brought to our shores.
No matter; if you listen to Tucker Carlson and his ilk, you’ll hear that these Afghans are apparently part of a secret plot to replace White Americans, and that untamed Afghan hordes are going to rape your wife and daughter.
Often these demagogues try to disguise their racist objections to refugee resettlement (and immigration more broadly) as economic concerns. Their claim: that however heartbreaking the footage from the Kabul airport, compassion for Afghan refugees is a luxury Americans simply cannot afford.
Refugees are somehow responsible for existing housing shortages, proclaims Carlson. (This is demonstrably false; the reason we have too little affordable housing is primarily because people like Carlson oppose building more and denser housing.) More refugees would sponge up precious taxpayer dollars, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). And in general, refugees — like all immigrants — are a massive drain on the U.S. economy, alleges Stephen Miller.
This is nonsense.
. . . .
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Read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the link!
Thanks, Catherine, for once again standing up to and speaking truth against disgraceful, neo-Nazi, nativist racists like Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene!
By contrast, one might well ask what “value added” folks like Stephen Miller and his buddies, (Miller has largely sponged off of taxpayer funds while looking for ways to inflict misery on others and destroy America) bring to the table. None, that I can see!
Moreover, even beyond the undoubted value of robust refugee admissions, there is good reason to believe that large-scale migration presents our best opportunity for salvation and prosperity, rather than the “bogus threat” posited by Miller & Co.
As Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman recently, and quite cogently, wrote in American Prospect:
. . . .
A “Statue of Liberty Plan” for the 21st century could make the United States the world’s most welcoming country for immigrants. Right now, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population lags behind that of Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. In order to surpass them, the United States would have to admit millions more people each year for a decade or longer. We currently admit immigrants to promote family integration, meet economic needs, respond to humanitarian crises, and increase the diversity of our population from historically underrepresented countries. Under this plan, we could dramatically expand admissions in all four categories and add a fifth category to recognize the claims of climate migrants. As a civic project of national renewal, with millions of people playing a role in welcoming new immigrants, such a policy could reweave frayed social bonds and create a healthier, outward-looking, multiracial national identity.
The politics of immigration, however, lag far behind the moral and economic logic of the case for a pro-immigration policy. The immigrant threat narrative has become so pervasive that many liberals have embraced it, if only because they hope to fend off threats from right-wing nationalists. President Obama not only deprioritized immigration reform in his first term but deported record numbers of immigrants, hoping that such a display of “toughness” might win support for legalization of the undocumented immigrants already here. Hillary Clinton advocated liberal immigration policies in her 2016 presidential campaign but later tacked toward restrictionism. Liberals and leftists across the global North, from Austria to France to the U.K., have offered similar concessions to nativism. But mimicking right-wing appeals is a losing gamble that only serves to legitimize the anti-immigrant agenda and its standard-bearers.
There are promising signs of potential for shifting the debate, however, if progressives lean in. Polling shows that Americans increasingly reject the immigrant threat narrative, largely due to Trump’s shameless cruelty. Last year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1965, more Americans supported increased levels of immigration than supported reduced levels. A telling barometer of how the sands are shifting is that President Biden’s proposed immigration bill is far to the left of what Obama proposed.
The work of shifting gears toward a more welcoming policy can begin right now by fully welcoming immigrants who already reside in our country. A crucial starting point would be to include a path to citizenship for essential workers, Dreamers, farmworkers, and Temporary Protected Status holders in the American Jobs Plan Congress is considering. This is not only a humane approach, but it also will stimulate economic growth and thus help finance other parts of the plan. A separate campaign by the Biden administration (not requiring congressional action) to simplify the naturalization process for nine million eligible green-card holders would help make the nation’s electorate more reflective of its population.
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
If slavery and genocide were the country’s original sins, its occasional and often accidental genius has been to renew itself through periodic waves of immigration. Once we expose the immigration threat narrative as the Big Lie that it is, it becomes plain that immigration is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity and necessity to be embraced.
This, of course, also casts doubt on the wisdom of our current, wasteful and ultimately ineffective, policy of illegally rejecting legal asylum applicants at our Southern Border, rather than attempting in good faith to fit as many as qualify under our current system, as properly and honestly administered (something that hasn’t happened in the past). Additionally wise leaders would be looking for ways to expand our legal immigration system to admit, temporarily or permanently, those whose presence would be mutually beneficial, even if they aren’t “refugees” within existing legal definitions. In this respect, the proposal to modernize our laws to admit climate migrants is compelling.
Remember, as stated above:
Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.
NDPA members, keep listening to Catherine and the other voices of progressive wisdom, humanity, practicality, and tolerance. The key to the future is insuring that the “Stephen Millers of the world” never again get a chance to implement their vile, racist propaganda in the guise of “government policy.”
Happily, many Northern Virginians have listened to our “better angels.” Humanitarian aid and resettlement opportunities for Afghan refugees are pouring in, as shown by this report from our good friend Julie Carey @ NBC 4 news:
Julie Carey NOVA Bureau Chief, NBC4 Washington PHOTO: Twitter
The local couple interviewed by Julie emphasized the impressive “human dignity” of the Afghan refugees! (I also observed this during many years of hearing asylum cases in person at the Arlington Immigration Court.) Compare that with the lack thereof (not to mention absence of empathy and kindness) shown by the nativist naysayers!
The White House denies that political cowardice caused its foot-dragging. But if true, this wouldn’t be the first time fear of right-wing blowhards distorted Biden’s immigration policies.
In February, Biden announced he was lifting Donald Trump’s draconian restrictions on worldwide refugee admissions. Then, inexplicably, Biden didn’t sign the paperwork to put his change into effect. Refugees who’d already been fully vetted, approved and booked onto flights by the State Department were left stranded.
For months, the White House refused to explain the delay; spokespeople repeated the same content-free bromides about how Biden believes refugees are “the heart and soul of this country.”
Eventually it came out that Biden was dragging his feet because of worries about political optics.
Then as now, his attempt to duck GOP attacks backfired. His delays inspired several negative news cycles about his broken promises.By the time he finally signed the paperwork, the refugee system had been effectively shut down for months, leaving Biden on track to close out the fiscal year with the lowest refugee admissions on record.
You might wonder how the nativists have responded to Biden’s attempts to cave to their preferences. Unsurprisingly: They’re still not happy!
Amid Biden’s delays over the refugee ceiling, and his decisions to maintain other (possibly unlawful) Trump-era immigration policies, Trumpers continued to attack him. Fast-forward to today, as former Trump officials ludicrously fearmonger that Afghans who assisted U.S. troops are dangerous and claim that efforts to rescue them are an extension of Biden’s “self-destructive open border policies.” Tucker Carlson and fellow Fox News colleagues accuse Biden of encouraging Afghan refugees to “change” or even “invade” America, offering rhetoric reminiscent of the white-supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
Here’s the thing Biden never learned: No matter what he does, these bad-faith demagogues will accuse him of “open borders.” So he might as well pursue the policies he thinks are right and not let decisions be dictated by fear of how Fox News might frame them.
This is especially true of today’s Afghan refugee crisis, since there are many conservatives who do support efforts to keep our promises to wartime allies and welcome them here for resettlement. They include veterans who fought alongside these allies, as well as Republicangovernors, senators and congressmen.Republican lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to fund more visas for Afghan allies, as Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) pointed out in an interview.
“If there is one immigration issue that could have rallied conservatives, it is the protection of Afghans who have helped our military,” said Ali Noorani, president and chief executive of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy organization working with faith, law enforcement and business leaders. “This was a profound misreading of the politics by the [administration]. And, even worse, believing Tucker Carlson represents America.”
Biden calls himself pro-immigrant. His appointees to senior immigration posts have generally been excellent. And unlike his openly xenophobic predecessor, Biden speaks warmly of newcomers and their contributions to this country. But such words are meaningless if he still caves to the bigots when it matters.
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I urge everyone to read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the above link.
As I always say, actions speak louder than words! The essence of Catherine’s article is so true, and bears repeating and remembering by all members of the NDPA:
Here’s the thing Biden never learned: No matter what he does, these bad-faith demagogues will accuse him of “open borders.” So he might as well pursue the policies he thinks are right and not let decisions be dictated by fear of how Fox News might frame them.
None have said it better and more clearly! And, it’s true not just of Biden, but of Dems almost across the spectrum. When “push comes to shove” they are too often unwilling to stand up for their own values and implement them in the face of well-orchestrated right wing lies and myths.
Having a competent implementation plan, staffed and led by progressive experts, is another frequent Dem failure. The GOP has no problem bringing in unqualified ideologues and hacks to carry out their toxic agendas at the “retail level” of Government.
But, the Dems leave the “progressive all-star team” in the dugout! I’ve pointed out many times that no matter how noble your rhetoric, or meritorious your ideas, you’re doomed to failure if you don’t have the courage, expertise, and determination at the “retail levels” of Government (including the legal system, particularly EOIR) to put better Government into effect.
Catherine is right that many of Biden’s upper level immigration appointees are promising. But, the critical levels below them are still infested with Trump holdovers and folks who simply lack the progressive knowledge, courage, and skill set to constructively solve problems and implement long overdue reforms.
I’ve actually lived through it in a number of Administrations where once in office, the Dems basically carried out the GOP immigration agenda, pissed off some of their most loyal supporters, but were still characterized as “open borders” and “weak” by the GOP while actually killing, maiming, and destroying the lives of those they once had pledged to protect! Could there be a worse result?
As usual, Catherine’s analysis is much clearer, more succinct, and more articulate than the gibberish and double-talk that often comes out of politicians on both sides, but particularly the White Nationalist nativist crowd. I’ve suggested before that the Biden Administration or Dems in Congress would do well to hire Catherine as their spokesperson and “press flackie” on immigration. They also would do well to pay attention to her substantive analysis on issues including immigration and the economy.
But, even if they weren’t, we would have a moral obligation to help Afghan refugees after 20 years in their nation, during which many have been placed in life-threatening situations because of their assistance to us or their adherence to our stated ideals and promises.
Many of us have been warning for some time about the catastrophic human and moral consequences of the Biden Administration’s “slow walk” to repair the intentional, legally questionable, and unconscionable dismantling of the once-proud U.S. Refugee Program done by the Trump White Nationalist kakistocracy and its cowardly cronies, enablers, and bureaucratic toadies. (The same is true of our legal asylum system, which deals with refugees in a different context.)Now, our worst fears are playing out with the world watching and lives in the balance.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — His poignant recollection of the inability of his great aunts to find refuge in the U.S., and their resulting deaths in the Holocaust, haven’t stopped him from daily “pushing the St. Louis back out to sea” and denying legal protections and full due process to asylum seekers at our Southern Border and at EOIR — his “wholly owned court system” that functions more like a branch of DHS enforcement than a court of law! Official White House Photo Public Realm
“Garland believes that a thorough de-Trumpification of the Justice Department would … be called partisanship and would call into question the institution of the Justice Department, but the institution has already been called into question,” says Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Sessions and Barr came in with a goal of assaulting and undermining the institution of the Justice Department, and it’s just weird to presume that they failed. We presume that they succeeded. They were in the building. They hired their minions. They assessed people. They politicized everything. Garland presuming that the previous Department of Justice was behaving in good faith requires the same suspension of disbelief as believing dragons are real in a fantasy novel.”
. . . .
And so, we’ll also be judging Garland by another standard: how well his approach fortifies the institution against a future administration that once again disrespects norms and politicizes the rule of law.
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These quotes go to the heart of the problem with Garland’s stewardship and his naive, ivory tower, ineffectively timid approach to restoring the rule of law at Justice. “By the book” is NOT an effective strategy against opponents who seek to burn the book, bury the ashes, and lie about it! It’s basically no “strategy” all!
I’d be shocked, as would most knowledgeable observers, if the next GOP Administration doesn’t “disrespect the norms and politicize the rule of law.” Not only have the past two GOP Administrations done exactly that, in spades, but that’s basically what today’s GOP stands for: neo-fascist, anti-democracyrule based on big lies and a cult of personality.
To the extent the modern GOP believes in anything, it’s the exercise of power without restraint of law or morality. “Why? Because we can, and you can’t stop us. We’re in power, and you aren’t,” was largely the Trump McConnell mantra, particularly when it came to judges. How did the dying plea of RBG and the appeals of Dems for fairness and consistency in Supremes’ appointments work out? It was a classic “heads I win, tails you lose” that once again left the Dems grasping at thin air.
So, these folks are going to respect long-gone “norms” from the 1970s? “Norms” that couldn’t and didn’t stop Ashcroft, Gonzalez (“Gonzo I”), Mukasey, Sessions, or Barr? You have to be kidding? I don’t know what universe Garland has been living in for the past four plus years, but it doesn’t appear to be this one.
Contrary to Garland’s approach, there is absolutely nothing wrong with:
Coming clean on recent abuses at DOJ;
Replacing lawless immoral intentional misconstructions of law with better progressive ones that adhere to and further both the rule of law and “good government;” and
Replacing political hacks who furthered the White Nationalist agenda or other personnel who “went along to get along” with abuses, to keep their jobs, with progressive experts committed to due process and best practices who’ll get the job of restoring the rule of law, respect, and human dignity done.
Not only is there nothing wrong with the foregoing, but they are moral and practical imperatives if lives are to be saved and our democracy preserved! For Pete’s sake, these are actually the things that Biden and Harris campaigned upon and won! Why is Garland reticent to act upon truth?
This isn’t an “academic exercise!” It’s an actual life or death moment for migrants and for our democracy! And, the opponents are not folks who intend to honor norms established by Garland or any other Dem.
Indeed, they will characterize all of his actions as “radical socialism,” as they already have, regardless of the truth. In many ways, Garland’s incremental, largely passive, approach to “de-Trumpifying justice @ Justice” has been a huge gift to GOP anti-democracy insurrectionists and restrictionists. But, if I were him, I wouldn’t wait for the “thank you note.”
To shrink from the bold decisive actions necessary to clean up the disgraceful mess at the DOJ and its most grotesque manifestations at EOIR shows not only a lack awareness, but a lack of beliefin the progressive, democratic, humane values that got Biden and Harris elected in the first place and got Garland his job.
And, it’s not as if the problem with the values and institutional integrity at DOJ started only in the Trump regime. Under Bush II, Ashcroft and his advisor, notorious White Nationalist xenophobe Kris Kobach, had their plan to dismantle due process and fundamental fairness in the Immigration Courts, through compromising the BIA, in action before they even set foot in the building 10th & Pa. Ave.Those changes have actually cost some migrants their lives, and some DOJ attorneys their jobs (for the “crime” of standing up for due process for migrants) even before the Trump kakistocracy arrived.
And, al la Garland, the Obama Administration’s failure to either acknowledge the historical truth or take the obvious and necessary corrective actions sent our Immigration Courts and justice for migrants into a steep decline that became a “death spiral” under Sessions (“Gonzo Apocalypto”) and Barr and continues its accelerated downward trajectory under Garland. It’s a contributing factor in the largely self-created 1.3 million case Immigration Court backlog generated by Sessions and Barr at EOIR.
Indeed, the lack of quality, intellectual honesty, practical guidance, humane values, common sense, expertise, and legitimacy at EOIR has spread to and adversely affected other areas of our beleaguered justice system and now threatens to take down everything in a messy heap. Why a former Article III Appellate Judge can’t grasp that reality and act accordingly is beyond me.
Maybe its because he didn’t personally experience enough of EOIR’s deadly, failed, corner-cutting “work product” at the D.C. Circuit because DC has no “resident Immigration Court.” Maybe it’s because he can’t “connect the dots” between his relatives who died in the Holocaust and having no legal asylum system for those arriving at our Southern border and denying asylum seekers full due process every day @ EOIR.
For the reasons set forth in the article, it seems that Judge Garland is philosophically and by personality incapable of leading and implementing long overdue, critical progressive changes at this point in his otherwise distinguished career. The only hope would be that one of his advisors could light a fire and get him out of his inept centrist institutionalist funk.
But, the two best hopes to do that, Associate Attorney Vanita Gupta and Assistant AG for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, who should be personally familiar with the practical and racial justice disaster at EOIR and its overall adverse effects on justice in America, have failed to make a visible impact.
Garland needs a practical expert like Dean Kevin Johnson at U.C. Davis Law, Professor Karen Musalo at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings Law, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Associate Dean at Temple Law, Judy Rabinowitz at ACLU, Marielena Hincappie at the National Immigration Justice Center, or someone of equal expertise and stature in civil and human rights to advise him and lead the reform effort at EOIR. Sadly, he does not appear interested in surrounding himself with such capable, talented individuals who could “save him from himself” while saving the lives of those like his great aunts who perished in the Holocaust for want of a viable refugee and asylum system.
Like Garland, I was at the DOJ during the Levi-Civiletti post-Watergate reform era. I once knew him and certainly helped out his “boss” Ben Civiletti on several occasions.
Somewhere in the “archives,” I have a handwritten note from Ben Civiletti expressing his gratitude that he never had to use the “administrative subpoena” and “designation as an “immigration officer” that I had drafted for him in the midst of one of a number of “immigration emergencies” involving a plane on the tarmac.
Somewhere along the line, Merrick seems to have forgotten that even Civiletti was willing to take bold actions when necessary to advance the cause of immigration justice! There was no “precedent” for the Attorney General personally serving an INS subpoena. But, Civiletti was on the verge of doing it, until “Plan A” prevailed, and the crisis was resolved without resorting to “Plan B” or even “Plan C.”
I was also there and directly affected when the likes of Ashcroft, “Gonzo I”, Kobach, and Mukasey cut through those post-Watergate reforms at EOIR as though they never existed, with little resistance except for a few of us “survivors” who adapted and continued to fight for due process and individual justice in a deteriorating system.
I watched in disgust and disbelief as the Obama Administration (“change?” — not so much in immigration) completely “blew” the opportunity to make life and democracy saving corrections at EOIR. I then saw from the outside as “Gonzo Apocalypto” and Barr aggressively and systematically dismantled American justice, starting with the Immigration Courts. Their job was made infinitely easier by the indolence of the Obama Administration in failing to systematically bring progressive reforms and appoint more progressive judges at EOIR.
But, those of us “on the outside” were not just “passively outraged” by the due process and human rights abuses flowing from DOJ, we took action! Among many groups forming the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”), our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, some of whom had resigned or retired as an act of conscience, helped lead the charge against the Trump regime’s inhumane, scofflaw policies and bogus legal interpretations.
We filed over 100 amicus briefs in tribunals from the Supremes to the BIA, many of them successful in helping to correct and reverse the regime’s anti-due process, anti-immigrant, racially driven policies. We also wrote, educated, did media interviews, organized, inspired others to join the resistance, and voted for change!
Even assuming, as I do, that any future GOP Administration would move to undo progressive reforms and replace progressive judges, their job would be made much more difficult if Garland creates the progressive judiciary that he should at EOIR. Moreover, even if exiled, “trueprogressive practical scholars” will form the expert backbone of the resistance to neo-fascism in the “next generation” of the Round Table and the NDPA.
Some “graduates” of a progressive Immigration Judiciary could be elevated to the Article III Judiciary where they will have continuing beneficial influence beyond the ability of the next GOP Administration to change. Others could use their knowledge of the system to fight the forces of nativism, restrictionism, White Nationalist myths, and mindless cruelty. Others will run for office and improve our moribund legislative branch! Who knows, we could even get Article I during the Biden Administration, giving a progressive immigration judiciary yet another degree of protection from right-wing political shenanigans!
Garland’s “stuck in the irretrievable past” approach to EOIR and the DOJ generally is blowing a golden, perhaps never-to-come again, chance to finally create an effective progressive judiciary at EOIR and, perhaps most important, to save lives and stop “pushing the St. Louis” back out to sea! It’s something that Biden can’t fully achieve in the Article IIIs. It’s painful to watch him squander the opportunity.
Merrick Garland might well have been a great Supreme Court Justice had Mitch McConnell and the GOP had a serious interest in institutional integrity and preserving norms. They didn’t (which should have been “signal” that got Garland’s attention)! Garland might also have been great Attorney General in a bygone era.
Sadly for both Garland and America, he’s not the “right fit” for the job under today’s realities. Not only will that forever tarnish his reputation, but it could well cost the rest of us our democracy.
🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Timidity and false “restraint” in delivering equal justice for all, never!
The meek might well inherit the earth in the next world. But, they won’t restore the rule of law to the Department of Justice in this one!☠️
Come on, Judge Garland, take off the blinders and show that you are smart, flexible, and capable enough to get beyond the limitations of your past experiences and take the bold, aggressive, courageous, potentially controversial, yet absolutely necessary and long overdue, actions necessary to restore the rule of law at Justice in the 21st year of the 21st Century. And, that starts with progressive due process reforms and major personnel changes at EOIR!
PWS
07-26-21
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HISTORICAL ADDENDUM FROM HON. “SIR JEFFREY” CHASE:
I actually had Civiletti’s desk at the BIA (I was told that Tony Moscato had brought it with him from Main Justice).
If Republicans are truly worried about the supposed scourge of undocumented immigrants, they should start building that “big, beautiful door” on our borders that Donald Trump always talked about.
The solution to concerns about “illegal immigration” is creating more legal pathways to immigrate here.
Immigration reform has stalled for decades, despite widespread agreement that the existing system is broken, and occasional bipartisan attempts to fix it. The latest sweeping reform bill, backed by President Biden, has gone nowhere, unlikely to secure enough Republican votes to avoid a filibuster.
So now Senate Democrats are attempting a workaround. They’ve signaled that they’ll include a narrow subset of immigration issues in their forthcoming reconciliation bill, which could be passed with only Democratic votes.
Exact details are still being hashed out, but the bill is expected to contain a pathway to citizenship for certain categories of undocumented immigrants, including “dreamers” (unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States as children), those with temporary protected status (people from countries facing emergencies such as armed conflict or natural disaster), essential workers and farm laborers.
A majority of both Democratic and Republican voters support earned legalization of these groups, according to recent polls.
This legislative strategy is by no means a slam-dunk. Moderate Democratic lawmakers need to get on board, since passing the bill through the reconciliation process would require all 50 Senate Democrats’ votes. The biggest wild card, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), has already indicated his support, which seems promising.
The bigger hurdle involves legislative rules: The Senate parliamentarian must determine that these immigration measures are sufficiently budget-related to include in the reconciliation process. Legalizing millions of undocumented migrants would have some effect on federal budgets — for example, through more immigration application fees and taxes on legalized immigrants’ earnings. Activists also point to a 2005 reconciliation bill that included different immigration-related provisions. Even so, the parliamentarian may nix these particular measures.
None of this has stopped Republicans from preemptive scaremongering about the “illegal alien” hordes supposedly rushing our “open borders” to seize their “amnesty.”
“Democrats are trying to sneak mass amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants through Congress under the cover of their budget scheme,” warned Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
“The Democrats want to include a massive amnesty in that legislation,” echoed his colleague Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). “That will simply act as a bigger magnet for more illegal immigration into this country.”
This is nonsense. First and foremost, the population eligible for legalization would likely be restricted to people who’ve already been here for some minimum period of time, rather than those contemplating coming, say, tomorrow. This is how that broader, Biden-backed bill works, and how previous legalization proposals have been structured.
More importantly, though, if these restrictionists are really so concerned about all the immigrants slipping in through the back door, the best solution is a more accessible, clearly monitored front door.
. . . .
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Well and clearly said, Catherine! You can read her complete op-Ed at the above link.
The solution to border “surges” has little or nothing to do with walls, jails, and more agents. The prerequisites are reopening the ports of entry, restoring the legal asylum system, staffing it with experts, and expanding other legal immigration opportunities as Catherine cogently suggests!
“Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers”. — “The reality of racial justice and the rule of law for people of color at our Southern Border is rather sobering, as the Biden Administration fails to usher in needed progressive reforms. How many more people will die because this Administration won’t follow the Constitution, The Refugee Act, and our international obligations? We’ll never achieve racial justice so long as dehumanization of people of color is our official policy, carried out by a broken and dysfunctional DOJ!” EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)Vice President Kamala D. Harris Vice President of the United States — “Will she be able to get beyond the mistakes of the past and put rationality, humanity, and the rule of law in place at the Southern Border. So far, the results of her leadership are NOT encouraging for those who believe in progressive, humanitarian, legal policies.” (Official Senate Photo)
James Fredrick is a multimedia journalist based in Mexico City and covers migration, crime, politics and sports.
. . . .
Obama tried deterring migrants with his characteristic lawyerly tact. Trump did it with his cruel, petty impulsiveness. Biden is doing it with his folksy toughness. The styles are different, but the results of immigration deterrence will always be the same.
We’re trapped in this cycle because the U.S. government refuses to listen to migrants. Having met hundreds of migrants during my years reporting in Mexico and Central America, it’s obvious why deterrence doesn’t work: What’s at home is worse than anything the United States could threaten. Most migrants don’t want to leave home. But they do because violent death or crippling destitution is all that’s left.
Failing to actually come up with a solution, we of the “greatest country on Earth” become tremendously feeble and defensive at the arrival of a few thousand immigrant children. But there is another way.
We must treat immigration as a civil and humanitarian issue, not a criminal one. Criminalizing people fleeing violence, persecution, climate change or economic hardship exacerbates these problems. So decriminalize border crossings and rebuild border facilities as welcome centers, not jails. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection agents at the border should be social workers, not cops.
If Trump’s family separation atrocity showed us anything, it’s that millions of Americans want to help immigrants in need. The United States should cooperate more with these groups. There are already large networks around the country that can provide housing, food, legal services, education and medical services to immigrants. Why rely on expensive armed border agents instead of willing, motivated humanitarian groups?
Immigration laws should also address the challenges of the 21st century. In addition to decriminalizing border crossings, our immigration laws rely on outdated quotas and corrupt, abusive worker programs. Asylum law is a relic of the Cold War and doesn’t reflect the world today.
Finally, Washington should stop making the problems worse with bad foreign policy. Despite numerous abuses, scandals and criminal allegations involving Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, the Biden administration refuses to denounce him, though many think he is responsible for the conditions Hondurans are fleeing. In fact, Biden administration officials are working with Hernández to try to prevent Hondurans from fleeing. He’s just one example in a long history of U.S. meddling to prop up corrupt, abusive, U.S.-friendly regimes. No amount of U.S. dollars in aid can make up for bad foreign policy.
President Biden can’t stop the crisis today. After all, he helped create it. But he can make sure this is the last “border crisis” we face.
************
Read the complete op-ed at the link.
Ah, “mindlessly” — one of my favorite terms, usually applied these days to Garland and his inept team at DOJ! Actually, Frederick isn’t the only one to figure this out!
The problem remains, as I have stated over and over, the toxic failure of the Biden Administration to bring progressive experts in immigration, human rights, civil rights, and “applied due process” into Government and empower them to solve the problems! It’s bizarrely compounded by the disgraceful unwillingnessof those few in the Biden Administration, like Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, who actually know better, to speak up for racial justice, social justice, human rights, and human dignity at the DOJ!
Unless VP Harris wakes up, convinces her boss, and brings in the progressive experts, she’s headed for the abyss, taking thousands of vulnerable refugees and, perhaps, American democracy down with her!
Refusal to listen: to migrants, their representatives, experts, our “better angels,” and common sense! The same problems, over and over, Administration after Administration, decade after decade! The same “built to fail” policies repeated!
The truth is in front of the Biden Administration! But, like Garland, Mayorkas, and others leading the way over the cliff, Biden and Harris can’t see it! They appear to have “tuned out” those desperately trying to keep them from plunging over the precipice! So tragic, so unnecessary, so threatening to American democracy and the future of humanity!
Judge Garland & Secretary Mayorkas continue to abuse asylum seekers at the Southern Border & in the U.S. Albrecht Dürer, Public Domain, via Wikimedia CommonsKevin Sieff Latin American Correspondent, Washington Post
MATAMOROS, Mexico — Carolina had memorized the date, but she triple-checked her documents just to make sure. For months, her life had revolved around the court hearing at which she could finally make her asylum claim.
Like tens of thousands of asylum seekers who reached the U.S. border during the Trump administration, the 36-year-old from Honduras had been sent to wait in Mexico for her immigration hearing. She was told to return to the border on her court date.
So on Feb. 26, 2020, she woke up early and put on her best blouse. She said a short prayer. But not long after her bus left for Laredo, Tex., gunmen stopped the vehicle. They kidnapped Carolina and her 15-year-old daughter, took them to a stash house packed with other kidnapped migrants and demanded thousands of dollars in ransom.
By the time they were released a few days later, Carolina had missed her day in court.
Her asylum case, it turned out, had been closed in absentia because she hadn’t shown up. Of the 68,000 asylum cases processed under the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols, the policy also know as “Remain in Mexico,” 28,000 were closed for the same reason: Because asylum seekers didn’t present themselves.
. . . .
“MPP deprived people of due process and fundamental fairness,” she said. “In order to restore access to asylum in a meaningful way, the Biden administration needs to reopen cases for people ordered removed under MPP and allow them to pursue their claims safely from within the United States.”
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Read Kevin’s full article at the link.
The last statement, from Haiyun Damon-Feng, the director of the Adelante Pro Bono Project and assistant director of the William H. Gates Public Service Law Program at the University of Washington School of Law, sums it up. It’s not rocket science! It’s basic “Con Law 101” with some common sense and human decency thrown in! It’s also an essential part of the Biden Administration fulfilling basic campaign promises! Folks like Damon-Feng are the ones who should be running this system, solving the problems, and reconstructing the legal asylum system!
In what kind of “court” system are kidnapped individuals, some of them minors and children, further penalized and the Government allowed to get away with not keeping accurate addresses of individuals in their process and of knowingly sending them into danger zones? The victims remain in limbo and suffering while the perpetrators of these illegal outages — both current and former government officials — have not been held accountable. This is a national disgrace compounded by the fact that neither Judge Garland nor Secretary Mayorkas have taken corrective actions. Nor have they cleaned out the deadwood from their own legally and morally bankrupt systems and put competent individuals in charge!
Qualified Immigration Judges and competent administrators at the DOJ and DHS could have started solving these problems beginning the day after the inauguration. That 100 days into the Biden Administration this system is still operating illegally and taking a human toll is both a betrayal of campaign promises and an abuse of humanity! It’s also horrible and clearly illegal policy!
How does an Administration that is actively engaged in “Dred Scottifying” people of color at the border and in their wholly owned Immigration “Courts” — actually modern day “Star Chambers” — have any “legitimate voice” on racial justice in America?
“Justice” Star Chamber Style
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Human lives matter! The Constitution matters! Asylum law matters!
Opinion: The unjust nature of civil court without counsel
Erica Starkey, from Columbus, Ohio, did not have the assistance of a lawyer in a legal battle for custody of two of her children. (Maddie McGarvey/For The Washington Post)
Erica Starkey’s story exposes the unjust nature of civil court proceedings for people who cannot afford counsel. People facing deportation also face a similar “affront to justice” as immigration cases are also civil proceedings. The majority of people in detention (70 percent) have no legal representation because people facing deportation do not have the right to a public defender, leaving them to navigate an unjust legal system alone. As a result, many immigrants languish in detention facilities for months or even years, often in inhumane and deadly conditions.
We have seen leaders in communities as diverse as Philadelphia, Denver and Harris County, Tex., collaborate with advocates and lawyers to create and expand deportation defense programs that secure due process rights for all. Together with existing representation programs, these efforts that center fairness and dignity have paved the way for a federal defender system for all immigrants. This critical work must continue across all levels of government to undo the radiating impacts of continued criminalization, mass detention, and separation and deportation of immigrants, and advance a new vision of justice for our communities.
Kica Matos, New York
The writer is vice president of initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice.
*******************
“Are you ready to proceed without a lawyer, sir?”
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced with great fanfare plans to investigate the Minneapolis Police Department.
Seems quite hypocriticalgiven the glaring lack of constitutional due process, institutionalized xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and incompetence infecting his own Immigration Courts.
How is a Department that has failed to address systematic injustice in its own dysfunctional and unfair “courts” going to credibly address problems in the rest of our American Justice system?
Due Process Forever! Tell Judge Garland To Fix His Unjust “Courts” @ Justice!
Biden campaigned, and won, on a very different message.
He promised to “restore the soul of America,” which he argued included welcoming the stranger. It was a message he had promoted for decades. Upon taking office, he declared plans to roll back the Miller/Trump immigration agenda. Among them: raising the refugee admissions ceiling from 15,000 to 62,500.
Biden’s rationale for this policy was partly moral, partly practical. Unlike their predecessors, Biden and his immigration advisers recognized that creating more pathways for people to come to the United States legally would actually promote “law and order” and alleviate stress on the immigration system. In a February report to Congress, the State Department said one reason to “increase the overall refugee admissions number” was to “facilitate safe and orderly migration and access to international protection and avert a humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border.”
Then, inexplicably, Biden got cold feet.
He delayed signing the paperwork necessary to put his policy into effect, leaving hundreds of vetted refugees in limbo. White House spokespeople could not explain the holdup. Reports leaked that Biden worried about the “optics” of letting in more refugees amid a surge of migration at the southern border, even though he knew the two issues were unrelated.
In other words: Biden seemed to concede that Miller’s propaganda had worked and that the public might view all immigrants as a dangerous, undifferentiated horde of intruders the new administration was failing to contain.
Rather than fighting the confusion and fear Miller had sown, Biden caved. Friday’s White House announcement even invoked the same weaselly excuse Trump officials had used to justify their record-low cap — that it was necessitated by the (irrelevant) border surge.
On Twitter, Miller took a victory lap. He urged Biden to reduce refugee admissions to zero, which he declared would be the “most popular” thing to do.
But Biden and Miller both misread the politics. Biden’s announcement drew immediate, widespread backlash. Perhaps unsurprisingly: Despite Team Trump’s relentless smears of refugees and other immigrants, polls show the public has grown more pro-immigrant in recent years — with support reaching record highs.
Within hours of its initial announcement Friday, the White House backtracked, saying a higher refugee ceiling would be forthcoming. Officials refused to specify the new level and will not commit to the 62,500 Biden previously promised. Biden is leaving his options open — perhaps in case Miller’s political assessment turns out to be right.
It’s not clear why Biden has been so timid. As Biden himself has persuasively argued, admitting more refugees is in the country’s moral and national security interests. What’s more, he was elected on a popular mandate to do it. The White House must exorcise the ghost of Stephen Miller and deliver the agenda that our new, soul-restoring president promised.
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Catherine Rampell Opinion Columnist Washington Post
Thanks, Catherine, for continuing to speak out about the Biden Administration’s ill-informed approach to immigration, racial justice, and human rights — particularly refugee issues! You can read the rest of Catherine’s op-ed at the link.
No such “Victory Laps” for those who worked to get Biden, Harris, Garland, and Mayorkas their jobs!
As I’ve pointed out, Miller’s execs and “judges” remain in key positions at Garland’s EOIR as our Immigration Courts continue to fail to provide due process while institutionalizing racial injustice in America, just as Stephen Miller planned it.
Indeed, the racist, misogynist, xenophobic, “worst practices” precedents issued by Trump’s AGs remain in effect under Garland. And, the borders remain closed to most legal asylum seekers in violation of our Constitution, the statute, common sense, and simple human decency.
Equally discouraging is Judge Garland’s apparent indifference to the unparalleled opportunity given him to create a progressive Immigration Judiciary that would actually reflect the humane, due process ideals upon which Biden and Harris campaigned and won the election. Additionally, he could also bring diversity, expertise, and independent progressive thinking to a currently non-diverse judiciary that is often disconnected from both the laws they administer and the stakeholder communities most affected by their decisions, conduct, and attitudes.
I have said many times that Immigration Judges “teach from the bench” every day. The messages being sent and lessons being taught to many of those seeking justice and to their lawyers, basically the “heart and soul” of the next generation of our profession, do not reflect well on the Biden Administration or Judge Garland, nor will they be treated kindly by legal and social historians.
That’s a real shame, because once squandered, the ability to send positive messages about equal justice for all, due process, and respect for human dignity is not easily, if ever, regained!Every case is an opportunity to send a better message; every day the current mess remains in place in our Immigration Courts is a missed opportunity for Judge Garland.
So far, human rights and immigrants’ advocates groups are in a familiar position in a Dem Administration — locked out of the power structure, largely ignored, and treated with indifference bordering on contempt. Strange way to treat those who helped you gain power in the first place!
The good news: the brainpower and talent to force positive change out of incompetent, valueless, and intransigent bureaucracies is still out here in the NDPA. We’ll just have to continue to take the fight to the “powers that be” — in the legal, political, educational, and public opinion arenas until job gets done!
Asked repeatedly (by me and others) what accounts for Biden’s delay, White House officials have struggled to answer. Sometimes they try to blame Trump, complaining that his administration left a system in “disrepair” that requires “rebuilding.” No doubt, Trump wrought a lot of damage upon the immigration system, and more resources would be necessary to reach the much higher refugee admissions that Biden claims he wants for the next fiscal year (125,000); currently, there aren’t enough people sufficiently far along in the refugee-screening pipeline to meet that goal.
But none of this explains why the few thousand already fully vetted and deemed “travel-ready” by the State Department as of early March have not been allowed in. The only thing preventing their entry is Biden — who refuses to do the right thing and sign a simple document.
The only explanation I can fathom for what’s going on is that the White House fears ordinary Americans will confuse the refugee resettlement system with the surge of migrants at the southern border. “Refugees” and “asylum seekers” might sound synonymous, but the groups are subject to different sets of laws, screening procedures and executive authorities. One key difference is that refugees apply from abroad and are screened for eligibility before they arrive; asylum seekers apply from within our borders or at a port of entry.
In other words, refugees are doing precisely what both Biden and Republicans urge those fleeing persecution and violence to do: staying abroad, and not crossing into the United States unlawfully; proving to U.S. and international officials that their lives are indeed in danger, and that they meet the legal requirements for resettlement; enduring extensive screening to prove they don’t threaten national security or public health; and then patiently waiting their turn for admission, a process that usually takes years.
And how is Biden rewarding them? The same way Trump did: by slamming the door.
*********************
Read Catherine’s complete article at the link.
[The Biden Administration] fears ordinary Americans will confuse the refugee resettlement system with the surge of migrants at the southern border.
Wow. In 50 years of “hanging around” the migration/human rights/political scene in D.C., I’ve heard plenty of insanely lame, cowardly excuses for not doing the right thing. But, this is “Top Five” material!
I have ideas on how to solve this problem, quickly:
Invest the “big bucks” to hire Catherine as the Biden Administration’s “Head Immigration Flackie.” She can explain the situation in terms that the American people will understand. That’s what Catherine does! Brings clarity, humanity, and common sense to complicated situations that flummox politicos and press offices.
Alternatively, get a “Loaner Law Student” from the Georgetown Law CALS Asylum Clinic. In two decades of working with CALS students in court, the classroom, and elsewhere, I’ve never run into one who doesn’t have a deeper understanding of, and better ability to explain, refugee and asylum policy than any of the “inept talking heads” the Biden Administration has thrown into the fray so far.
Georgetown Law
Another alternative: Hire Don Kerwin, currently the Executive Director of the Center for Migration Studies (“CMS”) to fix and explain the Administration’s (so far) mind-boggling failure to re-establish our refugee and asylum programs — actually both legal and moral obligations (although you wouldn’t know that by listening to the mindless negative natter from politicos of both parties). Don probably knows more than any living person about the amazing, quantifiable, benefits that refugees and asylees bring to our nation and is an expert at puncturing all of the White Nationalist myths and fear-mongering that have driven these essential programs into complete failure over the past few years.
Donald M. Kerwin Executive Director Center for Migration Studies
It’s also worthy of note that because of the Trump Administration’s “malicious incompetence” combined with the Biden Administration’s “willful incompetence,” against the background of an Attorney General unwilling to speak out and stand up for the legal rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and people of color in general, (just what is the purpose of an Attorney General who won’t stand up for the people — some of us thought, erroneously I guess, that we had voted that “model” out of office last November) we have no refugee program in Latin America and we have illegally closed ports of entry to legal asylum seekers.
So there is no regular system for asylum seekers to apply in an orderly fashion in accordance with our international, statutory, and Constitutional (not to mention moral) obligations. In violation of the mandatory provisions of Article 33 of the U.N. Convention, incorporated by the Refugee Act of 1980, every day we return legitimate refugees to danger, torture, or death without any inquiry at all. The “law violators” here aren’t the desperate folks vainly, yet gamely, trying to apply for asylum under our lawless system. It’s us!
Maybe, that’s why the Biden Administration doesn’t want anyone to understand what they really are doing and how wrong-headed it is!🤮👎🏴☠️
Is this Judge Merrick Garland’s Vision Of Justice For Refugee Women @ EOIR? If not, what’s he doing about it? Amazing StoriesArtist Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsJamie Gorelick American Lawyer & Public Servant PHOTO: Creative CommonsLayli Miller-Muro Founder & Executive Director, Tahirih Justice Center PHOTO: Creative Commons
Jamie Gorelick is a partner at Wilmer Hale. Layli Miller-Muro is founder and CEO of the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit that serves immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. Both were involved in Fauziya Kassindja’s asylum case in 1996: Gorelick was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration and Miller-Muro was Kassindja’s student legal counsel, representing her in immigration court and at the Board of Immigration Appeals.
With the issue of migration in the news again, a glaring omission in U.S. asylum law should get more attention: The statute does not name gender as a possible ground for protection.
To be granted asylum in the United States, an applicant must be facing persecution by their government or someone that government cannot or will not control. The applicant must show that the persecution is on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in “a particular social group.” Persecution on account of gender is not included.
This makes sense when considering that the global treaty that obliges state parties to protect refugees was adopted 70 years ago, in 1951, when the legal rights of women were barely recognized. The treaty — called the Refugee Convention — says that countries have an obligation to protect those who have no choice but to flee or risk death in the face of injustice.
It is unsurprising that the needs of women facing persecution were not considered in 1951. It is also not surprising — though it is disappointing — that Congress wrote this outdated framework into the Refugee Act of 1980.
In the mid-1990s, some light was shined on this problem. Fauziya Kassindja, a 17-year-old from Togo, sought protection both from forced polygamous marriage to a much older man and from female genital mutilation. She was granted asylum after proving that she was a member of a “particular social group” — and thus covered by the Refugee Act. We were both involved in this case, which helped to crack open the door for women to argue that gender-based asylum claims should be granted under the “particular social group” category in the statute.
But progress for women has been slow and painful under a statute that does not explicitly recognize gender-based persecution. It took 14 years for the United States to grant asylum to a Guatemalan woman, Rodi Alvarado, who endured unspeakable brutalization by her husband, a former soldier. Regulations proffered by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in 2000 to protect women under the social-group category were never finalized, leaving women in the lurch. So much variance exists in the likelihood of success from court to court that filing a claim can feel like playing Russian roulette.
. . . .
This situation has been made much worse in recent years. Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, decades of progress were nearly wiped out by the stroke of a pen. Because the highest immigration court is part of the Justice Department, he was able to single-handedly reverse key legal precedents favorable to women’s claims and issue guidance to judges limiting gender-based asylum. As a result of these changes, the safety of many immigrant women hangs by a thread. The Refugee Act urgently needs to be changed to clearly protect women who would otherwise meet the stringent requirements for asylum.
. . . .
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Read the full op-ed at the link.
The Rest of the Story
I wrote the decision granting asylum in Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996). Jamie Gorelick was the Deputy Attorney General during part of my tenure (1995-2001) as Chair of the BIA. Layli Miller-Muro worked for me as a BIA Attorney-Advisor for a time.
Following Kasinga, some of my colleagues and I put our careers on the line to vindicate the statutory, constitutional, and human rights of refugee women who suffered egregious persecution in the form of domestic violence. One of those cases was Rodi Alvarado (a/k/a “Ms. R-A-“), where we dissented from our majority colleagues’ misguided denial of protection to her following grotesque, clearly gender-based persecution. Matter of R-A-, 22 I&N Dec. 906, 928 (BIA 1999) (Guendelsberger,Board Member, dissenting with Schmidt, Chair, Villageliu, Rosenberg, and Moscato, Board Members). Alvarado had properly been granted asylum by an Immigration Judge, building on Kasinga, before being unjustly stripped of protection by the majority of our colleagues.
The incorrect decision in R-A- was vacated by Attorney General Reno. Finally, after a 14-year struggle, Ms. Alvarado was granted asylum in an unpublished, unappealed decision based largely on the rationale of the dissenters. In the meantime, the “gang of four” dissenters (minus Moscato) had been exiled from the BIA by Attorney General John Ashcroft, assisted by his sidekick, Kris Kobach (the infamous “Ashcroft Purge” @ the BIA).
In 2014, in Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014), the BIA finally recognized domestic violence based on gender as a form of persecution. They did so without acknowledging the pioneering work of the R-A- dissenters 15 years earlier. By this time, domestic violence as a basis for asylum had become so well established that it wasn’t even contested by the DHS (although, curiously, the case was remanded by the BIA for additional findings on issues that were beyond reasonable dispute)!
In the meantime, at the Arlington Immigration Court, my colleagues and I had consistently granted domestic violence asylum cases based on a DHS policy position known as the “Martin Memo,” after former INS General Counsel and later DHS Deputy General Counsel Professor David Martin (who, incidentally, argued the Kasinga case before the BIA in 1996 — famous gender-based asylum expert Professor Karen Musalo argued for Kasinga). Most of those grants were unappealed by DHS. Indeed, many were so compelling and well documented that DHS joined Respondents’ counsel in moving for asylum grants following brief testimony. These cases actually became staples on my “short docket,” promoting efficiency, fairness, and becoming one of the few “working parts” of the Immigration Courts.
Tahirih Justice Center, founded by, Layli Miller-Muro, was counsel in some of these cases and served as an essential resource and inspiration for attorneys preparing domestic violence cases. It also functioned as a training center for some of the “new all-stars” of the New Due Process Army. For a time, the progress in recognizing, documenting, and vindicating the rights and humanity of female asylum seekers, at least in the Arlington Immigration Court, was one of the few shining examples of the courts, DHS, and the private/NGO bar working cooperatively to improve the quality and efficiency of justice in Immigration Court. It should have been a model for all other courts!
Sadly, in 2018, Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, unilaterally intervened and undid two decades of progress for women refugees of color with his grossly incorrect and disingenuous decision in Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (BIA 2018), overruling Matter of A-R-C-G- on completely specious grounds while intentionally misconstruing the facts of record. Significantly, Sessions’s intervention was over the objection of DHS, which had expressed continuing agreement with the A-R-C-G- framework for deciding domestic violence cases.
“Hanging by a thread,” as stated by the op-ed, unfortunately vastly understates the war on the legal rights and humanity of asylum-seeking women, particularly targeting women at color, being carried out at EOIR today. This effort is led by a BIA that has long since lost its way, basically “weaponizing” the legal distortions and vicious, openly misogynist dicta set forth by Sessions in Matter of A-B- to dehumanize, degrade, and deport vulnerable refugee women.
In numerous cases, the BIA actually intervenes at ICE’s request to reverse proper grants by courageous and scholarly Immigration Judges below. It’s all about churning out final orders of removal as a deterrent –a vile, disgusting, perverted “philosophy” advanced by Sessions, Barr, and Whitaker, and not yet effectively rejected by Judge Garland.
Judge Merrick B. Garland Official White House Photo Public Realm
Judge Garland is in the job because he is not only an experienced DOJ senior executive, but a long-serving Federal Judge who was admired for his sense of justice. It shouldn’t take an army of “spear-carriers” and subordinates for a true leader of Judge Garland’s experience to seize control of the situation and start getting the “ship of justice” sailing in the right direction. Judge Garland’s political and bureaucratic travails are of no moment to, and pale in comparison with, the additional, unconscionable abuse and “Dred Scottification” being heaped on refugee women and their courageous representatives by his dysfunctional and unconstitutional “star chamber courts.”
“Refugee women get ‘special treatment’ in accordance with the ‘traditional values’ applied to their cases in Judge Garland’s Immigration Courts!”
Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160Woman Being “Tried By Ordeal” 17th Century Woodcut Public Realm Source: Ancient Origins Website https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/trial-ordeal-life-or-death-method-judgement-004160
Please, Pick Up The Phone & Your Pen, Judge Garland!
Not rocket science, Judge Garland! All it takes is six calls and a signature to start ending misogyny at EOIR and achieving racial justice in the America.
First three calls: Call Judge Dana Marks (SF), Judge Noel Brennan (NYC), Judge Amiena Khan (Newark) and tell them that they are detailed to the positions of Acting EOIR Director, Acting BIA Chair, and Acting Chief Immigration Judge, respectively. (The first position is vacant and the other two positions are filled by Senior Executives subject to transfer at the AG’s discretion. The current Acting Director already has an SES position to which she could return, or she could be re-installed as the
EOIR General Counsel, a job for which she is well-qualified.)
Fourth call: Call the the head of of the Justice Management Division (JMD). Ask her/him to find suitable DOJ placements for the two current incumbents mentioned above and all current members of the BIA (all of whom are either SES or “Management Officials” subject to transfer at the AG’s discretion) in other DOJ positions at the same pay level where they can do no further damage to our justice system. Ask him/her to arrange for the temporary appointment of former DOJ employees Jamie Gorelick and Layli Miller-Muro as Acting Appellate Judges at the BIA.
Calls five and six: Call Jamie Gorelick and Layli Miller-Muro. Thank them, tell them you agree with their Post op-ed, and ask (or beg) them to come to DOJ on a temporary basis to help Judges Marks, Brennan, and Khan solve the current problems with asylum adjudications and take the necessary actions to get EOIR functioning as a legitimate, independent, due-process-oriented court system. In other words, turn their cogent op-ed into a “real life action plan” for restoring due process, humanity, and common sense to the Immigration Courts, with a focus on the now totally unprofessional, wrong-headed mis-adjudication of asylum cases.
Finally, sign this order:
All precedent decisions issued to EOIR by former Attorneys General Sessions and Barr, and former Acting Attorneys General Whitaker and Wilkinson, and all their pending actions certifying cases to themselves are hereby vacated. All cases shall be returned to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) for reconsideration. In the reconsideration process, the BIA shall, among other things, honor the letter and spirit of these binding precedents:
INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987)
Matter of Mogharrabi, 19 I&N Dec. 439 (BIA 1987)
Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996)
In the reconsideration process the BIA shall also be guided by the principle of “through teamwork, innovation, and best practices, become the world’s best tribunals, guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”
See, it’s not that complicated. By the end of this year, women will get the protection to which they legally are entitled from the Immigration Courts. We all will see dramatic changes that will lead the way toward “equal justice for all’” in America and become a blueprint for the Immigration Courts to fulfill the above-stated principle.
It would also be a far better legacy for Judge Garland to be viewed as the “father of the fair, independent, expert Immigration Courts,” than to be remembered as running the most dysfunctional, unfair, and misogynistic court system in America, his current path. And, as an extra added bonus, Judge Garland, you will have a great start on building a premier source of “battle tested,” due-process-oriented, progressive jurists for future Article III appointments!
It’s a “win-win-win” that you no longer can afford to ignore, Your Honor!
Sam & Me at his FDP, DC Retirement, June 4, 1993 Photo by Betty Bernsen PWS Archives
When Sam Bernsen was born in the summer of 1919, the world was still in the throes of an influenza pandemic. One hundred and one years later, he died in Bethesda after contracting another virus that ballooned into a global pandemic. But between those two world-shaking health events, Bernsen lived a full life packed with public service, baseball and family.
“I consider myself the luckiest person in the world having him as a father,” son Stuart Bernsen said. “He was full of love for his family and his extended family and his friends. He was a wonderful and optimistic person.”
Sam Bernsen died of covid-19 on July 26.
[Those we have lost to the coronavirus in Virginia, Maryland and D.C.]
His family emigrated from Eastern Europe in 1900, his son said. He was born in the Bronx on July 13, 1919. He was the youngest of seven children. “He was kind of raised by his sisters,” Stuart said.
Bernsen’s father was a tailor, and the family was poor. Growing up, Bernsen and the youths from the neighborhood took joy in the success of their hometown New York Yankees, then fielding a mythic squad anchored by sluggers Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig — Bernsen’s favorite player.
There was no way the children of immigrants scraping out a life in the city could afford tickets to the games, so Bernsen and his friends would climb to the roof of a building overlooking the outfield near Yankee Stadium and watch the games from there.
. . . .
Bernsen later served as the general counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1974 to 1977.
“He knew the policies and the stories behind every regulation and operating instruction, as well as the history of all the immigration statutes from the 1924 Act on,” retired immigration judge Paul Wickham Schmidt, a friend and former colleague, wrote in an online remembrance, adding, “Sam had progressive views on using court decisions and common sense to make the immigration laws function better and easier to administer for everyone, at least in some small ways.”
Also, from “the archives,” courtesy of Stuart, here’s a copy of my thank you note to Sam for being the “keynote speaker” at my investiture at the Arlington Immigration Court in June 2003:
On April 2, 2021, The Intercept published a damning article revealing that the oft-used legal research giant, LexisNexis, has contracted with ICE to provide the agency access to its massive data bank.
According to Sam Biddle from The Intercept, “[LexisNexis] also caters to the immensely lucrative ‘risk’ industry, providing, it says, 10,000 different data points on hundreds of millions of people to companies like financial institutions and insurance companies who want to, say, flag individuals with a history of fraud. LexisNexis Risk Solutions is also marketed to law enforcement agencies, offering ‘advanced analytics to generate quality investigative leads, produce actionable intelligence and drive informed decisions’ — in other words, to find and arrest people.”
It is impossible for most people to hear about these partnerships without getting a bad taste in their mouth. Unfortunately, our society’s dependence on tech has left us largely unable to divest or otherwise eschew these tools with much success. This dependence is the reason many of these companies don’t even try to hide how incestuous their relationships to government agencies like ICE really are.
The Intercept article should be read and taken as a clarion call to action for immigration advocates. The playing field is being skewed in favor of an omniscient government, leaving attorneys and those they represent more eggshells to avoid as they tread lightly around unseen information landmines. The façade of neutrality touted by Big Data and Big Tech is being torn down by the very companies who worked so hard to create it. What’s worse, the tech industry itself is the outfit that created the narrative that the internet, and all that comes with it, is a strictly neutral medium existing between the two groups allegedly existing in perpetual struggle: the masses and the government. (Don’t believe me? Don’t worry, someone already wrote an article about it here) This news should encourage more fervent use of alternative channels of informational support among those who represent non-citizens. Likewise, more collaborative efforts should also be made to place organized pressure on brazen unions such as that of LexisNexis and ICE. As it stands, it may even be advisable for many of us in the legal community to return to antiquated means of record-keeping and information-gathering if one can help it. After all, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t after you!
Some more interesting reading, some already linked above:
