James Pittman: Welcome to Immigration Uncovered, the Docketwise video podcast where we dive deep into the dynamic world of immigration law, shedding light on the latest developments, cutting edge practice management strategies, and the transformative impact of legal technology. I'm James Pittman. Today, Palestinians in crisis. The specific obstacles faced by Palestinian applicants in the US immigration system. I have two guests today. We have Marty Rosenbluth, who is an immigration attorney based in Lumpkin, Georgia, with over 40 years of experience in social change, human rights and nongovernmental organizations. He works frequently at the notorious Stewart Detention Center and the Stewart Immigration court. And Haya Abdell, an attorney in private practice, managing partner of AFI Law.

James Pittman: So, Haya, can you tell us about your journey as an immigration lawyer and the areas that you currently focus on?

Haia Abdel: Yes, James. So I'm a daughter of an immigrant here from Palestine and always been interested in immigration law. I was doing petitions for my brothers when they were marrying Palestinians, and I also petitioned my ex husband to come here as well. Then when I went to law school, I interned for the Florence Project in Arizona, in Phoenix, Arizona. And I also took some immigration courses at Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. And then after I graduated, I just knew that I wanted to get into immigration law. And I took some mentors from a lot and just started doing removal work, just going to Eloy and Florence until I got some experience after bonds and then started doing petitions for asylum. And the Middle Eastern community in Arizona is big, but it mostly consisted of Iraqis who were doing refugee status. When I came here to Florida, I took the bar exam again and passed, thankfully, and started doing more work with Palestinians because we have a big Palestinian community here.

Marty Rosenbluth: Very nice.

James Pittman: So, hi.

James Pittman: Let's start with some basics. So let's talk about if you're bringing a Palestinian to the United States. What are some of the practical obstacles and challenges they would face in actually completing the immigration process? I mean, they are residing on a territory that is under an occupation, subject to specific set of restrictions. Talk about some of the hurdles that you've seen people face.

Haia Abdel: So I think the biggest hurdle I've seen them face is getting what's called a personal permit. A personal permit is required for anyone in the West Bank to travel into East Jerusalem. And that's, of course, where your interview is at. For women, it's been a little easier to get that, but for males, especially the young males marrying age males, that's a little harder. They also require a police certificate from the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, and that's very hard for them to get as well. Once you get that personal permit, which is called Tasriya, usually takes a couple of months for you to get it, you go to your interview. Most challenging was to keep changing that interview. So every time there's something going on in Tafada, another uprising. The facility that approves those is closed down. And then even if you have an interview there, you end up missing it.

James Pittman: Let's talk about some of the what are the identity documents that Palestinian nationals typically carry that they would be using if they were applying for a visa. I mean, you have the ones residing on the West Bank, you have the ones residing in each of do they have the same identity documents? What sort of document is it?

Haia Abdel: So you always have to carry your Palestinian Hawiyah. That's your identity card. Even if you come here to the United States, like my father did, and get US. Citizenship, you are not treated upon the US citizen first. You're treated as an identity carrier of the West Bank. And I believe in Gaza, they have the same identity document. So when we would come from California, that's where I was raised, when we would come to the West Bank, we would go through the IDF patrol in the Jordanian side. They would send my father in one location and us in a different location. So anyone who is a United States citizen only is treated as an American. But anyone who's a United States citizen and a West Bank identity card holder is treated as a Palestinian.

James Pittman: So does that identity card, what do they use as their passport, though, for purposes of getting out of the area?

Haia Abdel: That's actually very interesting. Thank you for asking that. Many people don't know that Palestinians, although we had passports issued from 1921 to 1948, that was no longer allowed. So Palestinians in Gaza would be issued passports to travel only up until, I believe, 1988 from Egypt. And the Palestinians in the West Bank were issued their travel documents from Jordan. Another way to get travel documents was to get a temporary passport that did not show that you were Puerto Rican, but that allowed you to travel. And in Puerto Rico, which is a US. Territory, allowed those travel documents to Palestinians. So when my father was 17 years old, went on a ship, went straight to Egypt, and then got on a plane to Puerto Rico because his travel documents were from Puerto Rico.

James Pittman: Wait, let me add so how how does that work? I mean Puerto Rico being a us. Territory, how does it have an authority to issue a document to an unrelated person for purposes of international travel?

Haia Abdel: So in I believe it was 1965, it was pre 1965 that Puerto Rico was still allowed to do that. And then after that, the US. Kind of overhauled what Puerto Rico was allowed and not allowed to do because everyone who was there was getting citizenship. But it was a way for a lot of Palestinian immigrants to get out in the 1960s.

James Pittman: That's very interesting. I bet a lot of people don't know about that. And do you have a sense and what you're describing, the issuance of documents from Egypt or from Jordan? Has that still been going on in recent years? Is that still the current procedure?

Haia Abdel: That was one of the main purposes of the Oslo Accords was to create a Palestinian identity. So in 1995, Oslo Accords made it possible for the Palestinian Authority to issue Palestinian passports to Palestinian people.

James Pittman: How about the role of the refugee status and the refugee card? I mean, who would be carrying a refugee card? What is the use of it? How is it replaced? If it's lost? Or can you talk a little bit about that?

Haia Abdel: Yes. So I've never carried a refugee card only because my father, while he was from Palestine, he is in the same village that his grandfathers and the whole generation of our family is from. My mother's family did carry refugee cards. They were Palestinian from a town next to East Jerusalem. I think it was called Ain Karen. And they were sent to refugee camps in Jordan. So in Jordan, these refugee camps are run by the United Nations. I think it's enrwa right now, UNRWA, you basically stay in the refugee camps. Once you give up that refugee card, you're allowed to go to the regular schools and so on. In Jordan, you just become a Jordanian citizen, really at that point. But you're giving up your refugee card. Big issue with that is the people that decided to stay. So my maternal grandfather, he decided to leave, became a Jordanian citizen, worked for King Hussein. Actually, his sisters did not. So they stayed in the refugee camp in Jordan. And they're still there today, I believe, about 76 years later, carrying these UN refugee cards that said that they will be allowed to return home when the war is over.

James Pittman: Wow.

Haia Abdel: So a lot of this issue is the right to return to them is inalienable. And it is. But how can they return now that there is Israeli citizens there in the towns? And probably their population, of course, is going to outnumber those citizens, making the Israelis a yes.

James Pittman: That's one of the key political problems. Let's bring in Marty.

James Pittman: Welcome, Marty Rosenbluth, a longtime immigration attorney. Can you tell us about your journey as an immigration lawyer, your current areas of specialization and how you got involved in the Palestinian issues in how many minutes?

Marty Rosenbluth: I actually got into immigration law while I was in law school. I spent the prior 25 years doing human rights work full time on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And it was only when I was in law school that I switched to doing immigration. So I was one of those people who was 1000% sure why I was going to law school. I wanted to continue doing international human rights work, but I switched when I was in law school.

James Pittman: Got it, understood. And you're currently focused on removal cases, is that right? You want to just describe what your caseload is like these days?

Marty Rosenbluth: Well, my office is five minutes from the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. It's the largest detention center east of the Mississippi, and I'm the only immigration attorney in town. They build these detention centers in the middle of nowhere to make it very difficult for people to have access to counsel. I drive an hour each way to go grocery shopping. But no, my practice at the moment is 100% on defense against removal, and almost all my cases are asylum based.

James Pittman: Okay, understood. Well, do you want to provide us with some insights into how Palestinians have fared in the removal process and give us some highlights?

Marty Rosenbluth: One of the big problems is I don't want to say it's willful, but it's just ignorance on the part of the judges, on the part of the prosecutors about the situation in the occupied territories. So, I mean, I have to kind of start at square one to educate them about what's going on there because they really don't understand. They don't understand the difference between Palestinians in the West Bank, palestinians in Gaza, palestinians in Israel, palestinians in Jerusalem. They just don't have any clue. So we have to do really basic education in order to defend our clients.

James Pittman: Well, let's talk about mean, because you see this as an issue in removal. When you're making various claims, you have to sort of explain the geography of the occupation and how the circumstances there based on the geography of the occupation fits into the claim that you're making in immigration court. So I know you mentioned to me that there was an area A, B, and C of the occupied Territories. Do you want to talk about? Give us an overview of the geographic division of the territories, specifically those areas and the extent of control, and then how does the occupation of those areas affect the daily lives and human rights of the Palestinians living there? And what challenges does that pose when you are crafting a claim in removal?

Marty Rosenbluth: If I have a client from Peru, it's very straightforward. The judge can understand Peru in the West Bank, and I'll give you a recent example. My actual specialty is a type of asylum called deferral of Removal under the Convention Against Torture. It's a very long phrase, but that's for people who have serious criminal convictions. So I had a Palestinian client recently whose case we won, who I mean, he left Palestine when he was like three years old. He hasn't been back, but he had some pretty serious drug convictions and he's from a tiny village in the Coquilia area. And a big part of our claim was that if he was sent back that he would be confined to this teeny tiny village in the peculiar area. Now he's got some pretty serious mental health issues. He's got some pretty serious drug addiction issues. So one of the things that we argued in the case was that it would be impossible for him to obtain the mental health services that he needed and the drug treatment that he needed when he would be confined to these teeny tiny areas. Now, the only way I can explain it simply is the West Bank looks like a slice of Swiss cheese. It's really the only way to explain it that you have Palestinian areas that are under exclusive Palestinian control, security and civil. And to travel from one of those areas to another one of those areas, you need permits from the military. That's area. Then you have area B, which is under Palestinian civil control and under Israeli security control. And even to travel from one of those areas to another one of those areas, you need permits from the military. And to travel from area C to area B, you need permits from the Israeli military. I mean, the largest area is under exclusive Israeli military control for civil purposes and for military purposes, people are just basically trapped.

James Pittman: So in terms of their daily lives, what does it impact in terms of I know it impacts probably many aspects of their lives, but just give us an example and how that has fit into some of the claims that you've made.

Marty Rosenbluth: I'm sorry, I didn't even talk yet about my clients from Gaza. I mean, Gaza is a whole different scenario. My Palestinian clients who are going to be deported back to Gaza, as we know. And unfortunately, what's playing out there now, I mean, Gaza is a gigantic know in terms of the and I'll go back to this case as an okay, so this client had some pretty major drug convictions in the United States. So if he were to be sent back to the West Bank, the risk factors that he would face, for example, are first of all, we know, I would say I'll go as far as saying 100% that based on his conviction records, the Israeli military will try to recruit him as a collaborator, right? That's what they do. They rely on these collaborators to give them information. So as soon as this plane lands, they're going to take him off and say, look, if you want access to drugs, we can help you. All we want is information, right? You just have to provide us with information. Of course this guy is going to say no way, but he will still be suspected as being a collaborator by the Palestinian authorities and by others in the Palestinian community because they know that they try to recruit people who have drug problems as collaborators. And if he doesn't collaborate, if he doesn't give them the information, they're not going to give him permission to travel anywhere. Because, I mean, that's the trade off. They trade off permits for information. So since he's not going to collaborate with the Israeli authorities, he's going to be stuck in this teeny tiny village and they can make other threats against him as well. Now, he hasn't lived in this village since he was three years old. His family doesn't have any property left in the village. He doesn't have any family left in the village. So, I mean, he's not going to be able to get a job, he's not going to be able to get housing, and he's going to be trapped in this teeny tiny village. And that's a pretty typical case from my caseload.

James Pittman: Let's talk about when if you're making a cat claim convention against torture, CA take, are you often claiming that the torture is going to be by the Israeli military, by the Palestinian Authority, by both? What are some of the fact patterns viewing his case?

Marty Rosenbluth: He has several risk factors, yes. From the Israeli military. We can talk for hours about the use of torture by the Israeli military. I did human rights work on the ground there for seven and a half years during the first Palestinian uprising. I mean, the use of torture by the Israeli military, it's very unlikely that if you get detained by the Israeli military that you won't get tortured. I mean, torture is, in fact, the rule. We also fear that he would be tortured by the Palestinian Authority. And in all honesty, I have to say this, the most depressing thing that I've heard in all my human rights work is that we found out that the torturers who were working for the Palestinian Authority learned their torture techniques when they were tortured by the Israel.

James Pittman: Sadly, it's not surprising.

Marty Rosenbluth: And he also faced risk of being tortured by Hamas, since Hamas controls a large part of the areas up there. So, I mean, he faced the risk of torture from three separate sources.

James Pittman: So suppose under the current circumstances with military conflict actively going on, if you had a client from Gaza who was in removal, what would be your go to claims that you'd be making right now?

Marty Rosenbluth: Well, and the thing is that they don't really care what's going on now. I mean, they would just basically hold them until the situation stabilized. I mean, I've tried not just in Palestine, but in a few other countries to argue that the situation at the moment that there was a flare up and they're, you know, that might change. So I don't really think that would help. Of course, I would make the argument, don't get me wrong, I mean, I would oh, look at the situation there now is very unstable. He can't be set back, and most judges won't necessarily take that into account.

James Pittman: Let me ask a question either for Marty or for Haya. Have you heard of any effort to have DHS designate Palestinians for TPS? I mean, there have been a lot of designations and REIT designations coming out recently with Venezuela and other countries. And I'm just wondering I cannot recall, I personally don't recall maybe you do, whether Palestinians have ever been covered under TPS. Any thoughts on that topic?

Haia Abdel: TPS is not available to Palestinians because then the United States government would basically be saying that Palestinians cannot live under IDF control or this is an occupation, which they have not said those words. They don't want to say those words. They keep calling this war when it's not a war. It's basically just one side bombing. Civilian as a Palestinian, I cannot carry a weapon. Even in my home, I cannot own a weapon. But the illegal settlers can. They can all the time. So designating it as TPS would actually mean that those settlers in shiloh are coming down to our town know, murdering and bombing homes and burning down our crops and giving them that kind of designation that they are not. A suitable place to live is not what the United States wants to do. Because that's against the Israeli government and it's against what is going to get them funding from IPAC and get them reelected next year.

James Pittman: Yeah, I mean, no doubt the designations for TPS are just by virtue of the fact they're discretionary by designating. They are making, in a sense, a policy declaration by issuing that. Marty, do you have any thoughts on the TPS?

Marty Rosenbluth: There's an Arabic expression which is Bokra filmishmish, which means tomorrow during the apricot seasons, which means it'll never happen. Gotcha no American politician is going to speak in favor of TPS for Palestinians. And I think if anyone ever did endorse that, I don't even want to think of the political consequences. So, no, that's never going to happen. And this is also true in the asylum process. I mean, the asylum process not just in Palestine, okay, but everywhere else, it's incredibly politicized. So most asylum claims the go to resource for the judge is the US state department report. So if you try to present information that contradicts the US state department report, you have a tough want to I'm trying to think of a proper term, but the US state department report on human rights in the occupied territories for Palestinians and Israel is just grossly, grossly, grossly inadequate and inaccurate.

James Pittman: Well, let's give us some highlights and talk about why you believe that to be the case.

Haia Abdel: What comes out in these reports and the media is completely fabricated. So, for example, I'm from a village called Turaya. Tungusaya is about less than 15 miles from Ramala. And Ramala is an area, a so, a means Palestinian authority control. But Tungusaya half of our fields were taken by the settlements of Shiloh, including some of my grandfather's fields. The olive groves were all taken and the settlement of Shiloh was built on those olive grows. The IDF is there to protect the settlers. When I want to go to Ramola, it takes less than 15 miles away, takes me about an hour and a half because of all the IDF checkpoints on the way. And I'm saying about an hour to an hour and a half for me as a US citizen carrying a passport for my cousin. It would be two, two and a half hours to get there when something occurs. And that's how they take these groves, is around October, I believe. There is a season called jeddizatun, which means we go and we pick the olives off our trees. So they close the schools down. There's only one female school and one all boys school. So they close the schools down, and all the kids go with their parents to the groves, to their land to pick off the olive trees. That's the season that the settlers decide to come down and terrorize and burn the cars and shoot even into the air. June 21, one of our villagers died, but usually they come to terrorize us so that we don't come back. Our recourse as an area b is not to go to Palestinian authority because they don't have that right. What our recourse is, the IDF comes down after they protect the settlers, make sure that nobody gets back at them for what they did. They go and tell us, go and make a report to beit il bet il is where the IDF is supposed to be there taking these reports from the villagers about what happened to them. By the time these reports come to the US. There is nothing in there about all the terrorism that happened to the villagers. Nothing. It's completely fabricated to say that a villager hit one of the settlers, and that villager, they will go to his house and bomb his house, take it down.

James Pittman: Let's bring Marty back in.

James Pittman: Marty, about the state department's report of country conditions, do you want to add anything where you find inaccuracies or shortcomings and some of the issues that's created in your cases?

Marty Rosenbluth: Well, let's just look at it structurally. Okay? The state department report for peru is written by the embassy in Peru. The state department report on the Dominican republic is written by the embassy in the Dominican republic. The state department report on Israel and palestine is written in Washington, DC. It's written at headquarters. Okay, so it's highly politicized and it's mean, I don't know, that's a common expression, but they take out anything that has any real meat in. Again, I worked there. I was on the ground there for seven and a half years during the first uprising. And the state department reports on the human rights violations in the west bank, you would kind of, you know, the Israelis were the it's. It's a very sanitized report, and I mean, some stuff does get in there, but mostly no.

James Pittman: So for know, you are know either past persecution or fear of future persecution on the basis of one of the protected categories race, nationality, religion, membership in a particular social group, political opinion. What are the most common bases for claiming asylum that you find among palestinians?

Marty Rosenbluth: It would be political opinion. Sometimes we try to argue religion, sometimes we try to argue particular social group, but in most of my cases, it's political opinion.

James Pittman: I mean, the majority of Palestinians are Muslims. There is a Christian minority of Palestinians, and I know that there are some of them in Gaza. I'm wondering, have you raised any claims of religious minorities amongst the mean, especially with I am not familiar with the conditions for the Christian minority in Gaza, for example, under Hamas. I don't know whether those types of issues have come out in any of the claims that you've raised. Also, I can envision, for example, let's say you're dealing with an individual who is know, that would be a social group asylum claim. And I definitely think that conditions are probably very inhospitable. That's putting it mildly. Extremely harsh, probably both in Gaza and in the West Bank for that category. So I'm wondering if you've seen, besides political opinion, have you seen any of these other bases?

Marty Rosenbluth: Well, yeah, and in LGBT cases, the same problem exists that exists with people who have drug problems. Now, for LGBT cases, I did one based on persecution. But we argued both that they faced a risk from the Palestinian Authority, that they faced the risk from Hamas, and the same problem with being recruited as collaborators. I mean, the recruitment of collaborators by the Israeli military in the LGBT community is very common. It's very, very well known.

James Pittman: Explain how that works, Marty. Why would that be going on? Why would they be doing that? And how does that play out?

Marty Rosenbluth: LGBT individuals, both men and women in the West Bank and in Gaza are very much persecuted by their own communities. And what the Israelis would do is they would say, well, how would you like us to tell everyone in your community that you're gay? How would you like us to expose the fact that you are gay in your community? And they put pressure on people to collaborate. Same thing with the permit system. In many of these cases that I'm aware of, the individual from the West Bank has a romantic partner who's Israeli and know, try to go back and forth. The Israelis can waive a permit in front of their nose, right, and say you want to go see your boyfriend? Well, we can give you a permit to go back and forth, but you have to provide us with information. But as to other types of discrimination, like, did the Israelis treat Muslims differently from Christians? No. I mean, the Israelis persecute everybody equally, at least their equal opportunity in that way.

James Pittman: Hi, do you want to add anything about the status of Palestinian Christians either on the West Bank or in Gaza? I mean, both under the occupation and in the case of Gaza, under Hamas? Do you have any so I don't.

Haia Abdel: Know of many Palestinian Christians in Gaza. I know that there's a big concentration of them in Ramallah and Bethlehem. There is a little bit in Area C, Old Jerusalem, but not much. They are persecuted the same way that the Palestinian Muslims are. So if there was a church, I believe it was so wherever there are some mountains or hills, that's where they like to build the settlements, those settlements that are illegal under international law. And there was a church at one point on a hill that they burned down because they wanted to take that. With regards to the collaborators, I totally agree with Marty. I mean, even my sister, when she married her husband, we had known that he was in the Israeli jails as a youth for about four to six months. So we knew that he wasn't going to get a visa when he got married to my sister. But even though that she did a petition for him as her husband, after the NBC processing and him getting that personal permit, the Tasriq, to go into East Jerusalem for the interview, he had to come with a police clearance certificate from the IDF. And he went into that station to get the clearance certificate and didn't come out for hours. And then when he came out, there was a lot of rumors that he is a collaborator now, that they were glad that he is leading to the United States, because they don't know what he did. And maybe he promised them some information, I don't know. But he's been here for 20 years. He doesn't want to go back. It's a big deal. I mean, if he comes back, I'm sure he owes them some information.

Marty Rosenbluth: Yeah. And again, I don't do any visa work at all. I mean, I'm 100% defense against removal, but from talking to colleagues who do different types of visas, one of the biggest problems they have is trying to get a clean criminal record report from the Israeli military. And I promise I'm not exaggerating. Okay? I lived there for seven and a half years. I only know one Palestinian male who never spent any time in Israeli custody. Only one.

James Pittman: How did he manage that? Any thoughts on why he was so lucky?

Marty Rosenbluth: I don't really know. It's like you guys blessed or something. I have no clue at all why he never got picked up. I think it may be because he was an archaeology student and he had some friends at Hebrew University. But I really don't know why he never got arrested. But only one. I mean, I must have met hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinian males, and he's the only one. So if you try to get a clean record report from the Israeli military for different visa purposes, it's really hard.

James Pittman: Marty, of the Palestinians that you're dealing with in removal, their original entry into the United States, what are some of the common patterns that you find? Were they people who were brought here by family know? How did a lot of these Palestinians arrive, or does it run the gamut?

Marty Rosenbluth: It runs the gamut. Some of my clients came in initially. On student visas. Some came in initially on family on family petitions. There's really no common rules. Some even came on tourist visas in overstate.

James Pittman: Let's go back to the political opinion ground for asylum. Let's talk about some of how this plays out, the details of it. So what are some of the common sort of political opinion claims that you would be making? I mean, people who support one or another faction or they don't support Hamas, and that's the political opinion, or how does it work out?

Marty Rosenbluth: I've had some opposition to Hamas and being persecuted by Hamas, but it's very difficult to argue that you feel persecution because you oppose the occupation, because the United States supports the occupation. That's not necessarily a thing. And the other thing, too, is the State Department tries to claim that the only time the Israelis will arrest or detain or persecute Palestinians is when they're a security risk. Again. Even people who are like nonviolent activists against the Israeli occupation are arrested and detained and treated as if they're terrorists.

James Pittman: I would imagine because I have seen Ice raise the material support for terrorism bar under the most I don't want to call them innocuous, but under the slightest indication that someone had engaged in a protest which became violent, So I can imagine that there could be a large number of people who could.

James Pittman: Let's talk about that. The material support for terrorism bar, how often does that come up? And in cases where it's really being misapplied, how would you go about combating that?

Marty Rosenbluth: Well, I'll give you a real example. And this was a case, unfortunately, I actually lost, where my client admitted that he gave ten shekels, which at the time was $3, to his mosque, the imam of which was suspected of being a member of Hamas. Okay? So he donated $3 to his mosque, and the imam of the mosque was suspected of being a Hamas member, and they tried to deport him based on material support for terrorism. That's a true story. The thing is that any Palestinian resistance to the occupation is viewed by the Israeli authorities as being terrorism, even if it's nonviolent. And getting over that is just really difficult. And, I mean, most of the Palestinian cases that I win are based on decap sorry, deferral of removal to convince them against torture, because under that, it doesn't really matter the reason why you were persecuted. And in fact, what we can do in those cases is we aggregate the risk factors. So, I mean, the fact that they face risks from the Israeli authorities, from the Palestinian authorities, from Hamas, and from society as a whole works to our advantage, right? So they can't deny DCAT based on the fact that they had material support for terrorism, because we actually use that to our advantage, because it shows one of the reasons that they're at risk, crazy as that sounds.

James Pittman: No, I mean, it makes legal sense and Marty, DCAT is a temporary form of relief in the sense that it's deferral of removal. It isn't cancellation of removal. The removal order exists. You get a removal order, but it is deferred. So what happens? Has Ice ever come back and actually removed people that you've won a cat claim for, or do you expect them to do that? And are they currently removing people to the Palestinian territories? How does that work?

Marty Rosenbluth: I mean, it is temporary. Sound like a lawyer now. It's only temporary in the sense that it's not permanent. I mean, it can be withdrawn, unlike asylum. But the only way they can withdraw someone's decat grant is if the circumstances on the ground change. You know, have a lot of DCAT cases, and I've lectured on DCAT, I gave a panel on decat at Ala and sorry, the American Immigration Lawyers Association. I've never heard of a DCAT grant being successfully mean. I'm sure it does happen, maybe, but I've never heard of it.

Haia Abdel: Now, on decat, can you petition your family?

Marty Rosenbluth: No. Well, that's the main disadvantage of decat, and decat doesn't by itself lead to any permanent status. Right? So, I mean, if you have asylum, eventually you get a green card, eventually you get citizenship, right? Under DCAT. No, it's just for you. The only real benefit to DCAT is well, they can't deport you and you get a work permit, but it's not a path to any type of permanent status, and you can't petition for your family members.

James Pittman: And Marty, why are you not able to get withholding of removal as opposed to having to go to the cat claim?

Marty Rosenbluth: Most of my decat cases, people have really serious criminal convictions, but even withholding of removal, that's not really permanent either. I mean, it's only withheld the net.

James Pittman: Net is you're in practically the same situation as you would be with the cat relief. I was just wondering why you had to go to cat relief rather than of course, if you have a claim that you're claiming someone's going to be tortured, you're bringing a cat claim. But usually the progression I mean, you would love to win asylum if you can. If for whatever reason, the client is ineligible for asylum, usually next you go to withholding, you would bring the cat claim in if potential for torture plays into the equation. I guess in your circumstance, it just so happens that the potential first of all, you're mentioning that the clients have criminal convictions, which probably bar them. If you have a particularly if I'm quoting the standard, and I don't have the statue in front of me, but Marty will correct me if I'm misquoting the statue. It's a particularly serious crime of a non political nature that would bar you from withholding. Is that correct?

Marty Rosenbluth: Correct. And I actually call myself a cat evangelist. Many attorneys are scared of cat because the standard is supposed to be higher. So in cat cases, you have to show that there's a 51% chance or greater of them being persecuted and tortured. Right. On asylum cases, it's supposed to be 10%. That you only have to show that there's a 10% chance of you being persecuted. I've never met an attorney who's gone into court and said, your Honor, there's a 10% chance of my client being persecuted.

Haia Abdel: No.

Marty Rosenbluth: And in fact, Cat has a bunch of advantages. First of all, you don't have to show that the persecution on the basis of any statutory basis, right. You can aggregate the risks together. You don't have to show proof of past persecution. You only have to show risk of future persecution. And for a lot of my clients who left their countries when they were three or four and face real risks, now, that's a huge advantage. A lot of my LGBT cases are that way, that they left before they even realized their sexual preference, and they only face the risk of future persecution. Now, if they get sent back, you can't get asylum on that basis, but you can get relief under Cat.

James Pittman: Understood? It's clever, and it's something good for practitioners to know.

James Pittman: Haya by way of background, I mean, in terms of the client base that you're dealing with among the Palestinians, can you just give us some color and context as far as language proficiency, issues of English proficiency, and also economic circumstances? What are the people like that you've been dealing with in your practice?

Haia Abdel: So my clients are mostly younger. They are able to learn the English language, and because it's a second language in Palestine, in the West Bank and Gaza, that is not usually a problem. I believe if you have an older client that's maybe over 60 and can get a waiver for the proficiency test, that's something. But mine are usually younger, they can speak English, and most of them are financially doing well here. Their issue is I mean, Turmosaya, the village I come from is they call it the Hollywood of the West Bank for a reason. We all have Bellas. We all have believe over 50% of the population has dual citizenship with the US or green card holders. It is a very prominent place. And when I was talking about the death of that young man, Mr. Kutan, on June 21, the reason why the backlash against my village was so big was because almost everyone there was American. So they just took out their phones and did the TikToks and the YouTube videos, and look at these Israeli settlers coming down. The IDF was very upset about the social media backlash, and they came down and terrorized the village even more. They would do nightly raids, and in one situation, they went into a home and took over $170,000 that the family had in cash. So the financial situation of Palestinians here and the ones that are supporting, of course, their people back home is good. It's just bringing their family here. So the West Bank again? It's easier. You can get that personal permit. You have your identity card, the Palestinian identity card. You get that personal permit to travel to East Jerusalem. Then you get that police certificate from the IDF, which might take a little bit of giving up some information or something, but you could do it. But some of my clients from Gaza, I have clients here on there's one on a student visa. And he came in last Monday right after the attacks, and he said, please bring my wife and two kids. So he's about 23 years old, but he had two young toddlers. Just bring them. And I was like, even if we do some kind of application or a derivative, how am I going to do it? How are they going to travel to East Jerusalem? And he was flashing his money, just help me. And I couldn't because there's nothing I'm take your money. And then they're not going to make the interview. There's no way for them to travel. So it's more heartening about the political situation and the barrier that they're in, how to get through those checkpoints to the Sea location, which is East Jerusalem, then it is a financial issue.

James Pittman: Understood. Well, it sounds like at least at your practice, you're dealing with people whose economic circumstances are probably a lot more fortunate.

Haia Abdel: I have five children. I need to be paying my bills.

James Pittman: Understood. Of course.

James Pittman: All right, Marty, have some of these Presidential Proclamations and some of the other executive actions have, in the last, let's say, 20 to 25 years, targeted people of Middle Eastern extraction. I'm thinking about the nsers program that was put into place after 911, and I don't know whether you were actively in practice at that time, but there was a program called the nsers. And then, of course, during the Trump administration, we had the Presidential Proclamation barring entry from various countries, many of which were located in the Middle East. Syria, Iraq, Libya, to name a few. I don't believe the Palestinians were specifically covered under that proclamation. Have you had any experience with any of those executive type actions? And then part two at the question would be, let's suppose Donald Trump manages to get reelected for another term in 2024. What would be your expectation as to how things might change or new issues that your clients would be facing?

Marty Rosenbluth: Well, I mean, because I pretty much do exclusively removal work. I mean, my clients aren't affected by I mean, let's look at what's happening now in Gaza. Okay? The United States is trying to claim that there's nothing that they can do to get American citizens out of Gaza. But they rent a cruise ship to get Israelis out of with dual citizenship out of Israel. Do you really expect us to believe that we're powerless to get these mean? It's obvious that we're doing absolutely nothing to try to get them out and the Israelis know that we're going to do nothing, which is why they are doing nothing.

James Pittman: Well, we're getting to the end of the hour. It's been a fascinating discussion, but I do want to ask both of our guests one more question. Can you recommend any ways in which our listeners can contribute in a humanitarian fashion to helping to alleviate or provide relief in the affected areas? The Palestinian territories right now.

Haia Abdel: I think I gave to LaunchGood. There's a relief fund over there called Gaza Emergency Appeal that the people who did it are from Canada. And I got some reassurances that of course it's going to the right location. So that's the one I gave to Gas emergency Appeal at launch.

James Pittman: Good.

Haia Abdel: But I would be very wary about naming anyone else because like Marnie said earlier, if you give to the wrong organization, an organization that is later investigated and one of its members has any ties to Hamas or to pro Palestinian national citizenship, that's going to come back at right, right.

James Pittman: For sure. Doctors Without Borders, I think, is a very credible organization which does its best to provide emergency medical assistance in areas affected by conflict or natural disasters. Marty, did you want to mention any relief efforts?

Marty Rosenbluth: Yeah, I mean, I would definitely recommend the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which is the Palestinian equivalent of the Red Cross. Also, the Israeli organization Physicians for Human Rights is also very key. And now, because the massive scale of the human rights violations, israeli organizations like Betzelin, which documents human rights violations in the occupied territories and on the Palestinian side, I would recommend that people make donations to AlHaq. Full disclosure, that's where I worked for seven and a half years. But I think that amongst the Palestinian human rights organizations, they by far do the best work.

James Pittman: Thank you for that. Well, I want to thank both of our guests, attorneys Haya Abdel and Marty Rosenbluth for discussing with me issues faced by Palestinians in crisis, specifically relating to U. S. Immigration system. Thanks, both of you, for a fascinating discussion.

Haia Abdel: Thank you.

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