Mukasey sets limit on immigrants' rights to lawyer

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Yahoo

*

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has decided that immigrants facing deportation do not have an automatic right to an effective lawyer.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey says in a 33-page decision that the Constitution does not entitle someone facing deportation to have his case reopened based upon shoddy work by a lawyer.

Mukasey says Justice Department officials do have the discretion to reopen such cases.

Immigrants rights groups say Mukasey's decision rejects decades of established legal practice. Mukasey's ruling comes less than two weeks before the Bush administration leaves office. Democrat Barack Obama takes the oath as president on Jan. 20.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090108/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/immigrants__rights

[BrklynLiberal]

1. "Constitution? WHAT Constitution?", says BushCo and minions.

[Idealism]

2. How American of them to decide who gets what rights.

[TEmperorHasNoClothes]

3. apparently bush isn't done trying to destroy the country's integrity

[sallyseven]

4. Feinstein and Shummer's finest moment

when they voted for the slim bsll. I despise him so much.

[sasquatch]

11. And now Obama is treating them as the irrelevant douches they are

[Moosepoop]

5. Is this something that can be "undone"

when Obama gets into office?

[Libertyfirst]

6. Mukasey, like his predecessor, doesn't understand the rule of law. n/t

[ixion]

7. yet another unconstitutional piece of crap put forth by extremist

bastards who want nothing more than to destroy our Constitution. :argh:

[VP505]

8. They (Booo$hCo) are going to keep poking

everyone in eye until the last minute of the last day of their reign, what a bunch of _________ (add your own).

[Roy]

9. hmmmm... another group limited to legal access... DONE DEAL!!!

SEND IN THE NEXT GROUP PLEASE

We have a busy schedule before we're out of here!

[pleah]

10. Damn, DiFi and Schumer for putting this

creature in this position.

[damntexdem]

12. They do realize that they are leaving office, right?

Or do they have something up their sleeve that we don't yet know about?

[alsame]

13. This fascist was approved as AG and the GOP is making threats

about Holder?

[kskiska]

14. US immigrants facing deportation have 'no right to an effective attorney'

Source: The Guardian

Immigration lawyers describe move by attorney general as a last-minute evisceration of a constitutional right

America's top law enforcement official has declared that immigrants facing deportation have no right to an effective attorney, a move immigration lawyers and the country's top lawyers' guild described as a last-minute evisceration of a constitutional right.

In Wednesday's decision, George Bush's attorney general, Michael Mukasey, wrote that immigration courts need not reopen "removal" - or deportation - proceedings on the grounds that an immigrant's attorney was incompetent. As a result, illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who lose deportation hearings because their attorneys fail to file legal papers on time, who do not show up for hearings or myriad other infringements lack recourse in immigration court.

The decision stems from three cases in which immigrants appealed deportation orders. In one, the lawyer of a Malian man who had overstayed his visa but married an American citizen neglected to file a legal brief in an appeal of a deportation order. In another case, the lawyer representing a Colombian who sought asylum under the United Nations convention against torture failed to file a legal brief. A coalition of law school clinics and immigration lawyers opposed the move, as did the American Bar Association, the top lawyers' guild in America.

"Immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers often are unfamiliar with our language, culture, and legal system, and as a result are especially vulnerable to being deceived by persons who are not authorized to practice law, or harmed as a result of mistakes by attorneys who lack sufficient familiarity with our nation's complex immigration laws," the American Bar Association's president, H Thomas Wells Jr, wrote to Mukasey.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/09/immigration-rights-us-michael-mukasey

[EconomicLiberal]

15. 11 days.... n/t

[madrchsod]

16. if it is good for texas-it`s good for america