An Interview with Harvey Finkle: Documenting the New Sanctuary Movement

by Jason Dzubow

Photographer Harvey Finkle has documented immigration to the city of Philadelphia since the 1970s. His work has been hailed as “visual anthropology” that records successive waves of settlement, mostly in South Philadelphia, by European Jews, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Burmese, Mexicans, Central Americans, and other immigrants and refugees.

In his new book, Faces of Courage: Ten years of Building Sanctuary, Mr. Finkle chronicles the first ten years of the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia—a coalition of twenty-eight congregations that works to build community across religious, ethnic, and class lines to end injustices against all immigrants, documented or otherwise.

The Asylumist recently caught up with Mr. Finkle, to ask about his career, his book, and the New Sanctuary Movement. (more…)

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Celebrate Mother’s Day by Helping Asylum-Seeker Moms

by Jason Dzubow

Mother’s Day is coming up – on May 9, 2021. If you need a nice gift idea for the mother(s) in your life, and you’d like to support a worthy cause at the same time, check out this “gift of goodness” from AsylumWorks, a Washington, DC-area non-profit that provides support for asylum seekers while they wait for resolution of their cases.

AsylumWorks offers a host of services to asylum seekers (whether they are mothers or not), including help with employment, referrals for social services, legal assistance, trauma recovery, and housing and food needs. The organization also helps connect asylum seekers to the wider community and to each other. Through their Mother’s Day Campaign (which ends on April 30), you can send a tin of alfajores, delicious sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche and rolled in coconut flakes to a mother in your life, or to an asylum-seeking mom. (more…)

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FY2022 Budget Wish List Mentions the Asylum Backlog!

by Jason Dzubow

When you were in middle school, did you ever have a crush on a classmate? Did you analyze every stray glance and dissect every off-hand comment for signs that your crush liked you too?  I feel like that’s what we’ve come to as observers of the asylum system. The mere mention of the words “asylum” and “backlog” by a government bureaucrat in the same sentence has become cause for celebration. My crush knows I exist! Woo Hoo!

Such a momentous event came to pass last week, when the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) included the following paragraph in a letter to the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, summarizing President Biden’s “Discretionary Funding Request” for FY2022–

Supports a Humane and Efficient Immigration System. The discretionary request supports the promise of a fair and equitable immigration system that welcomes immigrants and reflects the Nation’s values. The discretionary request provides $345 million for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to address naturalization and asylum backlogs, support up to 125,000 refugee admissions in 2022, and allow for systems and operations modernization. The discretionary request supports expanded access to the Alternatives to Detention program and provides enhanced case management services, particularly for families seeking asylum. (more…)

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Lobbying Congress to Reduce the Asylum Backlog

by Jason Dzubow

President Joe Biden sent the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 to Congress on January 20, his first day in office. This bill provides a roadmap to citizenship for undocumented individuals, prioritizes family reunification, addresses the root causes of migration from Central America, modernizes border security, and aims to reduce the Immigration Court backlog.

But even if the U.S. Citizenship Act becomes law (which seems increasingly unlikely), it does not address the backlog of over 373,000 affirmative asylum cases–these are mostly individuals who entered the United States legally with visas, and who then applied for asylum. They include democracy and human rights advocates, journalists, religious minorities, and members of the LGBT community, among others. Many in the backlog are torture survivors and others who have suffered severe persecution. Since one case sometimes contains several family members, the total number of people waiting in the affirmative asylum backlog is something like 600,000 individuals. Many of those in the backlog have already been waiting four, five or even six years for an interview. These individuals represent a “Hidden Asylum Crisis” because their suffering is invisible to the general public and has thus far been ignored by lawmakers. (more…)

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My Client Committed Suicide

by Jason Dzubow

Recently, I learned that one of my clients committed suicide. The client was a young man who filed his asylum case in 2015. He had been waiting for an interview ever since. I did not know this client very well. He started his case with a “helper” who did a poor job of helping. Later, he hired me, but since the case was stuck in backlog limbo, there was not much for me to do. Because I am busy, I have little time to check in with clients waiting in the backlog, and so I had not heard from this person for some time.

I mention all this because, the fact is, I do not know whether the long delay in his asylum case or the underlying issues that caused him to leave his country were contributing factors in his death. Very possibly, there were other issues as well. That said, I can’t imagine that the delay and uncertainty, and the other issues related to his asylum case, improved my client’s mental health. (more…)

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Is It Time to Close the Border?

by Jason Dzubow

The number of migrants arriving at the U.S. Southern border has been increasing since President Biden took office. According to one DHS official, “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.” Border agents have been turning away most adults and families based on a Trump-era public health rule. But unaccompanied minors are being admitted, and the Biden Administration is ramping up efforts to accommodate them.

The border situation represents three different crises. First is the crisis of violence and poverty in Central America and Mexico, which is pushing people to flee those countries.

Second, is the border “crisis” itself. I put crisis in quotes, since the influx of migrants is very manageable. Last month, for example, about 9,500 unaccompanied minors arrived at the border. Our country has the resources to humanely process this many young people. Indeed, when compared with historic trends, the overall number of arrivals during the last decade is significantly lower than what we’ve seen in the 1980s and 1990s. And so if there is a crisis at the Southern border, it is more about our willingness to deal with the influx, rather than our capacity.

The third crisis–and the one I want to discuss here–is the political crisis. New polling from Populace illustrates the crux of the problem: There is a sharp partisan divide on the issue of immigration. Trump voters rank “severely restricting immigration” as the #3 most important issue facing America. In contrast, Biden voters rank this as the #46 most important issue (out of 55 issues surveyed). For the question of whether America “is open to immigration,” Trump voters rank this as # 52 and Biden voters rank it as # 27. In short, Trump voters have strongly negative feelings about immigration, while Biden voters have moderately positive views towards immigration. There are a few lessons we can draw from this survey. (more…)

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The Other Family Separation Crisis

by Jason Dzubow

Under President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security engaged in a systematic campaign to separate families at the United States-Mexico border. The victims of that policy are still grappling with its traumatic effects. But the Trump Administration’s cruel approach towards migrants is not the only example of family separation that continues to affect people in the U.S. immigration system.

Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers have fled their home countries and come to the United States for protection. These include democracy activists, journalists, religious minorities, women’s rights advocates, sexual minorities, and interpreters who served with U.S. troops.

In many cases, these people have been forced to leave family members behind, often in difficult and dangerous conditions. If they are granted asylum, applicants can file to bring their immediate relatives–spouse and minor children–to the United States. However, the process is very lengthy. Many applicants wait five, six or more years for a decision in their case. For those who finally receive asylum, the process of bringing family members to the U.S. can take another one to two years. Because of all these delays, most asylum seekers can expect to be separated from their loved ones for the better part of a decade. (more…)

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To Solve the Border Crises, We Need to Decide Who Qualifies for Asylum

by Jason Dzubow

It’s less than two months since President Biden took office, and already it seems we are facing a new surge of arrivals at our Southern border. The increase is being attributed to the continuing dire conditions in Mexico and Central America, Mr. Biden’s promise to treat asylum seekers humanely, and pent up demand among migrants who were deterred by the Trump Administration’s harsh policies. Republican strategists are (predictably) teeing up Latin American migration as a “wedge issue” for the 2022 midterm elections, and so the situation at the border is not only a humanitarian crisis, but also a political crisis.

To address the problem, Mr. Biden is sending more resources to the border, expanding shelter capacity, and continuing a policy of the Trump Administration to turn away most adults and families based on the public health emergency (under Title 42 of the U.S. Code). His Administration is also trying to encourage would-be migrants to stay home. It seems pretty obvious that none of these measures will end the crisis. So what can be done? (more…)

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What Asylum Seekers and Their Lawyers Need from President Biden: Predictability

by Jason Dzubow

Just before Christmas 2020 and without any advance warning, the Trump Administration changed the deadline for submitting documents to Immigration Court. Previously, documents were due 15 days before the Individual Hearing. The new rule requires that documents now be submitted 30 days before the Individual Hearing. For busy lawyers, who have many cases and many different deadlines, this was equivalent to throwing a wrench into the gears of the immigration machine. Changing a deadline like this has a ripple effect, and–more than two months later–we are still adjusting to the new rule.

Of course, this was not the first (or worst) effort by the prior Administration to sabotage the immigration system, but it does illustrate how a small procedural change can have an outsized impact: When a lawyer is struggling to adjust to a new rule, it affects the lawyer’s ability to do his best work, and this in turn has potential negative consequences for a client’s case. (more…)

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The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 and Asylum

by Jason Dzubow

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 is finally here. It was unveiled last week by Senator Bob Menendez and Representative Linda Sanchez. The bill is very ambitious in scope, and aims to legalize about 11 million people, including “undocumented” immigrants, Dreamers, and people with Temporary Protected Status.

The odds-makers in the media seem to give the bill little chance of passing through the Senate, which requires at least ten Republicans to join with all the Democrats and Independents in order to overcome a filibuster. Some Senators (notably Lindsey Graham) have signaled a potential willingness to support a smaller bill–maybe one that would legalize Dreamers (also known as beneficiaries of DACA). This dilemma–which proponents of immigration reform have faced for decades–is nothing new: Go big and have more trouble passing a bill, or go small and help fewer people. We will have to see how things go, and certainly immigrant advocates need to be lobbying for a more comprehensive bill.

The bill itself is over 350 pages long and covers many different aspects of immigration. In this post, I will focus on a few points that directly affect asylum seekers. You can find basic summaries of the entire bill at Vox and Wikipedia, and a more comprehensive summary from blogger extraordinaire Greg Siskind. Here, though, we’ll stick to discussing only those provisions that relate most directly to asylum seekers. (more…)

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Torture Survivors Seeking Asylum Must be a Priority in Immigration Overhaul

by Jason Dzubow

This post is by Andrea Barron, the Advocacy Program Manager at the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC International), based in Washington, DC.

President Biden has sent Congress a sweeping immigration bill that embraces America’s commitment to immigrants, a commitment the Trump Administration tried to destroy. The legislation outlines a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented individuals and provides $4 billion to Central American countries to reduce the violence and poverty that push so many to emigrate. It also increases the number of judges in immigration courts. These are welcome proposals.

But the bill promises little to torture survivors and other affirmative asylum seekers. It fails to address a hidden asylum crisis in our country, a crisis not as visible as the migrants being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many torture survivors and thousands of other affirmative asylum seekers have been waiting four, five, and even six years to have their cases heard in the Asylum Office, a division of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). (more…)

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President Biden’s Immigration Bill

by Jason Dzubow

As you’ve probably heard, President Biden has proposed a comprehensive immigration reform bill, called the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. What does this proposal mean for asylum seekers? Who is included? When–if ever–will it go into effect? We’ll discuss those questions here. Spoiler alert: The answer to each question is “I don’t know.”

The first thing to know is that the bill is not yet public. All we have is a summary. Assuming the Biden Administration is being truthful (and I’m willing to grant them the benefit of the doubt, at least for Mr. Biden’s first week in office), a bill was sent to Congress on day one of the new Administration. Only a select few Congress people have the text of the bill, including New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, who plans to introduce the bill in the Senate. Eventually. (more…)

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Fixing Asylum Part 4: Immigration Court

by Jason Dzubow

There are currently over 1.2 million cases pending before our nation’s Immigration Courts (how many of these cases involve asylum, we do not know). The average wait time for a case is 849 days. What has caused this large backlog, and what can be done to alleviate the long waits in Immigration Court?

There are a number of reasons for the Immigration Court backlog. As with the Asylum Office, the basic reason is that there are too many cases and not enough Immigration Judges (“IJs”) and support staff. But a significant aggravating factor is what Judge Schmidt calls “aimless docket reshuffling” or ADR, which he defines as “arbitrarily or maliciously moving cases around without actually deciding them.” In other words, different Administrations have different priorities, and when Administrations change (or change their priorities), cases get moved around in ways that do not result in their completion, but do result in significant delay. The Obama Administration was responsible for its share of ADR, but the Trump Administration–with its decision to make every case a priority–has turned ADR into high art. Other aggravating factors include increased resources for enforcement without a commensurate increase for the Immigration Courts and a significant influx of asylum seekers from Central America that began in about 2012. One last factor is EOIR leadership (EOIR is the Executive Office for Immigration Review – the agency that oversees the Immigration Courts), which under the Trump Administration has been composed of partisan loyalists who lack the competencies needed to run a large organization.

(more…)

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