Asylum and Its Discontents in the United States
Every year, about 8,000 unaccompanied children enter the United States and are placed in removal proceedings. Many of those children are helped by KIND–Kids in Need of Defense, a non-profit organization begun in January 2009 with a $3 million grant from Microsoft (and help from refugee maven Angelina Jolie). Pleased with the success of the … Read more
Human Rights Watch and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP recently filed an amicus brief with the Board of Immigration Appeals in the case of an alien with a mental disability. The brief is based on a year-long, joint investigation by HRW and the American Civil Liberties Union concerning violations of the rights of people with … Read more
My friend, who is a keen observer of the Immigration Court and USCIS (and who wishes to remain anonymous), has noticed that clients often hide or forget information that effects their cases: There are surprises in life we all wish we could avoid. Finding a hair in your meal at your favorite restaurant comes to … Read more
The largest group of asylum seekers in the Washington, DC area–and the majority of my asylum cases–are from Ethiopia, so a recent story in the Washington Post caught my attention (ok, it actually caught my wife’s attention and she emailed it to me, so she gets credit for this one). Henok Tesfaye is an Ethiopian immigrant … Read more
Virginia’s Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, last week released an advisory opinion concluding that law enforcement officers in the Commonwealth “may… inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested.” The AG had previously determined that “law enforcement officers in Virginia in fact have the authority to arrest persons for criminal violations of immigration laws.” Last week’s … Read more
On June 17, the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held an oversight hearing on the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). The hearing was called by Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) as part of a long-running effort to understand why the Immigration Courts and Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) are … Read more
According to the Chicago Tribune, a prominent refugee resettlement agency, World Relief, has enacted a policy that requires new employees to be Christians. World Relief is an arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization that has represented a diverse array of Evangelical churches and parishioners since 1942. The agency receives about 65% of its budget … Read more
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 … Read more
Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) has issued a new report confirming what immigration attorneys already know: the waiting time for cases in the Immigration Courts is longer than ever. From my experience, a typical case in the over-burdened Arlington, Virginia court takes almost two years. It turns out, Arlington isn’t the slowest court … Read more
From Human Rights First: After conducting a comprehensive review of the U.S. immigration adjudication system, the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Immigration released is long-anticipated report, “Reforming the Immigration System: Proposals to Promote Independence, Fairness, Efficiency and Professionalism in the Adjudication of Removal Cases.” The study found that pressures on the adjudication system have … Read more