Like Many Americans, A Judge On The Court Weighing Trump’s Refugee Ban Was A Refugee

Judge Alex Kozinski isn’t assigned to the three-judge panel considering a federal court’s halt of the travel ban. LOS ANGELES ― A federal judge who sits on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is set to rule on a block of President Donald Trump’s refugee ban, came to the United States as a refugee when he was a boy. All of the judges on the panel descended from immigrants, but Judge Alex Kozinski is likely the only one who specifically entered the country as a refugee. Kozinski, one of the most well-respected judges on the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, fled with his parents, Moses and Sabine, from communist Romania in 1962. Kozinski has spoken publicly about his immigration experience for years, even joking that he went from being a committed communist as a boy to an “instant capitalist” after his first trip outside of the Iron Curtain to Vienna ― on his way to the United States ― where he was introduced to “bubble gum, chocolate and bananas.” Alex with his father, Moses, and his mother, Sabine, about a year before the Kozinskis left Romania. But his journey came full circle on Monday when HIAS ― a refugee agency that has been assisting Jews and others fleeing persecution since 1881 ― filed a legal brief with the 9th Circuit in strong opposition to Trump’s travel ban. HIAS was the same group that helped to resettle the Kozinski family, eventually helping them get all the way to the United States. Until contacted by The Huffington Post, HIAS officials were unaware that one of the children it helped decades ago was now serving on the court to which it was appealing. Officials at HIAS searched their records and found official documentation of arrival for the Kozinski family. HIAS provided it to The Huffington Post, and it is printed here with the permission of Judge Kozinski. The Kozinski family arrived in Baltimore in late October 1962. Alex was just 12, Moses was 47 and Sabine 43. “[HIAS] was very generous and kind to us in all respects,” Kozinski told The Huffington Post of his journey to America. Kozinski recalled that the paperwork, all arranged and prepared by HAIS, was completed in Vienna around 1962. The agency then supported the Kozinskis while Moses and Sabine sought employment. “Then we came to the U.S. on a Sabena four-propeller airliner ― it took about 18 hours to cross the Atlantic, with one stop somewhere in Newfoundland,” Kozinski said. The Kozinskis landed in New York, where they passed through customs, like so many immigrants before them and after them. They briefly settled in Baltimore, where HIAS continued to support the family until Moses and Sabine found steady work. “Our caseworker was named Mrs. Friedman,” Kozinski said. “I remember her quite well. She smoked Parliaments.” After about five years in Baltimore, the Kozinskis moved to California in search of warmer weather. They’d settle in the Los Angeles area, where Moses would open a grocery […]

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