U.S. Sex Offender Receives Asylum in Canada

A convicted sex offender who fled the United States to escape her 30-year prison sentence has been granted protected person status in Canada.

Canadian boys celebrated the decision in Ms Harvey's case.
Canadian boys celebrated the decision in Ms Harvey’s case.

In August 2008, Denise Harvey was convicted in a Florida court for having sex with a 16 year-old boy–a friend of her son’s. After refusing a plea deal for 11 years, Ms. Harvey went to trial. She was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. While her appeal was pending, she remained free on $150,000.00 bond. In 2010, when it became clear that the appeal had failed and that she would have to report to prison, Ms. Harvey fled to Canada.

She crossed the border and moved to Saskatchewan with her husband. They settled in a small community outside Saskatoon.

The Law caught up with Ms. Harvey in April 2011, when Canadian authorities arrested her. Later that month, she appeared before an Immigration and Refugee Board (“IRB”) adjudicator and was released on a $5,000.00 bond. Ms. Harvey requested “protected person status” and claimed that the 30-year sentence was cruel and unusual. She noted that her crime–having consensual sex with a 16-year old–was not illegal in Canada.

The IRB agreed that the sentence was cruel and unusual and granted Ms. Harvey protected person status. To obtain protected person status, an applicant must show that returning to the home country would subject the person to torture, cruel and unusual punishment or death. No nexus to a protected ground is required. People who received protected person status are eligible to apply for permanent residency and eventually obtain Canadian citizenship.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Chris Alexander, appealed the IRB ruling on two occasions, but Ms. Harvey’s protected person status was finally upheld last month. The Minister commented:

I find it mind-boggling that individuals from the United States, which has been designated a safe country, precisely because it respects human rights and does not normally produce refugees, think it is acceptable to file asylum claims in Canada. Lucky for them, they have no understanding of what true persecution is, and what it means to be a genuine refugee.

I am not sure that Ms. Harvey would agree with him. And luckily for her, the Canadian courts did not agree with him either. I suppose this highlights the old trope that no country is safe for everyone all the time (and indeed, even in the United States, Ms. Harvey is not without her supporters. In her home community of Vero Beach, Florida, 2,000 people–more than 10% of the total population–signed a petition requesting that Florida’s governor pardon her).

As for me, I must agree that a 30-year sentence for consensual sex with a 16-year-old boy is a bit over the top. Of course, reasonable people can differ about this, but the Canadians (and who is more reasonable than the Canadians?) have not even criminalized this behavior. Also, there is no indication that the victim suffered particular trauma as a result of the “unlawful sexual activity.” If there was evidence that he had been traumatized by Ms. Harvey’s conduct, then the punishment might be more easily justified.

While I agree with the result, the IRB decision does leave some unanswered questions: Would the decision have been the same if the perpetrator was a man and the victim was a 16-year-old girl? What if the sentence had been less severe? Does Canada plan to offer protected status to every U.S. citizen convicted for a crime that is not punishable in Canada? Does it plan to evaluate each U.S. sentence to determine whether it is “cruel and unusual”? The death penalty has been eliminated in Canada, so if a U.S. citizen facing the death penalty reaches Canada, will he be offered protected status?

The Canadians may have to deal with these issues in future cases, but Ms. Harvey’s case is relatively easy. The sentence is so excessive and the crime so seemingly minor that Ms. Harvey appears deserving of protection. Only time will tell if other convicted criminals will follow Ms. Harvey’s lead. If so, it will be interesting to see how the Canadian authorities respond, and if the U.S. government takes offense.

Beirut Embassy Bomber Gets US Asylum, New Book (Incorrectly) Claims

A new book by Pulitzer-Prize winner Kai Bird claims that the Iranian intelligence officer behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut–and many other terrorist attacks–received asylum in the United States. Among those killed in the 1983 attack were the CIA’s top Middle East analyst, a “good spy” named Robert Ames, who purportedly cultivated friendly relations with Arab leaders. Mr. Bird speculates that had Robert Ames lived, the U.S. would have had a different, better relationship with the Arab World.

Use of correct terminology is always appreciated.
Use of correct terminology is always appreciated.

According to The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, the CIA and President Bush brought Ali Reza Asgari, the terrorist responsible for the 1983 attack, to the United States in 2007. He came here in exchange for information about Iran, Hezbollah, and other U.S. rivals in the Middle East. This intelligence supposedly led to the assassination of Hezbollah’s number two man and the bombing of a secret Syrian nuclear facility, among other things. 

Like many people who review books, I have not actually read The Good Spy (though it certainly sounds delightful). In my defense, I don’t really plan to review the book. I just want to talk about one word used by Mr. Bird: Asylum. Mr. Bird writes (and here I quote the book):

The decision to give Asgari political asylum under the CIA’s Public Law 110 program was probably opposed by veteran CIA officers who have some knowledge of Asgari’s alleged responsibility for Roberts Ames’s murder…. But they and the agency were reportedly overruled by the George W. Bush administration’s National Security Council.

The emphasis is mine. If Mr. Asgari did, in fact, come to the U.S. under the Public Law 110 program, he did not receive political asylum. Aliens in the United States who fear persecution in their home countries can apply for asylum under INA § 208 (also known as 8 U.S.C. § 1158). Public Law 110, on the other hand, appears at 50 U.S.C. § 403h:

Whenever the Director [of the CIA], the Attorney General, and the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization shall determine that the entry of a particular alien into the United States for permanent residence is in the interest of national security or essential to the furtherance of the national intelligence mission, such alien and his immediate family shall be given entry into the United States for permanent residence without regard to their inadmissibility under the immigration or any other laws and regulations, or to the failure to comply with such laws and regulations pertaining to admissibility.

In other words, if certain high-ranking leaders in the U.S. determine that a terrorist should be allowed to live in the U.S., the terrorist will be allowed to live in the U.S. But this is usually a quid pro quo and has nothing to do with asylum or the asylum system. Indeed, given his terrorist activities, Mr. Asgari would not be eligible for asylum, as he would be subject to numerous bars under INA § 208(b)(2).

Maybe this is a small point, but I think it is important. Mr. Bird’s book is attracting widespread attention–everyone from Newsweek to Glen Beck’s blog, the Blaze is carrying the story–and it is unfortunate that these outlets are repeating Mr. Bird’s error. The asylum system is already under assault by those who claim it is an entryway for terrorists and criminals, and so Mr. Bird’s incorrect use of the term has unfairly impugned a system that protects thousands of legitimate refugees and that has been specifically designed to block people like Mr. Asgari.

While colloquially, we might label anyone who fears harm and who is admitted into the United States as having received “asylum,” this is simply incorrect, and it damages the asylum system to taint it with association to the likes of Mr. Asgari. I am not saying that Mr. Asgari should not have been brought to the United States. Perhaps the intelligence he provided was worth allowing a mass murderer to resettle in our country. But he came to the United States because our elected officials determined that bringing him here was the best course of action for our country, not because he qualified or was eligible for asylum.

That Pesky Nexus

To receive asylum in the United States, an applicant must show not only that he faces persecution in his home country, but that the feared persecution is “on account of” a protected ground (race, religion, nationality, particular social group or political opinion).

GW law students react to Todd and my appointment to the adjunct faculty.
GW law students react to Todd and my appointment to the adjunct faculty.

This means that if MS-13 gang members want to kill you because you refuse to join the gang, you probably won’t qualify for asylum. On the other hand, if the Ethiopian government wants to detain you for a year because you attended an anti-government protest, you probably will qualify. To me, the regime created by the nexus requirement seems incongruous and unjust.

I’ve seen this play out in many of my cases, where we often have to shoehorn our client’s claim into a protected category. For example, Eritreans who flee the National Service (really, a form of never-ending slavery) would not ordinarily receive asylum since the (very serious) harm they face for trying to escape is not generally “on account of” a protected ground. One strategy to help such people obtain asylum is to show that the Eritrean government views them as enemies. In other words, that it imputes to National Service evaders an anti-government political opinion. Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn’t. But the question is, why do we have an asylum system that forces us to contort legitimate claims so that they fulfill the nexus requirement?

This is essentially one of the questions that my esteemed co-professor Todd Pilcher and I asked our students on their final exam. As an aside, this was the first year that either of us taught a law school course (Asylum and Refugee Law at George Washington University Law School). Even having practiced primarily asylum law for the last 10 years, it was amazing how much I learned by teaching this class. I also learned that it is better not to know what goes on behind the scenes with grading. Suffice it to say that as a mere adjunct professor, we had quite a bit of power to grade as we wished; more power, actually, than we were comfortable with (but on the bright side for our students, despite a killer exam–sorry about that–they did very well).  

But back to the nexus requirement. In theory, it exists because it reflects our values. We care about political expression and the exercise of religion, and so we protect people who face persecution on those grounds. In reality, it exists because some Dead White Men created relatively arbitrary categories that seemed appropriate in the post-WWII world. So–as we asked our students–would we be better off without it?

The students were split in their responses, and obviously reasonable people can differ (though of course we flunked everyone who disagreed with us).

For me, the nexus requirement is an arbitrary way to limit the number of people eligible for asylum. That the nexus requirement has worked so well in this regard is more an accident of geography than anything else. It just so happens that the main reasons people from Mexico and Central America flee their countries are not reasons that easily fulfill the nexus requirement (fear of gangs and cartels). Imagine if we lived next to China, where many refugees face political persecution (or persecution for forced family planning, which is considered political persecution under U.S. asylum law). Or what if we lived next door to Iran or Afghanistan, where people flee due to religious persecution. The nexus requirement would do little to stem the flow of refugees from those places.

So if we eliminated the nexus requirement, how could we keep from being overwhelmed by asylum seekers?

The first question, I suppose, is, Would we be overwhelmed by asylum seekers if we gave asylum to everyone who faces persecution irrespective of nexus? Certainly the number of people eligible would go up. And we have seen that asylum seekers respond to policy changes (witness the surge of credible fear interviews at the U.S.-Mexico border). So it certainly seems possible that the number of asylum seekers would increase, but by how much, no one can say. If I had to guess, I would say that the increase would not be as dramatic as we might imagine. Why? Because asylum seekers who want to come here will come here and try for asylum regardless of the odds. Just because you have a one in ten million chance of winning the lottery does not mean you won’t play. So while I suspect that if the nexus requirement were eliminated, more people would be incentivised to come here, I am not sure how many would actually change their behavior and make the trip.

There are, of course, other ways to limit the number of asylum seekers. One way is to change the level of proof. Instead of a 10% chance of future persecution, how about a 50% chance or a 75% chance. While this would reduce the number of people qualifying for asylum, it would also result in legitimate refugees being returned to countries where they face persecution. Also, given the arguments above, I doubt it would do much to actually reduce the number of people coming here for asylum.

Another option would be to resettle anyone qualifying for asylum to a third country. In other words, if a person wins asylum in the U.S., she will be resettled in Argentina. While this would likely reduce the number of people seeking asylum here, I doubt whether many other countries would agree to such a scheme. Also, I imagine there would have to be some sort of reciprocity, so if people were granted asylum in Greece, for example, they might be resettled here. While this plan eliminates some of the incentive for seeking asylum in the U.S., I just don’t see how it could work in the real world.

In the end, the nexus requirement is not going away anytime soon. I do think it is helpful and important to recognize, however, that the requirement really is quite arbitrary. It would do far less to limit the number of asylum seekers if we lived in a different part of the world or if conditions in our neighborhood changed. But for the foreseeable future, we lawyers will continue looking for ways to fit our clients’ cases into one of the protected categories.