US House Drops Border-Crisis Bill

BREAKING NEWS: The U.S. House of representatives has dropped a bill that would have provided some $659 million in funding to address the 60,000 unaccompanied children that have arrived on the southwest border. The Huffington Post noted that “… the bill had significant opposition from Democrats, but GOP leadership decided to add a separate vote, if the first were to pass, on a measure meant to bring on conservative support: ending a key Obama policy that allows undocumented young people in the U.S. for years to remain in the country. 

Citing other reports, HuffPo says the GOP needed to get to 218 votes but managed only 214.

The HuffPo backgrounder graf is pretty good: “More than 57,500 unaccompanied children and teenagers have been apprehended after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally since October, overwhelming a system already plagued by backlogs and in need of significant resources. President Barack Obama requested $3.7 billion to deal with the crisis, and Senate Democrats proposed a $2.7 billion package. House Republicans introduced a bill to approve just a fraction of that sum — with the possibility of appropriating more funds later — with conditions many Democrats oppose, such as changing a 2008 law so unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada can be deported more quickly and sending the National Guard to the border.” 

Read the report here: 

TV Station Blasts Chief Justice’s Use of CHP ‘Armed Taxis”

Noting that it costs some $4 million per year (and $21 million since 2009), the ABC News affiliate in Sacramento has aired an investigative story on how California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye uses armed CHP officers for transportation. Notes the station: “Surveillance video captured California’s chief justice using her armed Highway Patrol escort to take her to her Sacramento home. The video shows the plain-clothed officer removing what appears to be shopping bags from the trunk of an unmarked car.”
 
The report makes a stong link between the chief justice’s request for additional court funding and her use of the CHP protective service. The video of the CHP officer driving her home and removing shopping bags from the state vehicle is repeated. CHP rides for judges: Security or personal taxi?

AP Story On Immigration Crisis Gets Traction

A Los Angeles-based story by Amy Taxin of the Associated Press continues to be used by those making the case for legal representation for the unaccompanied children awaiting processing to determine if they can stay in the U.S. 
 
Her story opens in Los Angeles with a dramatic courthouse scene: [The judge} … grabbed four thick books and dropped each one on his desk with a thud, warning the families in his Los Angeles courtroom about the thousands of pages of immigration laws and interpretations that could affect their cases, and urging them to get a lawyer. “This is even smaller print,” he said of the 1,200-page book containing regulations during the hearing last month. “I am not trying to scare you, but I’m trying to ensure your children get a full and fair hearing.”
 
To read the AP report via the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, click here.

Finally: Capacity Cited In Immigration Courts Crisis

For the “about time” file, discussion of the ongoing crisis of unaccompanied Central American children seeking refuge in the U.S. is moving beyond theories and finger-pointing to address the capacity issue. And that issue is that there’s not enough court capacity.
 
The Reuters news service has a sobering report that walks us through the numbers: “… U.S. immigration courts have a backlog of 375,373 cases, almost 50,000 more than they faced two years ago, according to Justice Department figures… one of the 243 judges presiding over 59 immigration courts in the United States, is setting hearing dates as far off as 2018. It now typically takes three to five years for cases to clear the system, judges and lawyers said… on a recent Wednesday at a crowded immigration court in Arlington, Virginia, a judge was setting February 2017 asylum hearings for juveniles. While Reuters does not mention it, we would add that this is possible because immigration courts are civil, not criminal, and thus exempt from decades of “timely trial” laws.
 
The report does cite budget cuts and other problems, like passing more complex laws without increasing capacity to implement the changes, but also says that the government’s planned solutions are likely to only make things worse.
 

2-Year-Old Taken From Court Found Unharmed

BREAKING NEWS: The Associated Press is citing the City News Service in reporting that the 2-year-old girl abducted Wednesday by her parents during a family court custody hearing “has been found unharmed in Arizona.” The AP explains that “… the grandmother of Mariah Salguero was granted temporary custody of the child at the court proceeding Wednesday morning. Shortly afterward, police say, the child’s parents took the girl out of the courtroom.”

Immigration Debate Shifts To U.S. Role

Debate over the immigration crisis of unaccompanied Central American children is shifting from immediate needs like housing and toward the role of the United States in creating the causes for the influx. An editorial blog from The Dallas Morning News explains why understanding the U.S. role is so important: “If Central American minors can make a credible claim that deportation would expose them to persecution or sexual exploitation in their home countries, U.S. immigration judges are likely to be lenient and let them stay. But the bar is set very high — and for a good reason.”
 
As stories surface about U.S.-based gangs operating in the countries of origin for the children, you can expect that debate over “causes” to increase. And how the civil immigration courts manage to verify any claims is going to be interesting.
 
Here’s the Morning News take from editorial writer Tod Robberson: 

WaPo: Obama Admin. Was Warned Of Border-Children Crisis

Top officials at the White House and the State Department had been warned repeatedly of the potential for a further explosion in the number of migrant children since the crisis began escalating two years ago, according to former federal officials and others familiar with internal discussions, The Washington Post is reporting.
 
The newspaper also says that the White House was directly involved in efforts in early 2012 to care for the children when it helped negotiate a temporary shelter at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, which would seem to contradict administration claims that nobody could see the crisis brewing – at least not on the scale we see today. Meanwhile, estimates of Central American children arriving in the U.S. without accompanying parents or guardians is being revised from around 60,000 to more like 90,000 and up.
 
The border crisis is a civil justice crisis. The immigration process is a civil proceeding, as opposed to a criminal case, so children are not guaranteed representation by an attorney or a speedy process, as would be the case with criminal charges. Civil rights groups are suing the government in hopes of obtaining mandatory legal representation for the children.
 

Culver City Attorney Elected Court Commissioner

The MetNews is reporting that “… Culver City attorney Brenda Penny has been elected a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner, Presiding Judge David Wesley informed judicial officers Friday… Penny, a former probate attorney for the court, was elected in balloting by the court’s judges. She was the highest-ranked candidate on the list of those nominated by a panel of judges. 
 
But ongoing budget cuts impacted the move. The MetNews report notes that “… the court has had a commissioner post open since David Cowan was recently appointed a judge. Electing a commissioner to fill the opening means that the post will not be converted to a judgeship.”
 

Unaccompanied Child Refugee Crisis: Calling Out The Guard

With Texas Governor Rick Perry doubling-down on the “security option” in the wake of an ongoing children’s refugee crisis on the southwestern U.S. border, it might be a decent time to review just how we got to a point of “calling out the National Guard.” Gov. Perry is announcing that he’s sending 1,000 national guard soldiers to the border, says the New York Times, which adds that “… Democrats, including Texas lawmakers in the border region, immediately lined up in opposition to the deployment plan, calling it an attempt to score political points and to militarize the border.”
 
Of course, for Gov. Perry and others the current crisis around unaccompanied children immigrating from Central America is the latest among ongoing border security issues. But that crisis has focused attention on immigration, and especially immigration of unaccompanied children. National Public Radio, which helped break the story and has been an informational leader, said the situation is “… turning into the largest influx of asylum seekers on U.S. soil since the 1980 Mariel boatlift out of Cuba. Since October, more than 52,000 children — most from Central America and many of them unaccompanied by adults — have been taken into custody. That’s nearly double last year’s total and 10 times the number from 2009.”
 
“Because of a backlog, which is growing greatly with the recent influx, in essence a kid releasedtomorrow could stay in the U.S. for up to three years waiting for that date,” explains NPR’s Carrie Kahn. “And for most of these kids, that’s three years with a long-lost relative or three years away from extreme poverty and violence.” A child migration advocacy group says that “… as many as 90 percent of the children stay with relatives or family friends already living in the U.S., with the rest placed in foster care…”
 

Gov. Brown Calls Child-Immigration Crisis A ‘Tragedy,’ Critic Says Comments Are ‘Empty’

Photo: gov.ca.gov.com

Photo: gov.ca.gov.com

California Gov. Jerry Brown, who has said the Golden State could be a “leader” on national immigration policy even though the issues involved are usually federally controlled, has called the border-crossing crisis involving unaccompanied children a “crisis,” but stopped well short of commenting on what the state might do about the situation, according to a Fresno Bee newspaper report. The Bee also reports that Brown “…accused critics of exploiting the situation for political gain.”

 
The Bee also reported that the governor’s state Office of Emergency Services “… said earlier this week that the administration has been coordinating with federal and local law enforcement officials, including providing assistance with crowd and traffic control. Brown said Friday that California is a destination for immigrants because they think the state is ‘great.'”
 
“By the way, they may come in through Texas because they have so many holes in the border down there, but they usually want to get over to California as fast as they can because stuff is happening here,” Brown said. He added, “I’m not saying I’m encouraging that. I’m not.”
 
Meanwhile, Neel Kashkari, the Republican conducting what’s largely seen as a longshot campaign to unseat Brown in the November election, called the governor’s comments “empty.”

Read more here.