An 88-year-old Hmong man from Laos who requested political asylum in 2007 has filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security seeking to have DHS return his passport so he can go home. According to KMPH News in Fresno, California, Mr. Xiong–who has not revealed his full name in order to protect his identity–is a veteran who fought alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War:
Xiong’s attorney describes his client as a war hero. He says the Hmong veteran can’t return to his native country without his passport. It was confiscated when he filed for political asylum in the U.S. and until the process is complete he won’t be able to go home. “He’s an old man,” Attorney Ken Seeger said. “He’s been in poor health over the past year or so.”
The veteran filed for political asylum in 2007. “But, he’s changed his mind and he’s willing to take a risk back in Laos just because he’s really old and in bad health and thinks the end is near and he wants to die in his homeland,” Seeger said.
DHS has refused to return the passport, so Mr. Xiong filed suit to get it back. DHS routinely keeps travel documents (and other original documents) that belong to asylum seekers. Even after a case is completed, it is often difficult or impossible to retrieve documents. In Mr. Xiong’s case, it would seem that DHS has every incentive to return the passport. Let’s hope that they do.
Traditional Hmong story cloth depicting a modern scene of war and refugees
The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a revised policy statement on Female Genital Mutilation (also called Female Genital Circumcision or Cutting). The new statement reads as follows:
The traditional custom of ritual cutting and alteration of thegenitalia of female infants, children, and adolescents, referredto as female genital mutilation or female genital cutting (FGC),persists primarily in Africa and among certain communities inthe Middle East and Asia. Immigrants in the United States fromareas in which FGC is common may have daughters who have undergonea ritual genital procedure or may request that such a procedurebe performed by a physician. The American Academy of Pediatricsbelieves that pediatricians and pediatric surgical specialistsshould be aware that this practice has life-threatening healthrisks for children and women. The American Academy of Pediatricsopposes all types of female genital cutting that pose risksof physical or psychological harm, counsels its members notto perform such procedures, recommends that its members activelyseek to dissuade families from carrying out harmful forms ofFGC, and urges its members to provide patients and their parentswith compassionate education about the harms of FGC while remainingsensitive to the cultural and religious reasons that motivateparents to seek this procedure for their daughters.
The highlighted language is new, and represents a step back from the AAP’s previous position, which opposed FGM under all circumstances.
Since the landmark Kasinga case, women and girls have been able to qualify for asylum in the United States based on a fear of FGM. Whether the AAP’s watered-down position will impact such asylum seekers remains to be seen.
This is part four in a series of posts about the Refugee Protection Act (“RPA”), a bill introduced by Senators Leahy and Levin in the United States Senate. The RPA would modify the requirements for asylum by changing the requirement that a “central reason” for the persecution is a protected ground.
In order to qualify for asylum, an applicant must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution based on a protected ground (race, religion, nationality, political opinion, particular social group). The REAL ID Act (effective May 11, 2005) modified this definition, and the law now requires that “at least one central reason” for the persecution must be a protected ground. The BIA found that this new requirement did not “radically alter[]” existing law. See In re: J-B-N- & S-M-, 24 I&N Dec. 208 (BIA 2007).
While the law may not have been radically altered, the REAL ID Act makes it more difficult for asylum seekers to obtain relief. I worked on a case in the Fourth Circuit (ably litigated at the agency level by the University of Maryland Law School Clinic) where an El Salvadoran man had been repeatedly harassed and beaten by members of the MS-13 gang. The gang attacked him for several reasons: (1) they did not want him to date a certain girl; (2) they wanted to steal his money; and (3) they did not want him to attend the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The Immigration Judge (“IJ”) specifically found that the harm faced by the asylum seeker rose to the level of persecution, and she told him: “I think you are in a terrible situation and I could not have more sympathy for you.” However, both the IJ and the BIA found that the “central reasons” for the persecution were that the gang did not want my client to date the girl and the gang wanted to rob him–these are not protected grounds. The BIA found that “even assuming… religion was one motive, we do not find his religion to be ‘at least one central reason’ for the persecution.” The Fourth Circuit agreed and denied our Petition for Review. See Quinteros-Mendoza v. Holder, 556 F.3d 159 (4th Cir. 2009).
What motivates this guy?
The difficulty in Quinteros-Mendoza was that the IJ had to determine the motivation of the gang members. It is difficult enough to establish the motivation of a persecutor, let alone to rank that motivation as “one central reason” for the persecution. The RPA would relax this requirement. The law would be changed so that the applicant must prove only that a protected ground is “a factor in the applicant’s persecution or fear of persecution.”
Where an asylum applicant faces persecution, he should not be required to demonstrate the motivation for his persecutor’s actions with such specificity. The RPA would correct this problem.
This is part three in a series about the Refugee Protection Act. The RPA provides guidance about what constitutes a “particular social group.”
A refugee is defined as a person with a well founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. See INA § 101(a)(42)(A). There has been much litigation concerning what constitutes a “particular social group.”
The Refugee Protection Act provides helpful guidance on what constitutes a “particular social group.” The RPA states:
For purposes of determinations under the Act, any group whose members share a characteristic that is either immutable or fundamental to identity, conscience, or the exercise of the person’s human rights such that the person should not be required to change it, shall be deemed a particular social group, without any additional requirement.
While this provision makes the definition of “particular social group” more specific, it still leaves open at least one important question: Will the definition of “particular social group” apply to former members of criminal organizations? In the Seventh Circuit case, Ramos v. Holder, 589 F.3d 426 (7th Cir. 2009), the court held that former gang members might constitute a particular social group. If the Refugee Protection Act defines a “particular social group” as “any group whose members share a characteristic that is… immutable,” then former gang members would qualify as a particular social group. Current–as opposed to former–gang members would not qualify as a particular social group because gang membership is not immutable. In other words, it is possible to quit the gang. Former gang membership is immutable, because it is not possible for an alien to change the fact that he once belonged to a criminal gang. Under the RPA, it seems that a former member of any organization would be part of a particular social group
Ex-members of the knitting circle form a particular social group
Even if former gang members constitute a particular social group, they would likely be ineligible for asylum based on criminal and security-related grounds.
I have worked on several cases where former gang members feared persecution by gangs. In one case, several members of my client’s family had been killed. My client was granting withholding of removal based on his particular social group (his family; not his former gang membership). In another case, my client was denied relief where the IJ found that he did not belong to a particular social group. In both cases, the clients faced harm from the gang because they quit the gang. The danger of gang violence against former gang members is very real. In a well known case, Edgar Chocoy, a 16-year-old former member of the MS-13 gang, was ordered removed from the United States. Shortly after he returned to Guatemala, gang members murdered him.
The Refugee Protection Act should provide protection for former gang members who face harm in their countries. While we must be cognizant of security concerns (and of offering benefits to criminals), we must also recognize the severe threat faced by legitimate former gang members.
This is part dieux in our series of posts about the Refugee Protection Act. Today’s topic is the “Material Support Bar,” INA § 212(a)(3)(B)(iv)(VI), which states that an alien who commits an act that he “knows, or reasonably should know, affords material support” to a terrorist organization is inadmissible. As written, the law makes no exception for instances where the alien has been coerced into providing support. The RPA would change that.
About a year ago, I represented an elderly Iraqi Christian woman who had received threats from unknown people seeking to extort money. The people threatened to murder her son. As a result of the threats, and in order to save her son, the women gave money to the extortionists. Given that these people were likely terrorists, the woman faced a bar to obtaining asylum in the U.S. We relied on a USCIS memorandum, which allowed for limited exceptions to the material support bar in the case of duress, and the woman received asylum. A pro se applicant might not have access to that memorandum, and might not be able to relate the relevant facts necessary to meet the exception to the material support bar.
The Refugee Protection Act creates an exception to the material support bar for people who have been coerced to provide material support to terrorists. This would reduce or eliminate the problem of denying asylum to people who have been victimized by terrorists.
The Refugee Protection Act of 2010 is currently working its way through Congress. The proposed law makes some pretty significant changes to the asylum laws of the United States. Most advocacy groups are endorsing the bill, though it seems not to have captured the attention of the mainstream media. As an attorney who represents asylum seekers, I thought I would share my perspective on the legislation by examining how it would have affected some of my cases had it been the law. The RFA (or at least my copy of the RFA) is 78 pages long, so there is a lot to discuss. So this will be the first part in a series of posts about the RFA. Today’s topic: The Refugee Protection Act of 2010 eliminates the requirement that an asylum seeker files for asylum within one year of arrival in the United States.
The current law puts the "dead" in deadline
INA § 208(a)(2)(B) states that in order to qualify for asylum an alien must demonstrate by “clear and convincing evidence that the application [for asylum] has been filed within 1 year after the date of alien’s arrival in the United States.” If the alien fails to timely file for asylum, he or she will not qualify for that relief, but may still apply for withholding of removal pursuant to INA § 241(b)(3) or relief pursuant to the UN Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).
For aliens represented by competent counsel, it is often possible to demonstrate “changed circumstances” or “extraordinary circumstances,” either of which can excuse the one year filing deadline. See INA § 208(a)(2)(D). In my own practice, I have encountered many cases where the alien has not filed within one year of arrival. In most cases, we have been able to demonstrate “changed circumstances” or “extraordinary circumstances,” and the alien has qualified for asylum.
For aliens who are unrepresented, the one-year bar presents a barrier to legitimate claims. The purpose of the bar is to help eliminate fraudulent claims. However, there are legitimate reasons why an alien might fail to file for asylum within one year of arrival in our country. Some examples:
Avoidance – I had one case where a political activist from Zimbabwe was arrested and then raped by the police. After she came to the U.S., the psychological trauma the alien suffered caused her to avoid re-visiting the events in her country (which would have been necessary in order to prepare her asylum application). As a result, she did not complete the asylum application within one year. The Asylum Office denied her case because she failed to file for asylum within one year of her arrival (she was pro se), and her case was referred to an Immigration Judge (“IJ”). The IJ ultimately granted asylum (with the agreement of the DHS attorney) after we demonstrated that the alien’s failure to file within one year was due to “extraordinary circumstances,” i.e., the psychological trauma of her rape, and the resulting avoidance of re-visiting those events. Had this alien been unrepresented, she might not have been able to demonstrate that she qualified for an exception to the one-year rule.
Alternative Relief – I represented a man from a prominent family in Peru. After a change in government, the man received anonymous death threats and was followed by unknown people. He came to the United States, but did not file for asylum because he expected to obtain his residency based on marriage to a U.S. citizen. The marriage did not succeed, so he applied late for asylum. He was not represented by counsel. The Asylum Office referred his case to the IJ based on the failure to comply with the one-year filing requirement. As a compromise, the DHS attorney and the IJ agreed to grant of withholding of removal under INA § 241(b)(3). As a result, the alien has been able to remain in the U.S., but he repeatedly had to appear before the Detention and Removal Office, officers in that office improperly threatened to remove him to a third country, and he has had to renew his work permit every year, which makes it difficult to maintain employment. If he marries a U.S. citizen, he could re-open his case and obtain his residency based on the marriage.
Changed Circumstances & Other Obligations – In another example, I represented a Tuareg woman from Niger who feared return to her country after the government began a war with the Tuareg people and after her grandmother was killed by a land mine. The woman, who represented herself, failed to file for asylum within one year because (1) the conflict was dormant when she first arrived in the United States, so she did not fear return, and (2) she was the primary caretaker for her father, and was too occupied to prepare her case. Her sister, who had the exact same case and also filed late, received asylum from the Asylum Office. My client’s case was referred to the IJ, and after much discussion, the IJ and the DHS attorney agreed to a grant of asylum.
In the above examples, the one-year bar resulted in wasted judicial resources and hardship for legitimate asylum seekers. Had these aliens been unrepresented before the IJ, their cases would likely have been denied (all the cases were denied by the Asylum Office, where the aliens were without representation). Thus, these aliens—who were later determined to be legitimate refugees—were initially denied asylum solely because they had not complied with the one-year filing requirement for asylum. Had they not been represented before the IJ, these aliens likely would have been ordered removed to countries where they faced persecution.
The Refugee Protection Act would eliminate the one year filing deadline, and would protect legitimate asylum seekers such as the aliens discussed above.
In a report prepared for the United Nations, Seton Hall University School of Law’s Center for Social Justice and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest discuss the problem of involuntary medical repatriations–the practice of some hospitals to privately transport uninsured alien patients against their will to countries that may or may not have the capacity to care for them. It is not clear how these “repatriations” affect asylum seekers, but an ABC News report quotes one hospital worker:
“About eight times a month, we make arrangements to transfer patients to their country of origin,” said Sister Margaret McBride, vice president for mission services at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. “We’ve had transfers to Asia and Africa by air ambulance, and we pay for transportation, which starts out at about $25,000 up to $100,000.”
Many asylum seekers come to the United States from Asia and Africa, and we can only wonder how many of those repatriated individuals were returned to countries where they feared persecution.
There are few statistics available about how many people are involuntarily repatriated each year. One author on the Detention Watch Network website writes:
Medical repatriations are happening with varying frequency, and varying degrees of patient consent, from state to state and hospital to hospital. No government agency or advocacy group keeps track of these cases, and it is difficult to quantify them. A few hospitals and consulates offered statistics that provide snapshots of the phenomenon: some 96 immigrants a year repatriated by St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix; 6 to 8 patients a year flown to their homelands from Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; 10 returned to Honduras from Chicago hospitals since early 2007; some 87 medical cases involving Mexican immigrants — and 265 involving people injured crossing the border — handled by the Mexican consulate in San Diego last year, most but not all of which ended in repatriation.
Even these statistics provide little insight into the problem as we do not know how many of the repatriated individuals returned to their countries willingly. One company involved in such transfers emphatically denies that it transports people to other countries without their consent. Nevertheless, there do seem to be problems with repatriation:
Sister Margaret McBride, vice president for mission services at St. Joseph’s in Phoenix, which is part of Catholic Healthcare West, said families were rarely happy about the hospital’s decision to repatriate their relatives. But, she added, “We don’t require consent from the family.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently considering the Refugee Protection Act, which provides important new protections for asylum seekers. The new bill does not discuss the problem of medical repatriations, but this issue likely affects asylum seekers.
Perhaps the bill could require any hospital that plans to repatriate foreign nationals involuntarily to question those people (or their family members) about any fear of returning to their homeland. But hospitals are ill-equipped to make such inquiries. Better the hospitals should end the practice altogether. While it may save money, as Seton Hall points out, the practice violates patients’ rights and human rights. Add to that the real possibility that some repatriated aliens will face persecution in their homelands. These to me seem good reasons to stop involuntary medical repatriations.
The Home School Legal Defense Association has set up a program to match foreign home schoolers who have fled persecution in their homelands with host families in the United States. From the HSLDA website:
Unfortunately, there are a number of countries around the world where homeschooling is actively opposed and where foreign governments seek to stamp out fledgling homeschool movements. In particular, Brazil, Germany, and Sweden are aggressively persecuting homeschoolers. Yet, brave families living in these three countries still choose to homeschool their children—in spite of intense persecution in the form of punishing fines, criminal prosecution, or the loss of custody of their children. In an increasing number of cases, families are forced to flee their homelands in the face of this aggressive, government-sponsored persecution. HSLDA has reported widely on the plight of these homeschoolers. We recently won political asylum for the Romeike family from Germany. Sadly, the United States government has chosen to appeal this ruling.
Below is the story of an asylee from Eritrea. She prefers to keep her name confidential:
I was born in 1979 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I was an Ethiopian at birth but I am an Eritrean national.
Eritrea is a little known country in East Africa of about 5 million people. Eritrea was forcefully annexed with Ethiopia in 1962. Freedom fighters struggled for Eritrea’s independence against the Derg, the Ethiopian government from 1974 to 1991. The struggle ended in 1991, when the freedom fighters won the fight. A referendum was held in 1993. Eritreans overwhelmingly voted to be independent from Ethiopia. My parents decided it was time to move to Eritrea. We moved to Eritrea for good in 1993.
The Beauty of Culture by Eritrean artist Yosief Indrias I came to the U.S. on August 10, 2007, a year after I left my country. I left my country in August 2006. I won a scholarship to pursue higher studies in Geneva, Switzerland. While in Geneva, I received a tuition waiver to study at a university in Washington, DC.
I am an Evangelical Christian. While I went to Evangelical Christian churches since I was a child, I did not become a devoted Evangelical Christian until March 2005. Unfortunately, that was after the faith was banned in Eritrea and when hundreds of evangelical Christians were thrown in jail for their faith. In 2001, the government declared that only Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran and Islam were complying churches. All other faiths, including Evangelical/Pentecostals, Jehovah Witnesses, Bahai, and Seventh Day Adventists, were declared non-compliant faiths and banned.
Going to Bible or Prayer cells in houses or even carrying the Bible could lead to arrest, detention or even death in some cases. That did not stop my desire to attend Bible study and prayer meetings. I was eager to learn God’s Word and become a mature Christian. I went to a friend’s house to pray and study the Bible.
At the time I left Eritrea, the government imprisoned hundreds of Evangelical Christians. The government did not show any signs of stopping the persecution against Evangelical Christians. I was too afraid to go back home when I finished my studies in the United States. I talked to a couple of my professors about my intention to apply for asylum. They strongly advised me against applying for asylum without legal representation. One of my professors talked to the Immigration Clinic of the Law School. The clinic contacted me and set up an appointment to interview me. Two interns at the clinic interviewed me and made copies of my documents.
About a week later, the clinic notified me that it would take my case and represent me in my asylum application. I was relieved to hear that news. My next concern was to get my asylum application filed before the one year dead line. I had only a few weeks to write my affidavit, gather documents and mail the package. I had more interviews with the interns at the clinic to write my affidavit. After the affidavit was ready, the package was mailed on August 1, 2008, just a few days before the one year deadline.
The next step was to wait for my fingerprint appointment. I had my fingerprints taken on August 21. Because the interns that prepared my application finished their internship at the end of August, the professor asked for a continuance of my asylum interview, which was originally set for the beginning of September. My interview was rescheduled for September 15, 2008. Another intern was assigned to be my student council. I had a moot interview with the clinic team a few days before my interview. The moot helped me to get prepared for the interview. I felt less anxious about the interview at the asylum office.
Then came September 15. I arrived at the asylum office early. I met the professor and the student counsel outside the building. My interview was scheduled at 9:00 AM. The three of us got up to the third floor. We sat in the waiting room. Almost three hours went by before the asylum officer called me. The long wait made me nervous.
Around 11:50, I was called by the asylum officer. We followed her to the interview room. After the oath was administered, the officer started to ask me questions. She typed my answers to her questions. She asked me questions for an hour and a half. I had not anticipated some of the questions but I had a feeling it went well. The officer told me the decision will be sent to me by mail in about two weeks.
A month and a half went by before I heard anything from the asylum office. I was very anxious to know the decision. When I get home from work, the first thing I did was to go to the kitchen table to see if anything came in the mail for me. I was so happy when I finally got the good news. It was a huge relief. I did not have to go back to my country and risks persecution from the government of Eritrea.
My getting asylum in the United States was wonderful news. However, my personal life got a little complicated because of it. My fiancé had proposed to me after I had left the country and I said yes! Now that I can not go back to Eritrea because of my asylum status, and because it is difficult for him to leave the country, we do not know when we will see each other again. We can only hope that it is sooner than we think. For now, I’m happy that I am safe until I meet the love of my life and start a new journey.
According to the Brownsville (Texas) Herald, “tens of thousands of Mexican nationals, including many journalists, officials and business leaders… have relocated to the United States since Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched a sweeping offensive against drug organizations in 2006. But because the legal standards of asylum are so high — and some researchers say even outdated — many… face devastating challenges when it comes to reaching a safe haven in the United States.”
The number of succesful asylum seekers from Mexico is small. According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, in 2009, only 62 out of 2,816 (or 2.2%) of Mexican asylum seekers received asylum in the U.S. The numbers are relatively unchanged from previous years: In 2008, we granted 2.1% of claims and in 2007, we granted 1.6%.
“The reason so many petitions are rejected is that asylum standards were set in an older time period,” said Susan Ginsburg of the Migration Policy Institute. “Most people who have qualified for the status have fled communist regimes, dictatorships and civil wars — not criminal violence or genuine fear of violent death at the hands of drug gangs.”
“We are used to seeing the need for protection from governments and states, and this (the migration we are seeing now) is a fear of persecution from nonstate actors, criminal gangs that have taken control of areas of the country.” If the crisis continues to escalate, perhaps we will need to rethink our asylum policies.
The Montreal Gazette reports that Canada will offer incentives to persuade rejected refugee claimants to leave the country. The measure is part of a comprehensive overhaul designed to speed up the refugee-determination process, mired in a 60,000-person backlog. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said “We’re going to try to use carrots instead of sticks,” and said the Canadian government would provide allowances of up to $2,000 to asylum-seekers whose claims are rejected.
A rejected Canadian asylum seeker?
The Canadian government hopes to decrease the average departure time for failed refugee claimants from 4.5 years to two years. Mr. Kenny states that the new measure would help prevent fraud: “The longer the queue, the more false claimants come,” he said.
Similar programs in Britain and Australia have dramatically improved compliance with deportation orders, said Kenney, who acknowledged he was initially skeptical about subsidizing rejected refugee claimants.
Whether or not a similar plan would work in the United States, it seems unlikely that there exists the political will to pay rejected asylum seekers to leave our country, even if this might be cheaper than rounding people up and deporting them.
As drug and gang violence in northern Mexico increases, KOB News reports that terrified resident–and even police officers–are fleeing across the border:
The police chief of a Mexican border town has requested asylum in the United States, where he told authorities his two officers have fled and he does not know their whereabouts. The Luna County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Border Patrol say Emilio Perez of Palomas came to the port of entry at Columbus late Tuesday night, requesting political asylum.
In a related story, Fox Newsreports, “At least 30 residents of El Porvenir, located about four miles from the Texas border town of Fort Hancock, have crossed into the U.S. and asked for political asylum, telling authorities that they fear for their lives.”
Violence in Mexico seems to be spiraling out of control. For this past Tuesday, the total 24-hour death toll for Tamaulipas was 18 people killed and four injured in the latest round of violence throughout the state.
Asylum claims in connection with activities of organized gangs have recently come to the fore in different parts of the world. The purpose of this Guidance Note is to assist adjudicators with the assessment of such claims and to ensure a consistent interpretation of the refugee definition. It presents a brief overview of gangs and their practices, as well as a typology of victims of gang-related violence. The Note also contains a brief analysis of the international legal framework, and builds on jurisprudential developments.
I worked on a gang case a few years ago where the Immigration Judge granted my client withholding of removal. I think what impressed the Judge was the extreme violence of the gang (MS-13), and the real possibility that my client would be harmed or killed if he returned to his country.
The new Immigration Court in the Northern Mariana Islands is up and running. An article in the Saipan Tribune reports that “The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement has filed 30 new removal cases, bringing to 51 the total number of cases that have been filed with the Saipan U.S. Immigration Court since the federalization law took effect on Nov. 28.”
From Tuesday until Thursday, Immigration Judge Philip L. DiMarzio heard the 51 cases, mostly Chinese nationals involved in human smuggling cases. In what appears to be a blatant breach of confidentiality, the paper reported and named a Chinese asylum seeker who appeared before the court. For more on confidentiality and Immigration Courts, click here.
Compared to 2008, the overall number of asylum-seekers remained the same with 377,000 applications, despite significant regional disparities highlighted by the report.
Afghans topped the list of asylum applicants with 26,800 submissions representing a 45 per cent increase over 2008. Iraqis dropped to second place with some 24,000 claims, while Somalis moved to third position with 22,600 asylum applications. Among the top countries of origin were also the Russian Federation, China, Serbia, and Nigeria.
In terms of regions of origin, nearly half of the total 377,000 applicants originate from Asia and the Middle East (45%), followed by Africa (29%), Europe (15.5%), and the Americas (9%).
The United States stayed the main destination country for the fourth year, with 13 percent of the claims representing an estimated 49,000 people, in particular from China. Second was France, receiving 42,000 new applications in 2009, a 19 percent hike compared to 2008, due to increasing claims from citizens of Serbia originating predominantly from Kosovo. Canada, while still ranking third among receiving countries, saw the number of asylum applications decrease by 10 percent in 2009 down to 33,000 after a drop in Mexican and Haitian claims. Following was The United Kingdom which also registered a drop in claims with 29,800 applications, one of the lowest in 15 years. On the other hand, claims in Germany increased by 25 percent with 27,600 applications recorded in 2009, making it the fifth largest receiving country. Together, these five top destination countries received 48 percent of the total claims recorded in 2009.
The overall stability in the number of asylum seekers belies regional increases and decreases. For example, countries in southern Europe (like Italy, Turkey, and Greece) experienced a 33% decrease in the number of asylum seekers from 2008 to 2009. The Nordic countries experiences a 13% increase and Australia and New Zealand reported increases of 30% over the previous year. The United States experienced a small decrease (49,600 in 2008 compared with 49,000 in 2009), and Canada reported a 10% decrease.
Chicago Public Radio reports that a record case load at the Chicago Immigration Court is causing hardship for asylum seekers:
Chicago’s federal immigration court is backed up with a record 8,696 cases. The average wait for a hearing is more than a year. Some immigrants don’t mind, since the backlog buys them time here. But it’s hard on asylum seekers. And it has consequences on other parts of the justice system.
Attorney Lisa Palumbo of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago says long delays for asylum applicants are the norm. They have to put off decisions like buying a home and accepting a job out of state. Palumbo points out that many can’t get work authorization or student financial aid. Worse, many are separated from family members in their home countries, and sometimes those family members face potential persecution.
Here’s what’s causing the logjam: The government has added more agents and prosecutors to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. But it hasn’t added enough judges to hear the cases. At the Chicago court, the number of judges since 2006 has actually dropped from eight to five.
The Asylumist reported on this problem in recent post, We Need More Judges. EOIR has stated that additional immigration judges are on the way. For asylum seekers stuck in the system, the new judges cannot arrive soon enough.
