👥 Mass immigration hearings at Whipple

Mass Immigration Hearings to Expedite Deportations

The federal government has started implementing mass immigration hearings for people with asylum claims in Minnesota. At the Whipple Federal Building on Monday, Judge Kalin Ivany had 73 cases scheduled for a single 30-minute morning hearing, and another 27 cases in a 30-minute afternoon hearing. Of the 100 respondents on Ivany's docket Monday, 80 did not have lawyers. Similar mass hearings have been reported at immigration courts in other states. [Star Tribune]

• Due process concerns: In a statement provided to national news outlets, the Executive Office of Immigration Review said the goal of the mass hearings were to speed up asylum cases both for the benefit of immigrants with "meritorious" claims to asylum, and for the expedited removal of folks with "non-meritorious" claims. Immigration attorneys and court observers believe courts are speeding up hearings without properly notifying respondents, setting up families to miss their hearing and receive an immediate order for deportation. Matthew Woodward, vice president of the Minnesota Bar Association’s immigration law section, said that "any sense of justice has really kind of just disappeared from our immigration courts." [Star Tribune]
  
• Gumming up the works: According to Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the time spent getting through these mass hearings is causing judges to reschedule other cases that were going to be heard the same day. Monday's mass hearing also resulted in moving up evidentiary hearings by one to two years for several respondents, giving them less time to prepare. The AILA hopes the government will recognize that this technique will lead to more appeals down the line, and is not actually making the courts any more efficient. [MinnPost]

Bad news for news: The Minnesota Star Tribune announced that they will be laying off 15% of their workforce. About 65 people are expected to lose their jobs, including 25 of the 200 journalists in their newsroom, though folks who focus on "news gathering" (reporters, photographers, and videographers) will be spared. In an all-employee memo, CEO Steve Grove also said that the company would be pursuing a new ownership structure to allow them to "expand opportunities for philanthropic donations." [Racket / WCCO]

Monopoly in aisle 5: Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison joined several other states and the U.S. Department of Justice to reach a settlement with agricultural data company Agri Stats to prevent them from sharing "sensitive" information with competing meat processors. Ellison said that meat processors "weaponized" data from their rivals to raise grocery prices on chicken, pork, and turkey for families across the country. [MinnPost]

Hot Dog Summer: I developed a deep love of hot dogs in late 2023, and I feel truly lucky to be surrounded by so many phenomenal hot doggeries in the Twin Cities. On yesterday's episode of the podcast, we put together a list of some of our favorites. As a veggie dog enjoyer, I highly recommend The Wienery in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. [City Cast Twin Cities]

Protecting native land: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Commissioner Jason Garcia introduced a resolution to permanently close the Minnehaha off-leash dog park. If the resolution is passed by the full board, the park will be decommissioned by the end of this year. The park exists on sacred Dakota land that advocates say is a burial site, and Garcia said the move to close the park is an attempt to "combat the systemic removal of Dakota people from their lands, particularly sacred sites." [KARE 11]

Friendly fungus: Researchers at the University of Minnesota are studying a promising new method for eradicating emerald ash borer (EAB) beetles, an invasive bug that has been detrimental to Minnesota's ash tree population. They are testing the deployment of four insect-killing species of fungi that have the ability to infect EABs and spread amongst their populations to kill more of them. Bug biological warfare. Cool! [MSP Mag]

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