Here is the Memo; here is the Order. NOTE: Earlier today, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, Senior U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour GRANTED a Preliminary Injunction in WA v. Trump. I will post his Memo and...
PM 25-18 - CANCELLATION OF DIRECTOR’S MEMORANDUM 22-06 AND REINSTATEMENT OF POLICY MEMORANDUM 20-05 PM 25-19 - EOIR’S ANTI-FRAUD PROGRAM
Funez-Ortiz v. McHenry "For nearly ten years, a Honduran gang conducted a campaign of terror and violence in Honduras against Petitioner Melvin Funez-Ortiz and his family. The gang murdered several...
PM 25-16 - CANCELLATION OF DIRECTOR’S MEMORANDUM 23-04 PM 25-17 - CANCELLATION OF DIRECTOR’S MEMORANDUM 22-05 AND REINSTATEMENT OF POLICY MEMORANDA 19-05, 21-06, AND 21-13
PM 25-13 - OCAHO PM 25-14 - CANCELLATION OF DIRECTOR’S MEMORANDUM 23-03 AND REINSTATEMENT OF POLICY MEMORANDUM 20-03 PM 25-15 - OFFICE OF LEGAL ACCESS PROGRAMS
In an unpublished decision dated Dec. 4, 2023 a panel of the Ninth Circuit remanded for a new hearing. The facts are stunning...unless you practice immigration law:
"Because Lead Petitioner credibly stated that she did not receive the NOH, the BIA abused its discretion in declining to rescind the in absentia orders under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(b)(5)(C). We remand for a new hearing on Petitioners’ asylum applications. PETITION GRANTED and REMANDED. ... Here, when Ontiveros Lozano’s removal hearing date was moved up, the Government mailed her an NOH, but it was returned as undeliverable over a month before her scheduled hearing. Ontiveros Lozano therefore indisputably did not receive the required notice, and the Government knew this. Yet the Government requested and received an in absentia removal order against Ontiveros Lozano when she did not appear for her scheduled hearing. In doing so, the Government violated the explicit statutory requirement in § 1229a(b)(5)(A). The Government now argues that Ontiveros Lozano’s removal proceedings should not be reopened because she was not diligent in discovering the Government’s conduct and because she has forfeited her challenge to the entry of the in absentia removal order. The Government’s duty should be to seek justice, not to deport people at any cost. In my view, it lost sight of that duty here."
One expert, former BIA Chairman Paul W. Schmidt, puts it this way:
"The full ugliness and dysfunction of EOIR and the DOJ are on display here:
[Hats off to Deok Kim!]