A fantastic 4th Circuit decision finding that immigration judges must affirmatively develop the record, which includes suggesting particular social groups for those without lawyers.
Judge Wynn calls the government's objections "preposterous" and "utterly divorced from reality."
Judge Wynn telling truths! "We deem it unreasonable and fundamentally unfair to expect pro se asylum seekers...to even understand what a particular social group is, let alone fully appreciate which facts may be relevant to their claims and articulate a legally cognizable group."
This case concerns a person recruited into MS-13 at age 16, who fled El Salvador within months of joining because he realized the mistake he'd made.
His first attempt to leave ended in a beating and death threats—not idle ones, as they brutally murdered his cousin for leaving.
Despite being taken into ICE custody as a teenager, this man managed to file an asylum application on his own without a lawyer.
But because he had no lawyer, he couldn't articulate the exact legal ground for why he deserved asylum—and the judge never even bothered to help him.
The 4th Circuit also holds that a 2018 Board of Immigration Appeals decision that required all people seeking asylum on the basis of their membership in a particular social group to precisely delineate the definitions of that group simply does not apply to people without lawyers.
Judge Wynn and the 4th Circuit deserve enormous credit for making clear that it is fundamentally illegally and unfair for the government to railroad an unrepresented asylum seeker through a process that even the best lawyer gets confused by.
The government argued that requiring judges to assist unrepresented asylum seekers would be inefficient.
Judge Wynn wasn't having it: "We cannot withhold a crucial procedural protection mandated by law because enforcing it would be less convenient or less efficient."
Judge Wynn's conclusion!
"[F]ew populations are as vulnerable as noncitizens facing removal proceedings [without a lawyer]. Yet the consequences they may face are severe: family separation, prolonged detention, and deportation to a country where persecution or even death awaits"
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Both the Obama administration and the Trump administration created "rocket dockets" for families. They didn't work. Now the Biden administration is going for a third try.
The last seven years have proven that rushed justice is no justice at all. This is the wrong way forward.
It is unacceptable to move forward with a new rocket docket while asylum seekers are still subject to the harsh anti-asylum precedent put in place by AGs Sessions and Barr.
The priority must be restoring due process FIRST. Not as an afterthought.
Less than 10 minutes into the DHS appropriations hearing with @AliMayorkas and we already got Ranking Member Fleischmann referring to CBP as "CPB" and incorrectly saying that border apprehensions are "at a record high" (they are not).
Ranking Member Fleischmann also cites Nick Miroff's Washington Post article from yesterday that pushed a false narrative that ICE isn't doing anything anymore, despite the fact that ICE has arrested 13,000 people since February 13.
Secretary Mayorkas is now giving his opening statement, which is mostly summarizing the Biden skinny budget.
As we documented in our report on immigration enforcement, Trump never got what he wanted and ICE didn't even reach half of the level of Obama's first term.
Also, that "functionally abolished" line is ridiculous propaganda. From 2/13 to 5/8 ICE arrested at least 12,438 people.
The idea that ICE officers are sitting around twiddling their thumbs is absurd.
Yes, numbers are down since Biden took office. But thousands are still being booked into detention after an ICE arrest and detentions from the border are skyrocketing.
Correction that this should say "12,388." A brain to finger mistake. That is only the count of people "booked in" to detention so it would not count anyone who is served with a Notice to Appear without an arrest, or who is released before detention.
The @DHSOIG concluded that ICE and DHS officials repeatedly lied to Congress and the public about whether parents had voluntarily chosen to leave their children behind, insisting that every deportation was thoroughly documented.
This is the second time since October that @DHSOIG concluded that Kirstjen Nielsen misled the public.
In October, OIG disclosed that she signed a memo limiting asylum capacity at ports of entry then stood at the White House podium and denied that asylum seekers were turned away.
OIG finds that ICE had no standard policy for deporting parents when Zero Tolerance began, so one ICE field office "typically removed parents without asking if they wanted to be joined by their children."
ICE and DHS leadership told Congress this never happened. That was wrong.
The only "damaging indictment" here is on Chad Wolf himself, who let local jails openly flout ICE rules, kept sending people to Irwin after allegations of forced hysterectomies, and ignored the MA AG's recommendation to terminate Bristol's contract for violating detainee rights.
Here's what the Massachusetts AG's office wrote about how the Bristol County Sheriff's violated the rights of ICE detainees.
The report came out while Wolf was still in office and after a federal judge also excoriated Bristol. But Wolf ignored all of it.
The Bristol County Sheriff sicced dogs on ICE detainees and used so much pepper spray multiple people were taken to the hospital—all in direct violation of ICE rules.
Chad Wolf's crocodile tears about law enforcement today come after he shrugged off those illegal actions.
Welcome news that ICE will terminate detention contracts at the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office and the Irwin County Detention Center!
Both facilities have appalling records of harm and abuse, including allegations of nonconsensual sterilization at Irwin. washingtonpost.com/immigration/ic…
The Irwin County Detention Center was the site of the horrifying revelations last year about immigrant women pressured into hysterectomies they didn't need and other invasive gynecological procedures carried out by a local doctor.