The top Republicans on the House and Senate Judiciary committees are pushing the Department of Justice for answers about the ousting of Trump-era immigration judges by the Biden administration -- firings they say could be in violation of the law.
"We write about your decision to terminate the employment of multiple immigration judges who were hired during the Trump administration," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, write in a letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, to Attorney General Merrick Garland. "If true, your termination of these immigration judges because of their political ideology suggests that the [DOJ] acted in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA), which specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of political affiliation," they say. Fox News Digital reported in June that an unspecified number of Trump-era immigration judges, who were appointed in the latter days of the administration and whose two-year probationary periods expired, were removed by the Executive Office for Immigration Review. (EOIR) Judges who have been ousted have told Fox that they believe it is because they are out of step with the administration’s immigration views, or in some cases because of their past ties to conservative organizations. They have also blamed an antiquated system that allowed aggrieved attorneys to file baseless complaints, while one judge said that some had been let go after being given just a few days to respond to multiple and often vague complaints made against them -- and were let go in virtual conference calls lasting mere seconds. There are 590 sitting immigration judges, and the vast majority of those on probationary periods are then moved to non-probationary positions. The DOJ has said decisions related to career civil service employees, who include immigration judges, are based solely on performance, and the administration they were hired by plays no role in decision-making. A spokesperson for the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review told Fox News Digital that it does not comment on personnel matters. However, multiple Republicans have expressed concern about the removals, with a letter by 12 House Republicans last month accusing the administration of "nefarious" motives. The immigration judges’ union has also complained about a lack of transparency and have requested reviews of three of the removals "to ensure that they were taken in full compliance with the law and that the probationary evaluation processes comports with fundamental fairness and sound labor relations." Jordan and Grassley tied the removals, which they believe may be illegal, to the liberal immigration policies of the new administration. 7/10/2022 Hand Up Network Launches Immigration Program With Discounted Services for East Texas CommunityWith a goal to assist our local community, Hands Up Network, an East Texas-based nonprofit, has launched an immigration service program to assist individuals with a variety of services.
Samuel Smith, CEO of Hand Up Network, said the program was created due to seeing a need in the community, especially through those who receive help from the non-profit. “We were noticing a lot of our clients were really struggling in this area for these types of services,” he said. “It became very apparent that the only way we were actually going to be able to find those types of services that our clients really needed was to do it ourselves. So we put together a proposal with a concept, developed a concept and so forth.” Smith, with the help of Flor Nichols, HUN Immigration Development Manager, has been developing the program for a year and even received a large donation from an anonymous donor in the start of 2022. “We started talking to people in our community, the particular anonymous donor, who asked very clearly to remain anonymous, became very passionate about that and it’s a family that’s very passionate about helping people to be successful in our community,” Smith said. Smith is excited for HUN to launch the program and said it will help the immigrants of the community who have established a need for the services. “We have over 20 different countries of immigrants being represented in this community. They ranged from just clients who were struggling with just having some tough times to actually victims of crime and so forth,” he said. “As we started to talk to them, we found that a lot had some significant issues related to immigration status, they needed to file things and so forth but they also needed areas of expertise.” The program will assist with services such as personal consultation, family-based immigration services, humanitarian relief, citizenship services, residence services, assistance to survivors of domestic and other violent crimes, DACA, etc. HUN is also currently developing training in regards to civics, FAFSA, ESL and other education curriculums, Nichols mentioned. As for those interested in the programs, a consultation must be done first in order to fully assist them, said Nichols. The consultations can be in-person or over the phone, with a cost of $50 which will be with immigration specialists who have received training and qualifications through the Department of Justice. Prior to the consultation, those scheduling must fill a questionnaire that must be completed before the appointment. It will ask for demographics and background information in order to fully assist and lead the client to the proper path. Action in Congress on green cards and an administrative change on humanitarian parole by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has injected a rare bit of good news on immigration policy. The coming weeks will reveal if the news remains positive.
Humanitarian Parole: When the Biden administration decided to follow through on Donald Trump’s agreement with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the central government in Kabul fell too quickly for many Afghans to escape to safety. Biden officials used parole authority to bring tens of thousands of Afghans to America. However, that still left many other Afghans in danger. “Months after the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, Andisha Shah [a U.S. resident] is still waiting to be reunited with her sister and nephews,” reported PBS NewsHour. “Since last September, they’ve been in Pakistan, where they were relocated after the Taliban fighters began their takeover. . . . Shah’s family is still waiting across the border in Pakistan while their relatives in the U.S. hold out for a decision on an application for humanitarian parole, a special program for people who could be granted temporary entry into the United States for ‘urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.’” The problem has been not only a lack of resources for USCIS to adjudicate humanitarian parole requests but also the standard used to approve or deny cases. “Since July 2021, USCIS has received over 46,000 applications from Afghans hoping to come to the U.S. through the parole process,” according to CBS News. “But most parole applications from Afghans remain unresolved—and over 90% of fewer than 5,000 fully adjudicated requests have been denied . . . . As of June 2, only 297 parole requests from Afghans had been approved by USCIS, while 4,246 requests had been rejected, according to the agency figures, which suggest that most of the tens of thousands of pending cases will be rejected under the standards being used by the U.S. government.” In May 2022, I shared a panel with a high-ranking USCIS official and said USCIS needed to take a look at the standard and the guidance it is using for humanitarian parole since it does not appear to be working for Afghans overseas, given that many applications are being denied. The good news is USCIS has taken a look at the situation of Afghans seeking parole and added to its guidance on humanitarian parole in a way likely to result in a higher percentage of approvals for Afghans. While it is not apparent at first glance, it is possible to compare USCIS guidance before and after June 23, 2022, and find the addition. In the section on “Guidance on Evidence for Certain Types of Humanitarian or Significant Public Benefit Parole Requests,” the new language appears in the subsection “To Come to the United States for Protection from Targeted or Individualized Harm.” It now states under examples of relevant evidence: “Evidence that the beneficiary is a member of a targeted group, including: Credible third-party evidence that shows widespread targeting of the group for serious harm, such as a systematic or pervasive effort to impose serious harm against the group, and that individuals who are identified as members of that group are likely to be targeted for imminent serious harm; and Reliable documentation establishing the beneficiary’s membership in the targeted group and that the beneficiary is likely to be identified as a member of the targeted group and be at risk of imminent serious harm as a result.” It is too early to know how much the new language will improve the approval rate for Afghans applying for humanitarian parole. Still, it is positive that USCIS acknowledged the problem and has attempted to address it. (Hamed Aleaziz of the Los Angeles Times first reported on the new guidance.) The problems currently being encountered by a young French acquaintance have genuinely shocked me. Our friend from Bordeaux has a university degree and is fluent in both spoken and written English. She is an artist and a musician. She came to Scotland to be with her partner, a qualified gardener with a long-established Edinburgh firm. Our friend made her visa application some weeks ago in good faith imagining that it would be a straightforward and speedy process. Having spent over £3,000 working her way through the requirements, including the English test, she was told that the last stage was a face-to-face interview with a member of staff from the Home Office. For this she had to go to Manchester at her own expense. You can imagine her dismay to learn that her application has now been refused.
There are 12 pages in the refusal letter which lists 13 separate criteria for possible rejection. The letter is confusing and contradictory and concludes with the suggestion that she should return to France and that “it is reasonable to suggest your partner would be able… to find gainful employment in France.” So she can’t work here but apparently it’s OK for her partner to move to France to work! Surely if there was a flaw in her application then this should have been pointed out at the start of the process, not at the end when so much time, emotion and money has been used up. With such harsh, complicated and costly regulations in place it is little wonder that the country has so many illegal immigrants. I feel utterly ashamed that the UK, once respected for its humanitarian actions, should be treating people in this way. Truth in Politics Here we go again! Will anyone in the SNP ever tell the true story of the Brexit vote? We voted as a United Kingdom – those were the rules. London, significantly larger than Scotland, voted Remain as did Northern Ireland. But it suits the propaganda of the SNP to claim “we wuz robbed” (by England). And now we're being told that we all want independence. Recession, new waves of coronaviruses, the Barnett formula which means often that other UK taxpayers are funding SNP largesse; surely these are the issues any caring, competent government would be prioritizing. Instead, we see squandering of precious resources of time and money on ideology not need. Cruelty comes in many forms. I believe the current Scottish Government stands guilty of the most heinous variety. Please, please waken up to the need for action on poverty, improving education and providing the best possible future for all. The US, Latin America and Caribbean nations are working on a pact to reduce and manage undocumented migration that they will announce at a summit this week as the Biden administration faces a surge in arrivals. The group is discussing commitments to provide financial support for nations dealing with an influx of migrants, improving cooperation on controlling flows and providing legal jobs, according to a draft of a joint declaration being reviewed by participants and seen by Bloomberg News. The declaration, while written by US officials, is the result of months of work to build consensus among countries in the region and incorporates their input, according to people familiar with the plan, who asked not to be identified without permission to speak publicly. The document is still under negotiation, and it isn’t clear if all nations attending the summit will sign on, since not all are affected by migration in the same way, the people said.
The commitment is intended to be one of the deliverables from the Summit of the Americas for western hemisphere nations that President Joe Biden is hosting in Los Angeles. The declaration is part of a larger focus on regional economic, health and food security issues that will be discussed at the summit, the people said. Bloomberg News reported last month that the Biden administration is working on an economic framework that will address subjects including so-called nearshoring and supply-chain vulnerabilities revealed by the pandemic, seeking to set a new course for integration with the region. The White House and State Department press offices declined to comment. The proposed pledges also include improving access to public and private services for migrants, refugees, and stateless persons to promote their full social and economic inclusion in host communities, according to the document. Public attention in the lead-up to the summit has focused more on who’s coming than the actual substance. While leaders from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia and others are scheduled to attend the gathering, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had said he planned to skip it unless the US invites all countries. The Biden administration decided against including the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua based on concerns about their lack of democracy and respect for human rights. On May 20, a federal district court judge issued a nationwide injunction ordering the Biden administration not to terminate its Title 42 order, which requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to process illegal land border crossers promptly (15 minutes in an outdoor setting) — without asylum screening or other Title 8 immigration processes — and expel them back to Mexico through the closest port of entry.
Nearly 2 million migrants have been expelled under the order since it was instituted in 2020 as part of former President Trump’s pandemic response. The administration disagrees and intends to appeal the decision to a higher court. According to the administration, “The authority to set public health policy nationally should rest with the Centers for Disease Control [CDC], not with a single district court.” I agree that national public health policies should be set by the CDC, not by district court judges. But that’s not what happened in this case. The Title 42 order was issued to reduce the number of migrants held in congregate settings at ports of entry and Border Patrol stations because of the risk it posed of introducing, transmitting, and spreading COVID-19 in the United States. CDC terminated the Title 42 order on April 1, 2022, because less burdensome measures are now available to mitigate those risks. The termination, however, wasn’t scheduled to be effective until May 23 because DHS needed time to institute operational plans for implementing the termination order and to establish additional COVID-19 mitigation measures. Notice-and-Comment Requirements The CDC did not comply with the notice-and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) when it terminated the Title 42 order. According to the CDC, its termination order was not a rule. Moreover, even if it were a rule, it would qualify for the “good cause” and “foreign affairs” exceptions to those requirements. The CDC claims that there is good cause to dispense with the APA requirements because the Title 42 order is restricting asylum applications and other immigration processes, and provisions in Title 42 state that such orders should last no longer than necessary to protect public health. It would be impracticable and contrary to public interest and immigration laws, the administration argued, to delay the effective date of the termination beyond May 23. As to the foreign affairs exception, the CDC claims that the Title 42 order concerns ongoing discussions with Canada, Mexico, and other countries regarding immigration and how best to control COVID-19 transmission over shared borders; consequently, it directly involves a foreign affairs function of the United States. Twenty-four states filed a suit seeking to enjoin the CDC’s termination. The states contend that termination would cause a major increase in undocumented immigrants coming into their states which, among other things, would increase their law enforcement and healthcare costs. They also claim that the termination order violates the APA’s notice-and-comment requirements. Judge’s Decision The judge decided the administration had not advanced its argument that its termination order is not a rule. In any event, the termination is a “rule” because it will end the Title 8 immigration restrictions and resume normal immigration enforcement operations. Thus, according to the judge, it is an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect “designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy.” The CDC’s justification for invoking the “good cause” exception, the judge determined, is flawed for at least four reasons. 4/19/2022 How Congress Killed Immigration ReformLast year, after months of in-fighting among Democrats, opposition from Republicans, and technical obstacles, President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act died in Congress. The $1.9 trillion spending bill contained a few immigration provisions watered down from Biden’s original immigration reform proposal known as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021.
As the name suggests, the U.S. Citizenship Act would have established pathways to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented residents, including those with special status designations such as DREAMers — those brought here unlawfully as children — and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders. But lawmakers opted to try passing smaller bills, including severely watered down measures where citizenship provisions were left out altogether. Some trimmed-down bills are still floating around Congress a year later, highlighting the possibility of citizenship for millions of undocumented residents who live and work here remains out of reach. The U.S. Citizenship Act proposed sweeping immigration reforms, such as expanding legal work access for immigrants and dependents — potentially affecting 13.6 million green card holders in the U.S. — as well as providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents. According to the Center for American Progress, the U.S.’s undocumented workforce alone contributes an estimated $79.7 billion in federal taxes, in addition to $41 billion in state and local taxes. But the U.S. Citizenship Act was ultimately abandoned by lawmakers in favor of smaller separate bills, given the unlikelihood that such sweeping reforms would gain enough support from Republicans and conservative Democrats to pass the Senate. Some smaller measures have stalled in Congress while others have perished as part of the broader Build Back Better bill. |