Tag: Gord Webster

From Human Rights First, June 1, 2022:

 

Human Rights First yesterday submitted a public comment on the Biden administration’s Interim Final Rule that creates a new process for adjudication of some asylum claims.   Under the rule, asylum seekers who are placed in the expedited removal process and who establish a credible fear of persecution may be assessed in an initial full asylum interview with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Cases not granted by the Asylum Office will be referred to immigration court removal proceedings, as will other asylum cases that are not granted by the Asylum Office.

Courtesy Getty

Asylum seekers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the US- Mexico border near Yuma, Arizona.

While Human Rights First welcomes some aspects of the rule, we expressed our concern about unreasonably fast deadlines that would sacrifice fairness, thwart efficiency, and exacerbate backlogs.  We also oppose provisions that threaten asylum seekers’ right to a full and fair hearing on their asylum claims.   The rule guts a crucial safeguard in the credible fear process:  it provides that the new asylum process will be conducted after subjecting asylum seekers to the fundamentally flawed expedited removal process, which has been shown to return refugees to persecution and death.   In our public comment on the rule and a factsheet on its concerning provisions, we have recommended changes to help asylum seekers receive timely, fair, and accurate adjudications.

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The full HRF comment is available at the above link!

As with most Government immigration/civil/human rights programs, a large part of the problem is WHO is making these decisions, WHO is setting precedents, and WHO is overseeing the process and enforcing accountability.

• The Biden Administration is still operating EOIR and large portions of the immigration bureaucracy at DHS with Trump-era “holdovers” who were improperly “programmed to deny” asylum.
• There is a dearth of positive precedents from the BIA on gender-based asylum and other types of common asylum applications at the border that are routinely and wrongfully mishandled and denied.
• There are cosmic problems resulting from failure to provide qualified representation of asylum seekers at the border.
• Detention continues to be misused as a “deterrent” to legal claims and “punishment” for asserting  them. 
• Despite “touting” a much larger refugee admissions program beyond the border, the Administration has failed to deliver a robust, realistic, refugee admissions program for Latin America and the Caribbean which would take pressure off the border. 
• Racism and White Nationalism continue to drive the Administration’s dramatically inconsistent approach to White refugees from Ukraine compared with refugees of color at the Southern Border.

In plain terms, because of what the Biden Administration hasn’t done over the past 17 months, the new asylum regulations are “programmed for failure.”

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-06-22