Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Smoking Gun on U.S. Involvement in Torture
The Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General just issued a 370 page report on the U.S. involvement in officially sanctioned torture around the world. Now comes the $64 question, "What are we going to do with this information?" Do we just ignore the torture and abuse, thus implicitly condoning its continuation, by doing and saying nothing. Does anyone actually care? Or have we reached the "Bread and Circuses" stage of the American Empire?
I for one, who has argued before this same government that my clients did not engage in the persecution of other, or did not materially aid a terrorist organization, am appalled and embarrassed to call myself an American. Are we as a nation not a signature to the Convention Against Torture Treaty?
I for one, who has argued before this same government that my clients did not engage in the persecution of other, or did not materially aid a terrorist organization, am appalled and embarrassed to call myself an American. Are we as a nation not a signature to the Convention Against Torture Treaty?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Stateless Refugee
We just took on an interesting case of an ethnic Palestinian who was born in Saudi Arabia and came to the U.S. as an asylum seeker. His affirmative asylum application was denied, appealed to the BIA where it was denied and then to the Ninth Circuit which denied his petition for review.
Prior counsel had filed a motion to reopen for changed country conditions, pursuant to INA § 240(c)(7)(C)(ii). which the Board denied basing their denial on the fact that the country of Saudi Arabia had not materially changed. We filed a motion for reconsideration and a petition to the Ninth Circuit arguing that the Board erred in commingling the two determinations, the country designated for removal and the asylum testing country. In out client's case. early on the Immigration Judge ruled that Saudi Arabia was the country of removal, even though our client had no right to return as Saudi Arabia denies citizenship to anyone not Saudi, especially Palestinians.
Our contention is that the Board erred as a matter of law in using Saudi Arabia as the asylum testing country, when he would never be removed there and the Occupied Territories should have been used in ruling on the motion to reopen.
Just got back the government's opposition to our motion for reconsideration, a one page argument stating that we have not specified any error of fact of law pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(b), see also Matter of Ramos, 23 I&N Dec. 336, 338 (BIA 2002).
Prior counsel had filed a motion to reopen for changed country conditions, pursuant to INA § 240(c)(7)(C)(ii). which the Board denied basing their denial on the fact that the country of Saudi Arabia had not materially changed. We filed a motion for reconsideration and a petition to the Ninth Circuit arguing that the Board erred in commingling the two determinations, the country designated for removal and the asylum testing country. In out client's case. early on the Immigration Judge ruled that Saudi Arabia was the country of removal, even though our client had no right to return as Saudi Arabia denies citizenship to anyone not Saudi, especially Palestinians.
Our contention is that the Board erred as a matter of law in using Saudi Arabia as the asylum testing country, when he would never be removed there and the Occupied Territories should have been used in ruling on the motion to reopen.
Just got back the government's opposition to our motion for reconsideration, a one page argument stating that we have not specified any error of fact of law pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(b), see also Matter of Ramos, 23 I&N Dec. 336, 338 (BIA 2002).
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Deportation Nation Video
Ran across this YouTube video depicting the heart wrenching damage that deportation reeks across the Dominican Community in New York.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Yoo's Torture Rationalization
John Yoo, one of the legal scholars hired by UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall to indoctrinate the next generation of lawyers run through their legal mill across the bay, and author of the infamous torture memo used by the criminals in the White House to justify torture and renditions of innocent persons, has had his handy-work exposed to the light of day.
This memo just oozed its way to the surface, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act suit by the ACLU, is the March 14, 2003, memo written by John Yoo, former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), an acolyte of David Addington, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff and former Cheney legal counsel.
Contrary to claims that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and other prisons were contrived by subordinates on the ground — i.e., “hicks with sticks” — Yoo’s 81-page memo rationalizes motive and establishes the bar for virtually every human rights violation that has taken place in the name of fighting the global war on terrorism.
It is, in the words of Dan Froomkin, author of the Washington Post’s irreplaceable “White House Briefing” blog, “a historic document… the ultimate expression of Cheney’s belief that anything the president or his designates do — no matter how illegal, barbaric or un-American — is justifiable in the name of national self-defense.
"It is also an example of how enabling zealots to disregard the rule of law and the customary boundaries of human conduct leads to madness.”It is also an example of how enabling zealots to disregard the rule of law and the customary boundaries of human conduct leads to madness.” Dan Froomkin, of the Washington Post.
As if this weren’t enough, a footnote in the March 2003 memo reveals a second John Yoo masterpiece that blithely undermines the Constitution; in this case, the Fourth Amendment right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Written on October 23, 2001, not even a month and a half after 9/11, this still-classified Justice Department memo, titled, “Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States,” held that the Fourth Amendment had no bearing on domestic military operations.
The United States Constitution, Article II, Section 4, says: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." What more evidence do we as citizens of this Republic need?
This memo just oozed its way to the surface, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act suit by the ACLU, is the March 14, 2003, memo written by John Yoo, former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), an acolyte of David Addington, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff and former Cheney legal counsel.
Contrary to claims that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and other prisons were contrived by subordinates on the ground — i.e., “hicks with sticks” — Yoo’s 81-page memo rationalizes motive and establishes the bar for virtually every human rights violation that has taken place in the name of fighting the global war on terrorism.
It is, in the words of Dan Froomkin, author of the Washington Post’s irreplaceable “White House Briefing” blog, “a historic document… the ultimate expression of Cheney’s belief that anything the president or his designates do — no matter how illegal, barbaric or un-American — is justifiable in the name of national self-defense.
"It is also an example of how enabling zealots to disregard the rule of law and the customary boundaries of human conduct leads to madness.”It is also an example of how enabling zealots to disregard the rule of law and the customary boundaries of human conduct leads to madness.” Dan Froomkin, of the Washington Post.
As if this weren’t enough, a footnote in the March 2003 memo reveals a second John Yoo masterpiece that blithely undermines the Constitution; in this case, the Fourth Amendment right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Written on October 23, 2001, not even a month and a half after 9/11, this still-classified Justice Department memo, titled, “Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States,” held that the Fourth Amendment had no bearing on domestic military operations.
The United States Constitution, Article II, Section 4, says: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." What more evidence do we as citizens of this Republic need?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
INA § 212(a)(3)(B) - "Material Support" Bar For Providing Aid to an FTO
A licensed pharmacist in the Philippines held to have provided "material support" to a foreign terrorist organization ("FTO") for selling medicines during the regular course of business because the drugs went to the families and friends of a leftist, communist rebel group, the New People's Army.
In 1870, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, “[t]he effect of treaties and acts of Congress, when in conflict, is not settled by the Constitution. But the question is not involved in any doubt as to its proper solution. A treaty may supersede a prior act of Congress, and an act of Congress may supersede a prior treaty.” Cherokee Tobacco, 78 U.S. 616, 621 (1870).
The USCIS Director held that by selling drugs, with a valid prescription, from a licensed pharmacist, this act alone constituted "material support" under INA § 212(a)(3)(B)(iv) as, "to commit an act that the actor knows, or reasonably should know, affords material support, including a safe house, transportation, communications, funds, transfer of funds or other material benefit, false documentation or identification, weapons (including chemical biological, or radiological weapons), or explosives, or training - - - (a) for the commission of a terrorist activity."
We made several arguments against this decision, a statutory challenge, "as written," the "as applied." We also challenged the decision on a factual basis, arguing that our client was operating within her sworn duty and within the ethics of her profession. But our best argument was a Constitutional challenge wherein we contended that merely providing medical care is a protected activity under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as Congress did not explicitly include medicines in their list of prohibited activities and there is no clear Congressional intent to establish that Congress wanted to override the Geneva Convention protections.
The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), states in Article 10, “under no circumstances shall any person be punished for having carried out medical activities compatible with medical ethics, regardless of the person benefiting therefrom.”
Therefore, to determine which law is supreme, the Court has held, “[t]here is, first, a firm and obviously sound canon of construction against finding implicit repeal of a treaty in ambiguous congressional action. "A treaty will not be deemed to have been abrogated or modified by a later statute unless such purpose on the part of Congress has been clearly expressed." Cook v. United States, 288 U.S. 102, 120 (1933). See also Washington v. Washington Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U.S. 658, 690 (1979); Menominee Tribe of Indians v. United States, 391 U.S. 404, 412-413 (1968); Pigeon River Improvement, Slide & Boom Co. v. Charles W. Cox, Ltd., 291 U.S. 138, 160 (1934). Legislative silence is not sufficient to abrogate a treaty. Weinberger v. Rossi, 456 U.S. 25, 32 (1982).” Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Franklin Mint Corp., 466 U.S. 243, 252 (1984), (italics added).
The threshold canon of statutory interpretation holds that “[using] the language employed by Congress, . . . we assume that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.” Singh-Kaur v. Ashcroft, 385 F.3d 293 (3rd Cir. 2004).
The threshold canon of statutory interpretation holds that “[using] the language employed by Congress, . . . we assume that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.” Singh-Kaur v. Ashcroft, 385 F.3d 293 (3rd Cir. 2004).
Stay tuned for the decision from DHS.
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