Today is the first day in my career where I woke up thinking that it isn’t even worth going to “court” for an asylum hearing. The client has a “good” asylum case. Her husband was brutally murdered in front of her.
While she stood covered in his blood the police told her to flee because she was in terrible danger. The assassins came back for her. She’ll lose. Nearly everyone loses now in many jurisdictions.
Immigration “court” is a political farce. People are ordered removed every day to places where they will be tortured and killed. I know it. The judges know it. The administration knows it. The only difference is that it keeps me up at night.
It is a terrible feeling for my clients, knowing the truth won’t make a difference for them. It’s a terrible feeling for a lawyer, knowing the law doesn’t matter. We need independent immigration courts. Politicians and their cronies should not be able to sign death sentences.
Update: no decision today but we all know it will be a denial. Government argued she suffered no past persecution despite holding her dying husband in her arms as gang members stared back at her and tried to reverse course to get to her.
Gang members threatened to murder her husband and his family, including her. They murdered him. Government argued not sufficient evidence they would murder her. Police told her to flee and that they couldn’t protect anyone from this. Gov says no evidence police can’t help.
It’s disgusting and unethical for attorneys to ignore the record evidence and claim that no one qualifies for asylum under the law. People might say they have to live with that. But we have to count these people as colleagues within our profession who make a mockery of the law.
We have 6 more family unit cases between now and Nov. The court will most likely deny ALL of them. ZERO family unit cases were granted in the first year of the family unit docket in Denver. Trump targets families and all of a sudden 100% are denied asylum. That’s not justice.
