When you think that it can’t get worse, it does. After a summer of an emergency a week and the Supreme Court bending over backwards -- to be polite – to accommodate a president, now we have the continued massive firing of even more immigration judges, and ICE taking people into their black holes because the remaining judges are ordered to dismiss the asylum cases without even the semblance of due process.
Immigration, of course, is not the only place that makes heads spin. Blatant racist attacks on particular groups of people, threats to denaturalize persons who are critical of certain national elected officials including the new Mayor of New York City and at least one Member of Congress make us wonder.
New Jersey hasn’t seen the masked men in immigration courts like in New York, at least not yet. But immigrants can go to their ICE check-ins, enter a door to talk to an officer and not come out. Immigrants are becoming like the disappeared of Latin American dictatorships.
Prayer for the Day
We cry out to you, O God, where are you,
As we see friends and neighbors disappear;
We thought the courts, which we believed, dispense justice,
Cower and bend to the will of corrupt autocrats.
Despairing, we search for your presence here,
For it seems you, too, have disappeared.
In the name of the One who sustains us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The pressure is unrelenting. I find myself struggling to preserve due process and to protect the process from this tinkering, this meddling, this pressure.
An immigration judge, unnamed, to protect identity
I am not garbage. I'm a proud American citizen.
Hamse Warfa, Somali-born, CEO World Savvy, a nationwide education program
These [ten] categories are intended to guide the Civil Division in prioritizing which cases to pursue; however, these categories do not limit the Civil Division from pursuing any particular case, nor are they listed in a particular order of importance. Further, the Civil Division retains the discretion to pursue cases outside of these categories as it determines appropriate.
USDOJ memo issued June 11, 2025, on denaturalizing American citizens
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
By night, but find no rest.
Psalm 22: 1-2
The Disappeared
Crèche in front of a church