This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

The Trump administration’s practice of separating parents from children in families crossing the border illegally from Mexico has received plenty of attention in recent years. So have the shelters to which those children and unaccompanied migrant teenagers are sent, like the one operated by the nonprofit Southwest Key Programs in a former Walmart superstore in Brownsville, Texas.

Less notice goes to the people employed by those shelters, like Adrian Gomez, who worked for Southwest Key for 18 years. He was an assistant program director at a smaller shelter run by Southwest Key in Brownsville.

Mr. Gomez died on June 26 in a Brownsville hospital. He was 52. The cause was complications of the novel coronavirus, his daughter, Alysha Lynn Harrington, said.

His death prompted an outpouring of online condolences from friends and colleagues who recalled his commitment as an elementary-school coach, as a Cameron County juvenile probation officer, as a personal trainer at a gym and as a shelter employee.

His job at the shelter, a relatively small one, was to make sure the young people he supervised were properly housed and educated while they were seeking asylum or until they were reunited with their families, and to help find them permanent homes through a program of the Texas Council of Child Welfare Boards.

“He chose his profession because he wanted to make a difference in others’ lives,” Ms. Harrington said. “He cared about his clients and helped them by getting them on the right path to a bright future. He wanted them to have a good education and to live happily. He loved everyone and had a huge heart.”

Mr. Gomez was born on April 13, 1968, in Brownsville and rarely ventured much beyond the city, which abuts the border next to Matamoros, Mexico. He remained closest to his mother, Maria de Gomez, who along with his daughter survives him, as do his brother John Gomez; his sister, Marisela Erwin; and two grandchildren.

He earned a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice at the University of Texas in Brownsville and worked for Southwest Key for 18 years.

“He had no underlying health issues,” Ms. Harrington said. “He was 52 and could have had many more years ahead of him.”

Source: Adrian Gomez, Who Cared for Migrant Youth, Is Dead at 52

On July 8, the campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden released its long-awaited “Unity Plan,” a joint platform created by supporters of Biden, as well as those of the socialist firebrand Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The 110-page document touches on almost every policy issue at stake in the 2020 presidential election, including immigration.

The “unity plan” is the result of the strength of Sanders’ brand of democratic socialism. Although Sanders officially withdrew from the Democratic Party’s presidential primary contest, his effect on the 2020 Democratic primary was profound. Building on his momentum from his 2016 run, the self-described socialist moved the politics and policies of his fellow candidates to the left almost single-handedly.

This pressure to move to the left impacted Joe Biden, who voted for the Secure Fence Act and who has suggested that a border wall would stop “tons” of drugs from coming into the country. His initial immigration plan suggested creating a pathway to citizenship for the 14.3 million people in the United States illegally, legalizing temporary agricultural guest workers, and giving states and localities the ability to petition for visas themselves. The unity plan shares some similarities with that document, but diverges in other areas.

The plan mainly addresses immigration enforcement. First and foremost, Biden reaffirms his commitment to provide a pathway to citizenship for every single illegal alien in the United States. This goes far beyond previous suggestions to amnesty so-called “Dreamers” or even farmworkers. This calls for the largest amnesty in American history, with absolutely zero reforms to stop future flows of illegal entrants.

The unity plan also calls for eliminating all executive actions taken by the Trump Administration since January 2017, including the president’s travel ban and the successful agreements made with the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico to slow the arrival of asylum-seeking aliens.

The plan would halt removals for 100 days to allow for a government review of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and end the use of private facilities to house ICE inmates. Private facilities currently house a significant number of ICE detainees. Eliminating private detention without building new federal facilities would shackle ICE’s ability to house dangerous criminal aliens.

Incredibly, the plan suggests, “Enforcement should sanction employers, not workers. End workplace raids and ensure that I-9 audits do not undermine workers’ ability to organize and assert their rights.”

This is completely contradictory. Workplace enforcement is ICE’s best tool at sanctioning employers. Employers subjected to relentless worksite pressure by ICE will not hire illegal aliens. How can ICE sanction employers without the use of worksite raids? How would I-9 audits differ from worksite raids if an employer’s I-9 forms reveal that there are numerous illegal workers present?

Outside of enforcement, the unity plan calls for an increase in overall levels of legal immigration. Further, Biden calls for a refugee ceiling of 125,000 annually, a stark contrast to the current ceiling of 13,000. Unlike other parts of immigration law, the refugee ceiling is solely created at the discretion of the president and does not require congressional approval. The plan suggests exempting STEM PhD program graduates from any visa caps, without clarifying whether the degree came from an American university or not.

The plan “reaffirms family migration as a cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy” and “prioritize(s) family reunification, including by eliminating family-based green card backlogs and reforming the system to speed up family-based visas.” This completely contradicts the will of the American public who generally support moving the United States to a merit-based immigration system rather than one based simply on chain migration.

Finally, the unity plan states, “Democrats believe that our fight to end systemic racism in our country extends to our immigration system, including the policies at our borders and ports of entry, detention centers, and within immigration law enforcement agencies and their policies and operations” [emphasis added]. This declaration reveals that the plan’s authors reject the notion that opposition to widespread immigration is rooted in anything other than nativism, xenophobia, and racism.

Biden’s advocates did reject some of Sanders’ most radical proposals, such as eliminating immigration enforcement agencies and decriminalizing illegal border crossings. But even still, what remains in the Biden unity plan is anathema to advocates of immigration reform.

Instead of moving to a merit-based system, the unity plan proposes simply increasing total numbers and keeping chain migration as the “cornerstone” of our system. Instead of giving ICE and CBP the tools they need to do their congressionally-authorized job, the unity plan proposes to shackle and audit them for at least 100 days. Instead of prioritizing the safety of American citizens and legal immigrants, the unity plan encourages the growth of dangerous sanctuary jurisdictions.

Biden’s unity plan is notably radical in the immigration sphere for a major presidential candidate. No serious presidential campaign has ever suggested the kind of sweeping reforms presented in this plan. If these ideas became law, they would represent the most sweeping change to the immigration system in our country since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.

Source: Immigration Provisions in the Biden Unity Plan

LOS ANGELES — A federal appeals court on Monday struck down President Trump’s policy that barred most migrants from seeking asylum in the United States if they had passed through another country, concluding that the government did “virtually nothing” to make sure that another country is “a safe option” for those fleeing persecution.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco affirmed the decision of a federal judge who ruled last year that the so-called third-country transit rule was unlawful, with one judge calling it “perhaps the most significant change to American asylum in a generation.”

The ruling was an interim but important step. In September, the Supreme Court had allowed the Trump administration’s rule forbidding most Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the United States to take effect while the appeals courts deliberated its legality.

That stay remains in place until the Supreme Court takes up the case or the Trump administration abandons the policy. In the meantime, nearly all asylum seekers have been temporarily blocked from entering the country under a separate administration directive, issued as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, that closed the border to all but United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.

Still, Monday’s opinion was an important legal milestone, a 66-page opinion that found serious legal deficiencies in one of the administration’s signature immigration policies.

“The Trump administration is sure to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration at Cornell Law School.

The transit rule was issued jointly by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security in July 2019, when thousands of migrant families were pushing toward the southwestern border, many of them seeking asylum from violence in Central America. Countering decades of law and policy, under which the United States had long provided refuge in such cases, it declared that any migrant who passed through another country en route to the border would be ineligible for asylum, with few exceptions.

The policy required migrants traveling over land from El Salvador, Honduras or other countries to apply for and be denied asylum by Mexico, Guatemala or another country through which they traveled before they could be eligible to make a claim for protection in the United States.

If they did not, those who managed to reach the United States would be automatically considered to lack a credible fear of persecution in their home countries.

The appeals court said there was evidence that contradicted the administration’s assertion that migrants could obtain safe protection in Mexico and other countries.

It also said the administration had not justified its assumption that a person who failed to apply for asylum in a third country was unlikely to have a meritorious claim.

Judge William A. Fletcher, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, wrote the opinion for the panel, which also included Judge Eric D. Miller, who was appointed by President Trump this year, and Judge Richard R. Clifton, appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Judge Miller concurred in part and dissented in part, writing that the federal agencies’ “deficient” justification for the transit rule was “particularly troubling because the rule represents such a major change to policy — perhaps the most significant change to American asylum in a generation.”

The main opinion said there was “no evidence in the record” to support the rule’s assumption that migrants who do not apply for asylum in Guatemala or Mexico en route from, say, El Salvador or Honduras, can be assumed to lack a credible fear of persecution in their home country.

“This ruling says very simply that Congress is in control of asylum, and the administration cannot act unilaterally to destroy our asylum system,” said Lee Gelernt, the lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the appeal on behalf of several groups challenging the rule.

Neither the Justice Department nor the Department of Homeland Security had any immediate comment on the decision.

In a related case this month, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the administration had illegally put into place the transit rule by not allowing public comment first.

That decision resulted in a suspension of the transit ban on more narrow grounds.

The order that effectively closed the border to asylum seekers, using the coronavirus pandemic as justification, is being challenged in a federal court in Washington.

 

Supreme Court Limits Failed Asylum Seekers’ Rights to Appeal

YouTube: VOA News

 

Source: Appeals Court Strikes Down Trump Administration’s Asylum Ban

WASHINGTON — A federal judge appointed by President Trump has ruled that the Trump administration must end a policy that effectively bars most Central American migrants fleeing poverty and persecution from obtaining asylum in the United States.

The asylum rule in question prevents migrants from gaining protection in the United States if they fail to first apply for protection in a country en route to the southwest border. But Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said late Tuesday night that the Trump administration illegally put in effect the rule by not allowing the public to weigh in on it. The administration had argued that allowing for a public comment period after announcing the rule would have prompted migrants to rush to the border, a claim Judge Kelly did not accept.

The ruling was only the latest in a string of defeats the Trump administration has been dealt by judges who decided that administration officials, in their haste to make policy, violated federal law laying out how regulations must be carried out or rolled back. The Supreme Court last month preserved Obama-era protections for about 700,000 young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers, ruling that the administration had violated procedures in rolling back the rule.

In April, an effort to roll back nutrition standards for school meals championed by former first lady Michelle Obama, was reversed on similar procedural violations. In the environmental arena, federal courts have found at least five times that the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedures Act by skipping steps when it tried to delay conservation rules that had already taken effect.

The same factors may have cost the president his hard-fought rule to block asylum seekers.

“It’s notable in this case that Judge Kelly reiterated what other judges recently retorted to the administration: Do your homework,” said Claudia Cubas, litigation director for the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

While the decision will immediately invalidate the rule demanding that asylum seekers apply for protection before arriving at the United States, it is unlikely to lead to a flood of asylum claims. The Trump administration has issued other overlapping policies that have effectively sealed the border to asylum seekers.

The federal government is currently citing the coronavirus pandemic and emergency health protections to rapidly return migrants to Mexico or their homes countries, preventing nearly all of them from seeking protection.

The Trump administration will also continue to use agreements made with Guatemala and Honduras to deport migrants who cross the border back to those Central American countries, where they would have to seek asylum from those governments.

“Should the border ever reopen, the government could simply use the asylum cooperating agreements to turn away everyone anyway,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy organization. “Of course, it is extraordinarily unlikely the Trump administration will lift the ban at the border through his first term in office.”

But immigration lawyers said the decision issued Tuesday would create some opportunities for migrants, including children, who had sought asylum in the United States after the rule was issued last July, including many who were forced to wait in Mexico while their hearings were delayed. With the rule in place, their asylum claims could have been rejected by a judge if they had not previously applied for asylum in another country en route. Now many of those migrants may be able to secure asylum in court.

“They will finally get a chance at asylum, something they should’ve got from the first get-go,” Ms. Cubas said.

The administration had moved forward with the policy after the Supreme Court in September lifted an injunction against it, allowing it to be enforced while the legal fights played out in the courts.

The Supreme Court had stepped in after federal judges in San Francisco and Washington issued conflicting rulings on the policy. Judge Jon S. Tigar of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco had ordered the administration to continue accepting the migrants, saying the policy was inconsistent with existing asylum laws. But Judge Kelly in Washington had ruled that the plaintiffs would not face “irreparable harm” by the policy.

Once the stay was lifted, advocacy groups in the Washington case bolstered their filings by adding women and children who had fled persecution and violence in Central America, Cuba and Angola but had not applied for asylum before reaching the U.S. border. On Tuesday, Judge Kelly found that the administration’s excuse for not allowing the public to weigh in on the rule was not justified.

“After carefully examining the record, the Court finds that it does not contain sufficient evidence,” Judge Kelly wrote.

Immigration lawyers were elated.

Source: Federal Judge Strikes Down Trump Administration Asylum Rule

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-3 Monday that requiring foreign groups to have explicit policies opposing prostitution and sex trafficking in order to receive federal funds applies to US companies’ foreign affiliates because they do not possess First Amendment rights.

The case, Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc., raised the question of whether the federal government violated the First Amendment by prohibiting a US company’s foreign affiliate from receiving federal funding because it had not made an explicit policy statement.

The specific law at issue was the US Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, which required that American and foreign organizations have an explicit policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking in order to receive federal funds.

In 2013, this stipulation, known as the Policy Requirement, was deemed an unconstitutional restraint on free speech when applied to American organizations. But whether it applied to a domestic company’s foreign affiliate was an open question until Monday.

In the opinion of the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote, “it is long settled as a matter of American constitutional law that foreign citizens outside U.S. territory do not possess rights under the U.S. Constitution,” and “it is long settled as a matter of American corporate law that separately incorporated organizations are separate legal units with distinct legal rights and obligations.” Together, these “two bedrock principles of American constitutional law and American corporate law … lead to a simple conclusion: As foreign organizations operating abroad, plaintiffs’ foreign affiliates possess no rights under the First Amendment.”

In rejecting the second claim, the court stated that this view is incorrect and that the 2013 decision was limited to American organizations.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch joined Kavanaugh’s opinion.

Thomas filed a concurring opinion to state that he disagrees with the 2013 decision. In his concurrence, he wrote “[t]he First Amendment does not mandate a viewpoint-neutral government,” so the government may condition funds on an affirmation that each organization can accept or reject.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the dissent, which Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor joined. In his dissent, Breyer said that the question at hand is not about foreign entities, but rather US-based entities and their protection under the First Amendment. Breyer’s dissent states that the corporate structure plays little role in an American company’s First Amendment protection. “[O]ur First Amendment precedents leave no doubt that corporate formalities have little to say about the issue now before us. We have made clear again and again (and again) that speech may be attributed across the corporate lines in the First Amendment context⁠—including in our previous opinion in this very case.” In concluding, Breyer wrote,

I fear the Court’s decision will seriously impede the countless American speakers who communicate overseas in a similar way. That weakens the marketplace of ideas at a time when the value of that marketplace for Americans, and for others, reaches well beyond our shores.

Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the consideration or decision of the case.

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Source: Supreme Court limits First Amendment rights of US companies’ foreign affiliates