WOOT!! JUDGE RULES TRUMP CAN’T DISCRIMINATE BY WITHHOLDING WORK PERMITS AND OTHER BENEFITS FROM IMMIGRANTS FROM CERTAIN COUNTRIES
by Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. – giving you zero hyperbole and 100% facts in plain English about what’s going on with this administration and the law
Last January Trump issued a travel ban, banning people from 19 countries from, generally, entering the U.S.. In December he issued another ban, this time of 20 countries, raising the total to 39. These countries were and are designated as “high risk” countries. For twenty of the countries there are limited exceptions by which someone may enter into the U.S., for the rest the ban is complete.
The twenty countries with the limited exceptions are Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The nineteen countries with total bans are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mali, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
For all practical purposes anyone in any of the above countries wishing to come into the United States is out of luck.
Now, all of this is background, because our tale has nothing to do with people wanting to come to the U.S.; *our* tale has to do with people from those countries who are *already* in the U.S..
Because next the Trump administration issued a series of policies directing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that for anyone who is *already* in the U.S. – *legally* in the U.S. – who has already applied for a work visa, for asylum, or for any sort of immigrant benefits – being from one of those 39 countries is to be considered a black mark (they call it a “significant negative factor”) against them.
And *then* USCIS issued a policy *suspending* the processing of applications for anyone from one of those countries.
In other words, if the person is here in this country legally, already has applications in progress, such as a work permit application, or really an application for anything through USCIS – but they *happen to be from one of those countries* – whammo!
PLUS one of the policies suspended *all* asylum claims – for anyone, from any country.
And THIS all has had the effect of making people who were here legally, who were following all the rules, suddenly find their status changed from legal to *illegal* – through not fault of their own! They didn’t break the law, the policies were written to *make* them illegal!
Now this case went from 0 to 60 in record time. The case was filed on March 5th of *this year*. And faster than you can say “not in *my* courtroom”, Judge John McConnell Jr. issued an order yesterday, June 5th – that’s just *three months later*!
In a 135-page opinion and order (included for Notes from the Front members), Judge McConnell says “But the rule of law has to apply to everyone equally and, as evident here, USCIS has neither “followed the law” nor “done things the right way.” Indeed, the agency has violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency’s actions. In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of “national security” that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making. In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”
YOW!
THEN, towards the end (after lots of great stuff in-between, I really hope you enjoy it as much as did I, and he even includes a Table of Contents!) he says:
“When USCIS first enacted the policies at the center of this litigation, the agency did not simply place a hold on adjudications. More fundamentally, the Challenged Policies placed the lives of countless individuals on hold—solely by virtue of their countries of birth. Over six months later, many of those individuals remain without work, without legal status, and without any meaningful ability to plan for their futures. Ultimately, it is not the Court’s role to pass on the wisdom of the Government’s policy choices. Under our constitutional system, those judgments are reserved for the political branches. It is, however, the Court’s duty to determine whether the Government’s policies comport with the law. Having undertaken that inquiry, the Court concludes that they do not and therefore must be set aside.”
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P.S. If you actually read all the way to the bottom please leave a comment that includes the word “whammo”. It will show me that my efforts aren’t in vain and that people actually *do* read these things to the end, and it will drive those who just skim crazy wondering just why everyone is saying “whammo”! ;~)
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