Ever the reliable sycophant and incompetent manager, Nielsen rolls out yet another cruel, ill-considered scheme for mistreating asylum seekers instead of doing her job the way it should be done. Like all the rest of these White Nationalist repressive measures, this one’s likely to fail. The only real questions are how and how soon?
HERE’S WHAT’S BOGUS ABOUT NIELSEN’S LATEST RESTRICTIONIST SCHEME!
- There is no known evidence of any widespread “asylum fraud” at the Southern Border; most arriving asylum applicants either wait at a port of entry to be processed or turn themselves in to the Border Patrol immediately upon entry;
- As pointed out by Judge Sullivan in Grace v. Whitaker, the law requires that a much lower standard be applied at the “credible fear” stage; naturally, that means that many individuals who pass credible fear will not ultimately be granted asylum;
- Not being granted asylum by an Immigration Judge does not mean that the asylum application is frivolous or lacks merit; most individuals face actual danger or death upon return, but whether or not they get asylum depends on difficult, somewhat arcane legal determinations about “causation;”
- Also, as pointed out by Judge Sullivan in Grace, the Immigration Courts under the Trump Administration have been applying unlawful and unduly restrictive standards to asylum seekers from Central America; these illegal actions undoubtedly have artificially suppressed the asylum grant rate;
- Contrary to Nielsen, the Government’s own numbers as analyzed by TRAC show that 35% of asylum applications are granted by Immigration Judges following merits hearings; the merits asylum grant rates for El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are 23%, 20%, & 18%, much higher than Nielsen’s bogus “nine in ten denied;”
- Unquestionably, Immigration Courts grant rates have been suppressed by illegal interpretations by DOJ and, as widely reported, biased anti-asylum attitudes by some U.S. Immigration Judges;
- Contrary to Nielsen’s claim, nearly 100% of asylum seekers who are given an opportunity to be represented by counsel appear for their hearings;
- It’s highly unlikely that there actually are 786,000 “real” asylum cases in Immigration Court; that’s because court procedures require the filing of all possible applications at the earliest point in time even if they might not actually pursued at the merits hearing; in some cases, asylum is a “backup” application rather than the primary application for relief;
- As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Pereira v. Sessions, many asylum seekers are now eligible for “cancellation of removal” based on time in the U.S. and close relatives and will likely pursue that form of relief instead;
- The Immigration Court backlog is more the result of shifting priorities, poor enforcement strategies, chronic understaffing, and “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by successive Administrations than it is because of any actions taken by asylum applicants to delay the process;
- Sending more Immigration Judges to border locations to hear cases of those waiting in Mexico is likely to artificially increase the court backlog by diverting resources from cases pending in Immigration Courts in interior locations;
- The Administration has yet to put forth a reasonable plan for reducing the Immigration Court backlog;
- Given known dangerous conditions in Mexico, vulnerable asylum seekers are unlikely to receive effective protection from the Mexican Government while waiting in Mexico.
What if we had a Government actually committed to making the generous asylum system enacted by Congress and described by Judge Sullivan and Judge Tigar work to protect refugees, rather than working to make it fail to punish and “deter” some of the world’s most courageous, determined, and vulnerable individuals who actually could help our country if they were given a fair chance in a fair system?
PWS
12-20-18