excalibur
Diamond Member
- Mar 19, 2015
- 17,930
- 33,972
- 2,290
Just more anti-American crap out of the Biden maladministration. Open borders, open border policies, flooding America with illegals. Cloward-Piven at work.
How can anyone who loves America support this mess that Biden is?
cis.org
How can anyone who loves America support this mess that Biden is?
In January I analyzed the Biden administration’s plans to alter the terminology used to refer to “aliens”. Those changes are now being imposed on the nation’s 539 immigration judges (IJs) and the 28 members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). It is a problematic move, because their job is to apply the law, and the main word they are now all-but forbidden to use — “alien” — is the law. The courts should really focus on issuing more decisions, a task they are struggling to accomplish.
On July 23, Jean King, Acting Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) — the DOJ entity that oversees the immigration courts and the BIA — issued Policy Memorandum (PM) 21-27. It “directs EOIR staff, including adjudicators, to use language that is ‘consistent with our character as a Nation of opportunity and of welcome.’” [Internal brackets omitted.]
The quote within that quote comes from section 1 of Executive Order (EO) 14012, issued by President Biden on February 2 and captioned “Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans”.
If the president truly wanted to “restore faith in our legal immigration systems”, he would start by enforcing the immigration laws at the border and interior of the United States. With the border a chaotic disaster (largely due to Biden’s own policies), and interior enforcement all-but nonexistent (again, thanks to the Biden administration), EO 14012 plainly does not mean what it says.
In any event, as part of the administration’s policy of promoting “opportunity and welcome”, King told the IJs and BIA members that they must use incorrect wording in their decisions. As I will explain below, this is an extremely sinister precedent, but first let me explain how the verbiage has changed.
In lieu of the word “alien”, adjudicators must now use “respondent, applicant, petitioner, beneficiary, migrant, noncitizen, or non-U.S. citizen”. Adjudicators can no longer use the phrase “undocumented alien or illegal alien”; instead, those folks are now “undocumented noncitizens, undocumented non-U.S. citizens, or undocumented individuals”.
The next one gets really complicated. A minor who was heretofore an “unaccompanied alien child” is now an “unaccompanied noncitizen child, unaccompanied non-U.S. citizen child, or UC”.
When I was a schoolboy, I was taught to never use double negatives, but apparently “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” are dead now, too.
None of these changes has any basis in law (or logic for what that matters), as I detailed in that January post. “Noncitizen” is not a word, at least not in a legal sense, because it includes “aliens” (who can be removed from the United States and non-citizen “nationals” (who cannot).
In the "definitions" provision in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), those distinctions are clearly explained for purposes of applying our immigration laws.
Section 101(a)(3) states: "The term 'alien' means any person not a citizen or national of the United States." Section 101(a)(22) of the INA, in turn, states: "The term 'national of the United States' means: (A) a citizen of the United States, or (B) a person who, though not a citizen of the United States, owes permanent allegiance to the United States."
Referencing a 1998 dissent from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a June 2017 post, I analyzed each of these terms and the distinctions between them (and some others to boot), and described how they are used in the law. Simply put, residents of American Samoa and Swains Island are “nationals of the United States” (meaning they cannot be removed under the INA), but they are not “citizens”.
The distinction appears to be lost on King (she does not even mention it, unlike then-Acting DHS Secretary David Pekoske, who kicked off this nomenclature nonsense on January 20), but it is crucial to those American Samoans and Swains Islanders.
The bigger issue, however, is that when it comes to the INA, the now-banned word “alien” is the law. King admitted recognized this fact, circuitously, when she granted adjudicators forbearance in PM 21-27 to use the term "when quoting a statute, regulation, legal opinion, court order, or settlement agreement”. But, if it’s not in quotes, adjudicators better not use it.
...
On July 23, Jean King, Acting Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) — the DOJ entity that oversees the immigration courts and the BIA — issued Policy Memorandum (PM) 21-27. It “directs EOIR staff, including adjudicators, to use language that is ‘consistent with our character as a Nation of opportunity and of welcome.’” [Internal brackets omitted.]
The quote within that quote comes from section 1 of Executive Order (EO) 14012, issued by President Biden on February 2 and captioned “Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans”.
If the president truly wanted to “restore faith in our legal immigration systems”, he would start by enforcing the immigration laws at the border and interior of the United States. With the border a chaotic disaster (largely due to Biden’s own policies), and interior enforcement all-but nonexistent (again, thanks to the Biden administration), EO 14012 plainly does not mean what it says.
In any event, as part of the administration’s policy of promoting “opportunity and welcome”, King told the IJs and BIA members that they must use incorrect wording in their decisions. As I will explain below, this is an extremely sinister precedent, but first let me explain how the verbiage has changed.
In lieu of the word “alien”, adjudicators must now use “respondent, applicant, petitioner, beneficiary, migrant, noncitizen, or non-U.S. citizen”. Adjudicators can no longer use the phrase “undocumented alien or illegal alien”; instead, those folks are now “undocumented noncitizens, undocumented non-U.S. citizens, or undocumented individuals”.
The next one gets really complicated. A minor who was heretofore an “unaccompanied alien child” is now an “unaccompanied noncitizen child, unaccompanied non-U.S. citizen child, or UC”.
When I was a schoolboy, I was taught to never use double negatives, but apparently “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” are dead now, too.
None of these changes has any basis in law (or logic for what that matters), as I detailed in that January post. “Noncitizen” is not a word, at least not in a legal sense, because it includes “aliens” (who can be removed from the United States and non-citizen “nationals” (who cannot).
In the "definitions" provision in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), those distinctions are clearly explained for purposes of applying our immigration laws.
Section 101(a)(3) states: "The term 'alien' means any person not a citizen or national of the United States." Section 101(a)(22) of the INA, in turn, states: "The term 'national of the United States' means: (A) a citizen of the United States, or (B) a person who, though not a citizen of the United States, owes permanent allegiance to the United States."
Referencing a 1998 dissent from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a June 2017 post, I analyzed each of these terms and the distinctions between them (and some others to boot), and described how they are used in the law. Simply put, residents of American Samoa and Swains Island are “nationals of the United States” (meaning they cannot be removed under the INA), but they are not “citizens”.
The distinction appears to be lost on King (she does not even mention it, unlike then-Acting DHS Secretary David Pekoske, who kicked off this nomenclature nonsense on January 20), but it is crucial to those American Samoans and Swains Islanders.
The bigger issue, however, is that when it comes to the INA, the now-banned word “alien” is the law. King admitted recognized this fact, circuitously, when she granted adjudicators forbearance in PM 21-27 to use the term "when quoting a statute, regulation, legal opinion, court order, or settlement agreement”. But, if it’s not in quotes, adjudicators better not use it.
...
Immigration Judges Forbidden to Use the Word ‘Alien’
In January I analyzed the Biden administration’s plans to alter the terminology used to refer to “aliens”. Those changes are now being imposed on the nation’s 539 immigration judges and the 28 members of the Board of Immigration Appeals. It is a problematic move, because their job is to apply...
cis.org
