IJ in Denver just gave us an individual date in September 2019 on the FAMU docket for literally no reason. We entered our appearance last night at 6PM. If you think this isn’t to deny people access to counsel, you’re missing the point. #fairdayincourt#dueprocess4all
It’s important to note: client went to court for the first time June 26th. Today was his third hearing in two months. We were hired last night and emergency prepped an asylum application. He was supposed to have a hearing on or before June of next year.
What this means is (1) an attorney would withdraw because it’s nearly impossible to ethically represent someone you just met in an asylum proceeding 45 days later. (2) we go forward and do it mostly pro bono because no one can pay asylum fees in one month.
The IJ wasn’t worried about our due process arguments. She told us to appeal. You know why? Because the Board will rubber stamp nearly everything these days. They all work for the same people. The people writing these policies.
We need an independent immigration court, NOW. We need due process for asylum seekers NOW. We need intervention NOW into the illegal actions of all involved.
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One of my clients was abused by dad, raped at 8, raped at 14 (DV), kidnapped by the gang/held as a sex slave at 17 where she was raped daily and burned with acid, the gang member kidnapped and raped HER 8 year old child, and her last spouse raped her and her other child (16)(DV).
All of this abuse was from different men. Gender-based persecution qualifies for asylum. EOIR pretends women are not attacked, mutilated, and tortured on the basis of their gender, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When will the gaslighting from @DOJ_EOIR end?
Biden is working with countries that turn a blind eye to these atrocities to encourage them to trap women within their borders, despite the fact they are fleeing for their own lives/the lives of their kids. @JoeBiden and his admin are complicit in what happens to these families.
The asylum system is now designed to deny people asylum. ICE exercises near complete control. They appeal almost every grant of asylum in many jurisdictions, and the Board has specific case law for how grants are treated on appeal to make it nearly impossible to defend a grant.
The system discriminates against people on the basis of national origin. For example, Central American and Mexican asylum seekers are held to different legal standards and burdens of proof than asylum seekers from other parts of the world.
Whether you will get meaningful review in federal court depends entirely on where you live in the United States, making access to due process at any level, and access to review and accountability for the impropriety of EOIR, completely inconsistent.
The Board issued a decision in Matter of H-L-S-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 228 (BIA 2021). In this case, the Board picks a fact pattern that doesn't apply to most Central American gang informant/witness cases, and ignores/distorts the law to attempt to deny 100s of 1000s of people asylum.
Facts summarized: asylum seeker flees MS-13. Comes to US. Ends up detained in US. Threatened by MS-13 in jail. Cooperates with law enforcement against MS-13 in the US. Claims fear of return because MS-13 will kill him in home country (clearly this is true). Loses asylum case.
My fury cannot be contained today. I will say it again: practicing before EOIR as a woman is like being constantly gaslit by your abuser. And for the women fighting for their lives, it's yet another place where their voice isn't heard.
These men (and women!) sit in their chairs wearing their robes and tell us all that women aren't targeting for being women, that men don't abuse women, that we're imagining it, that the government protects women, that giving a woman a piece of paper is protection...
...even when law enforcement are unwilling to enforce what is written on the paper. We can just hide. We can just call the police, even when the abuser is in the throws of attempted murder. We can just say no. We can just dress differently. We can just waive our magical paper.
Another excerpt. The 10th has published case law finding gender + nationality sufficient for a particular social group. We cited the case. A breath later he denied saying the 10th had not spoken to the issue and he found the 11th persuasive instead. It’s just someone’s life.
This IJ also found that my client wasn't persecuted on account of being a woman. Her husband abused her and her two female daughters for years and tried to kill her. The abuse started because he was mad when she gave birth that the baby was not a boy.
He found the Guatemalan government had protected my client because after she went to the government multiple times bc her husband had tried to kill her and was ignored bc she finally brought a man and they gave her a 6 month protection order that husband ignored.
I turn 37 tomorrow. I’ve represented asylum seekers (mostly Central American families) for 7 long years under two administrations. I can’t stop thinking about how many of my clients are brave women around the same age who are still fighting for the basic right to live.
I have a client who was detained in a detention camp in the desert under Obama, who argued she/her kids were national security threats who couldn’t have a bond. They were released after 6 months and won asylum 6 years later. She’s applied to be a resident. She turns 38 next week.
My clients who were returned to Mexico when the IJ issued a fraudulent hearing doc - the mother is 32. She’s spent most of her life running from multiple abusive men. Her 11yo kid has already been sexually assaulted. They’re in hiding after being denied a fair hearing for asylum.