The Justice Department's acting deputy chief was caught on a hidden camera saying that the government will "redact every Republican" from an Epstein client list and "leave all the liberal, Democratic people."
FOIA and Immigration Law and dumb jokes.
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The Justice Department's acting deputy chief was caught on a hidden camera saying that the government will "redact every Republican" from an Epstein client list and "leave all the liberal, Democratic people."
If you said zero, you are correct. No mention of the government's campaign to eradicate LGBTQ folks from existence. So if you're applying for asylum from Uganda and are gay, you're gonna have to prove that this "inherently reliable" report is wrong - or you get deported. A complete failure.
Uganda is one of the worst places in the world to be gay. Here's the summary from the last year's report - they lead off with Uganda's use of the death penalty for gay folks. How many words do you think are spent on that in this year's report?
These reports are used by immigration adjudicators in determining whether a person is in danger in their home country. They're deemed "inherently reliable." And for decades each country's report would address conditions for women and conditions for LGBTQ folks. That content is now gone. An example:
We finally have the State Department Human Rights reports 6 months late, and it's hard to overstate how bad they are. These will get people killed. Specifically, women and LGBTQ folks have just been written out of these reports. Good luck applying for asylum... www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
A Chicago woman went to immigration court. Her case was dismissed; she and her infant were taken by federal agents who turned her over to contractor MVM. They spent five days confined at the Sonesta O'Hare hotel without communication to the outside world. My first byline at @injusticewatch.org:
lol at the Whitehouse spokesperson responding to my comments on stripping Rosie O'Donnell of her citizenship by only pointing out that I've donated to Democrats. My dude. Get a better spokesperson, there's so much better material on me. www.cnn.com/2025/07/18/u...
I should have read more closely. Yes, FPB and OIL are different branches (although FPB does defend some agency actions that involve immigration). Denaturalization is traditionally brought by OIL attorneys. I assume they're having the same attrition problems.
These are the same lawyers who would be tasked with bringing the wave of new denaturalization cases. One of the reasons I'm doubtful that such a wave is coming, at least in the short term. www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
Also, an immigration judge at the Concord immigration court was fired mid-hearing today. She received a message during the hearing saying she had been fired. Had to stop the hearing. EOIR is in absolute chaos.
Also, Benjamin K. Davey, who was ACIJ over the Cleveland court seems to be gone as well. www.justice.gov/eoir/acij-as...
Not sure why, but Matthew J. O'Brien was listed as the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge at the Annandale Immigration Court until this week. He's no longer listed as an ACIJ at all. Might have been moved to another part of the DOJ? Hard to imagine that they fired him a month after re-hiring him idk
Just got an email that the Criminal Justice Act ("CJA") fund is depleted and CJA attorneys (appointed to represent federal defendants) can't be paid. It says to keep submitting vouchers and they'll pay "as soon as funding is available." What an absolute nightmare. www.uscourts.gov/about-federa...
Grok is a full blown nazi now.
She has no authority to "guide" IJs in how to apply BIA precedent, no authority to set precedent herself, no authority to pick out unfortunate decisions she wishes didn't exist and come up with ways to ignore them. Lawlessness.
To be clear, the Attorney General definitely has the authority to say these things in a published precedential decision. Then, folks agrieved by that lawlessness can take those decisions to federal court and the AG's lawyer will show up to defend it. But the acting EOIR Director?
In short: asylum law is made up. It's not actually law. You don't have to enforce it if you don't feel like it. It's just vibes. Ignore the law if you want, IJs, and your Acting Director has your back. We'll come up with some tortured rationale about how precedent isn't really precedent.
EOIR's acting director has sent a memo to immigration judges telling them they can ignore two critical laws about asylum for domestic abuse survivors and "administrative closure." Only the BIA or the Attorney General can overrule agency precedent. What this means 🧵 www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...
A lot of the reporting on the denaturalization priorities memo hasn't ben very thorough and some pieces have gotten the premise wrong. This WaPo piece does a pretty good job describing what the memo actually means and puts it into context. Gift link. wapo.st/44y1NTp
To scare people into leaving on their own is my best guess. Or just the pure cruelty of it.
The for-profit prison company GEO Group has surged in value under President Trump. But despite its soaring fortunes, the ICE contractor has continued to resist having to pay detainees more than $1 a day for cleaning facilities where the government has forced them to live. (Published March)
Because instead of defending 1 lawsuit challenging an illegal new immigration policy, they get to defend thousands in various courts. So, I'm not sure who is going to have time on their hands to prosecute these cases, but we will see.
They straight up threatened "thousands" of denaturalization cases first term. I was told by two OIL attorneys at the time that they each had a stack of such cases on their desk. But they were busy defending the government's new policies. Last week's ruling on nationwide injunctions makes it worse.
During his first term the main issue was resources. OIL attorneys were tied up defending his illegal policies & these cases are resource heavy. The only way around that this time if they plan to ramp up cases is to either (a) stop doing illegal stuff, or (b) let others in DOJ litigate these cases.
It’s almost July. The State Department Human rights reports were due February 1. The statue requires them to produce these reports to Congress, so I guess, if Congress isn’t interested in compelling the executive to obey the law, there’s not much the rest of us can do. Still
In Denver talking with immigration buddies about denaturalization.
Every mass deportation in American history has in practice been a racial deportation www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/u...
She resigned a few weeks ago, I believe.
Which Trump almost immediately undid - terminating all of the new Board members this year. And now we're down to 10. This is the Federal Register notice from when they shrunk the Board again in April. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20....
According to the Board's own statistics, the Biden admin had increased BIA appeal processing pretty substantially. 44,785 appeals completed in 2024 was the highest annual completion rate in a decade. That's due, in part, to Biden expanding the Board and filling vacant seats.
There are now just 11 Board members, and one of those is currently serving as the Acting EOIR Director (Owen). So, functionally there are 10 BIA members. And there are roughly 160,000 appeals pending. So, about 16,000 appeals per Board member. Zoinks. www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...
Board of Immigration Appeals member Ellen Liebowitz appears to have either left or been fired. No longer listed as a BIA member as of June 4, 2025. Liebowitz had served since 2016, under Obama, Trump, and Biden, and was a senior legal advisor at the BIA before that. www.justice.gov/eoir/board-o...
How does this person attend their immigration court hearing? And if they don't go in person, where do they go? There's no website listed. There is no IJ or courtroom listed. I guess it's TBD, and we'll surely figure it out before trial. But if this person isn't represented, what do they do?
The redactions are pretty heavy-handed, so I can't tell from most of these what's actually being said. But here's an exchange workshopping a response to reporter Seth Wexler.
I was previously unaware of this meeting, but I'm now going to try to FOIA for materials from it. Should have them in about five years 🥲
What does it mean when a federal officer responds to your email and just writes "O"? I seriously don't know. I am not sure I have ever seen that before.
So, several officials gave interviews last time saying that there were going to be "thousands" of denaturalization cases from these programs. That seems to have been false. This document says that there were only 1,029 Operation Janus cases where the person naturalized after a prior removal order.
The "Historical Fingerprint Enrollment Unit" was a denaturalization office opened within the Los Angeles USCIS Field Office by the first Trump admin. This report details how USCIS responded to the 2016 OIG report that first revealed Operation Janus and Operation Second Look.
Most of these are media coordination. They include this background report. Note - we sued them over a series of similar records a few years ago, and this wasn't produced at the time (might be a date range issue). But it has some new information about Operation Janus and Operation Second Look.
Just got some FOIA records back for a request I submitted in 2020 about the last denaturalization push. Crazy that we're once again talking about a mega-denaturalization effort. Here are the USCIS Director's emails from last time. cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2...
Both Harris and Koutras are now de-listed from the ACIJ assignments page. Orlando, Guayanabo, Portland, and SLC have no ACIJ assigned. Oddly, Jeffrey S. Miller is still on the ACIJ assignments list but is no longer listed as an ACIJ. www.justice.gov/eoir/acij-as...
Also, * Monique Harris, who was ACIJ over the Orlando and Guyanabo courts is no longer listed as an ACIJ. * Charles Koutras, ACIJ over the Portland and SLC courts is no longer listed. Here's the ACIJ list from a week ago: web.archive.org/web/20250526...
Some big moves at EOIR. The Acting Chief Immigration Judge is now Anna C. Little (a NY IJ). Jeffrey Miller who was hired as Acting Regional Deputy Chief Immigration Judge in January appears to be out. Miller was also ACIJ over the Houston courts. More... www.justice.gov/eoir/office-...
Trump's DOJ has re-hired former immigration judge Matthew O'Brien (formerly with FAIR and IRLI). Terminated in 2022 from his IJ position during his probationery period, now he's been hired in a supervisory role. ACIJ over Annandale. www.justice.gov/eoir/office-...
The statute requires them to publish by February 25 every year. They usually miss the deadline a by a little. But I don't think it's ever been this late. uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?r...
Starting to wonder if the State Department just isn't going to publish its annual Human Rights reports this year. For at least the last decade the annual human rights report has been published by this time. It's only been pushed into April 3 times. Never into May.
Whitehouse. gov now has a red banner at the top that says "Lo-fi MAGA Video to Relax/Study To US." If you click on it, it's just a cartoon of Trump signing a piece of paper over and over and a scrolling text of false statements. You're supposed to "relax" to this? We are in weird times friends.
It is offensive that this is being handed to people who show up to their immigration court hearings. And that it communicates false information that will convince people who have the right to due process that the outcome is pre-decided and they ought to just leave. And then get an in absentia order.
"Barred from returning" is also a lie. INA 212a9Ai says that someone who has been removed/deported can't be admitted again for 10 years. But it also says that you can ask for permission to come back earlier. And they grant that all the time - see Form I-212. So, no. It's not forever. 11
I posted the statute above. The penalty is $500 per day. It's not $998 a day. And the reference to $1000 to $5000 is for people convicted of willfully refusing to depart after a removal order. So the government doesn't just get to charge that fee. That's not a thing. 10
Consequence 1 - immediate deportation. What does that even mean? Some people are eligible to stay here. There is no "immediate deportation" just for fighting for your rights and asking a judge for permission to stay here. #2 involves fines. I have zero idea where they get the $998 number from. 9
Now the second half of the flyer - "consequences." Let's pause for a moment to poke fun at the super dumb layout of this flyer. It looks to be saying "benefits" of self deporting versus "consequences" of self deporting. But I think they actually meant these are consequences of not doing that. 8
I don't know if the "subsidized flight" claim is true. I am not aware of any program that is paying for commercial airline tickets for people who want to leave. Someone correct me if there is such a program. All I know of is ICE detaining and then deporting people. Is that the "subsidized flight"? 7
The whole "future opportunity" suggestion also implies that they'll make a way for people to come back if they leave now. And that people who have been deported can never come back. Neither suggestion is true. 6
The notion that you can "keep money earned in the U.S." is also nonsense. It suggests that if you get deported (rather than "Self-deport") the government gets to take away all your money. Which is false. True, the government can fine you $500 a day once you have a deportation order. But that's it. 5
Calling it "self deportation" is a hint that this is nonserious. There is no such thing under the law as "self deportation." If you leave without a deportation order, you haven't been deported. You just left. If you leave under a deportation order, you haven't self-deported. You've been deported. 4
What is more - if you "fail or refuse" to attend your court hearings, you are then inadmissible to the United States for five years under INA 212(a)(6)(B). So the claim that "self-deportation is safe" and you have "future opportunity" to return is already just nonsense.
A person in immigration court must remain in the United States while their proceedings are pending. If they leave, their hearings don't just stop. If they leave, then they won't be present at their next hearing, and they'll receive an "in absentia" removal order. This flier claims the opposite. 2
So, the immigration courts have started distributing this flyer. It's being placed on the table you have to sit at for immigration court, and it's being mailed to people with their hearing notices and scheduling orders. The pamphlet is exceedingly inaccurate. I'll do my best to summarize why. 1
Welp, there were hopes that the unopposed request to halt discovery in Abrego Garcia might be a sign that they were working out a resolution. Not so, it appears. The DOJ filed another sealed motion to stay discovery yesterday, a hearing occured this morning, and Judge Xinis just denied the motion.
Another day, another memo from EOIR's acting director purporting to overrule BIA precedent. Under what authority? None that I'm aware of. The memo is about change of venue and the issue isn't particularly pressing (the use of clerical transfers). But still. www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...
The rest of the anonymous sourcing in this piece is largely just saying that people at DOD don’t like Hegseth. But does that really even matter? Does that mean they’re not serving honorably? Are you required to “like” the Secretary as part of the job? How does that point somehow lead to “coup”?
The 5 people Ken lists are five people he appointed. That’s not the deep state. It’s his own people. It’s an indictment of how bad he is at his job. Plus, haven’t they all explicitly denied the allegations that they’re behind the leaks? Pete appointed people he can’t trust and is now firing them. K
It’s a bit too cute that the journalist whose brand is “leak stuff to me and I’ll publish it when others won’t” can’t see when he’s being played. Even if not, the firings of top officials at DOD don’t prove anything about a deep state effort to oust Hegseth. For starters…
A lengthy think piece full of anonymous leaks from folks inside DOD about how anonymous leaks coming out of DOD = constitutional crisis. Come on. Is the ultimate conclusion that military leaders are plotting a coup? Or just that Hegseth is a historically bad secretary who isn’t leading DOD at all?
Same with her memo a week ago on Matter of Fefe. She doesn't have authority to dictate which BIA precedents the IJs are supposed to follow. Really just lawless stuff.
She does not. She's telegraphing to IJs that they can start violating the agency's regulations and, when challenged, they won't defend the regulations. That's not how this is supposed to work. But I'd anticipate a new Castro Tum on steroids to hit in the next few weeks/months. Or a new rulemaking.
If it's not already clear, no administrative law judge would "have a legal basis for" not following the agency's own regulations. www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...
New EOIR Director memo on "administrative closure" calls it "de facto" amnesty, rails on how illegal it is (it's not), and then says judges should continue to follow the regulations that allow/require administrative closure "unless they have a legal basis for not doing so." Lawless.
Boasberg holding a hearing at 5:15 PM on the new round of AEA renditions. Plaintiffs are seeking a TRO because they just received notice and now they're being loaded onto buses for immenent removal.
There it is. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
I'll close with this article from over four years ago from from @talkopan.bsky.social. "Sexually inappropriate behavior runs rife in immigration courts. And the system allows it to flourish" www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...
According to the public investigative summary from June 2024, the ACIJ resigned during the investigation. oig.justice.gov/sites/defaul...
And, the DOJ's public integrity section declined to open a criminal investigation.
When confronted with the email, he objected to OIG focusing on it because he thought the scope of their investigation should be limited to his inappropriate romantic relationship with a subordinate.
And oh boy the body of that email. It appears that the fake email from EOIR Director McHenry that this ACIJ was forwarding to his paramore was just praise about what a good job he was doing. Down bad, buddy.
Now for the bit about sending a fictitious email purporting to be from the EOIR Director (presumably McHenry). Bro is emailing himself to make it look like it's an email from the EOIR Director and then forwarding that to other people. They found this when investigating the romantic relationship.
In a footnote, the OIG says that at the time of the misconduct, EOIR had no policy on whether supervisors could have romantic relationships with subordinates. They didn't put a policy in place until May 2022... That's really something
The next two pages are redacted. They cite b6 and b7x, both of which involve protecting personal information. So, not clear why they couldn't just redact PII and leave the rest. Would be very helpful to know if either person is still employed by EOIR.
Multiple staff at the court walked in on the ACIJ and the subordinate to "reactions [that] suggested to the witnesses that they had interrupted something inappropriate." Gross!
The improper subordinate/supervisor relationship was so well-known that they arrived to work together, went to functions together, and weren't hiding it. To be clear, EOIR's ethics guidelines are super clear that this isn't allowed, but it happens all the time.
The redactions are overboard, and I'll appeal them. The entire "Background" section for example. I believe I know who this is about (and, if I am right, his name i well known outside the immigration space as well). But I'm not going to guess out loud without being able to definitely confirm it.
FOIA Monday! Today I received a heavily redacted OIG report about a then-Acting Assistant Chief Immigration Judge who had an improper romantic relationship with a subordinate. He also used his DOJ email to send a fictitious email purportedly from the EOIR Director. www.muckrock.com/foi/united-s...
My longest-pending appeal was filed November 2019. It's our second time at the Board on this case (Board remanded the first time in 2016 just for the IJ to give the correct "voluntary departure" advisals). We filed a brief in 2021 and supplemental authorities in 2023. Silence since.
When they did this during Bush II, they fired all the neutral BIA members and then started issuing a bunch of rubber stamp "affirm without opinion" decisions. The number of circuit court appeals increased, and they regularly got called out by circuit courts for bad decision making. Here we go again.
EOIR says it will reduce the size of the Board of Immigration Appeals from 28 members to 15 members. They had 127,214 appeals pending at the end of the first quarter 2025. And a ton more are coming now that they're ramping up removal orders... public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-06294.p...
He wasn't supposed to be removed to ES because a judge in the US found it to be likely that El Salvador would torture or persecute him. So, there's honestly a fair chance that ES won't give him up now. President Deals has leverage and should be able to make it happen. But you have to want to...
In theory - they could be right. He's in a super max prison and in theory ES could just say "no." But we're paying for him to be jailed there. And Trump just invited Bukele to the White House last week. So I would assume ES would cooperate. On the other hand...
That would be my guess. There's a whole body of law about when people get brought back after getting removed (See this quote from Nken v. Holder, SC decision in 2009). Courts have ordered the US to return people before. Their argument so far has been that we can't force ES to give him up.
Also from that recalcitrant countries FOIA ... As DOJ argues in court that it's impossible to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully sent to El Salvador, they're lying. They do it all the time. This is from their repatriation agreement with Vietnam. You just have to want to.
It was a big focus of Tom Homan at ICE during Trump's first term. I didn't know if there was a list, and this is the only one I have. I am sure there is a more updated list now, but the overall country makeup won't have changed much.
If I had to guess, I'd say they're thinking one of two things: (1) easiest way to make headlines without ruffling too many feathers internationally, or (2) this is just the start.
So, as a policy matter - State Dept is allowed to use visa sanctions to deter countries from refusing to accept their citizens back when the US wants to remove them. And they've threatened it for a long time. It just doesn't make sense that they'd start with South Sudan.
This list is from Tom Homan's emails. When they were discussing what to do about recalcitrant countries back in 2017. Here's the FOIA for the full release. www.muckrock.com/foi/united-s...
Since Marco Rubio has cancelled all visas for South Sudanese as a response to not accepting back their deportees - I genuinely wonder why they picked S. Sudan. They traditionally have the lowest number of removal orders on the recalcitrant countries list.
Audacity On left: Acting Solicitor General to US Supreme Court: "This case is not about whether TdA members subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act get judicial review; they obviously do." On right: US Notice to detainees: "You are not entitled to a hearing, appeal, or judicial review…"
BREAKNG: A federal judge has barred the Trump administration from ending "temporary protected status" for 350,000 Venezuelan nationals — which was slated to expire next week. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25...
