What’s it like to practice immigration law these days?
For a case in Immigration Court, we write the affidavit, gather evidence, get witness statements, research country conditions, organize everything, copy it, and submit copies to the court and to DHS within the 30-day deadline. We then hold practice sessions with the client and witnesses. A few days before the trial date, we check the online system. The case is canceled. There is no new date. There is no explanation.
We file an application for an asylee’s Green Card. The case takes forever. The client moves. We file a change of address and get an online confirmation. Finally, the client receives an online notice: The Green Card has been mailed and delivered. But not to his current address. USCIS has sent the card somewhere else. Maybe to his old address, but who knows? He does not have it, and requests to re-deliver the card have no effect. (more…)
A few months ago, I wrote that what applicants and lawyers need from the Biden Administration is predictability. Unless we know what to expect from “the system” and when to expect it, people cannot properly prepare their cases or have them fairly adjudicated. Unfortunately, what we have been seeing recently is the opposite of predictability–it is chaos, at least at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR – the agency that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts). Here, I will offer a few pieces of evidence in support of this proposition–
Exhibit A: The Immigration Court (or lack thereof) in York, PA
The Immigration Court in York, PA is located inside the York County Prison, which houses ICE detainees. After recent negotiations between the feds and the county failed to produce an agreement, ICE announced that all its detainees would be transferred to other facilities by August 12. With immigrant detainees set to leave York, EOIR informed court staff on June 30 that the Immigration Court would close by late July, and that all staff needed to take assignments at other courts (often in distant locations) or find new jobs. Besides being disruptive and demoralizing for EOIR staff (many of whom have been working in York for years, and have their homes and families there), the abrupt decision to close the court has left noncitizen detainees isolated from their families and their lawyers, and will make preparing their cases even more difficult. (more…)
Preparing an asylum case is a bit like building a fortress. You make the walls as strong as you can, re-enforce weak points, and hope for the best. It’s the job of the Asylum Officer, the DHS attorney (the prosecutor), and the Immigration Judge to probe for weaknesses and, where appropriate, break down the defenses. If they succeed, you lose your case. So here’s my theory: An adjudicator who wants to deny asylum can deny asylum. Some cases may be harder to deny than others, but a smart decision-maker can punch holes in even the strongest and most well-prepared asylum case.
In my own practice, I recently lost a case where the Immigration Judge meticulously deconstructed the asylum claim in order to deny relief. This was one of those cases that some IJs would have granted, and others would have denied. It so happens that our IJ has a 93.5% asylum denial rate, and so the odds of success were always pretty slim. But the decision got me thinking about how judges and Asylum Officers decide cases, and about whether I can do more to prevent future losses. (more…)
The Trump Administration’s onslaught of anti-immigrant rule-making, combined with increased enforcement, pushed the Immigration Court backlog to new heights–there are currently more than 1.3 million noncitizens in removal proceedings.
When Joe Biden came into office, we were hoping his Administration would move quickly to un-do the damage caused by his predecessor, and to issue new, badly-needed administrative (and hopefully legislative) changes. To be fair, there have been some changes, especially to the more high-profile Trump-era policies such as the Muslim travel ban and the Migrant Protection Protocols. Progress in other areas has been slower, but now–after more than four months of deliberation–we have a new DHS memo on prosecutorial discretion.
The purpose of the memo is to guide DHS/ICE attorneys (the prosecutors in Immigration Court) about their enforcement priorities, i.e., who should and should not be a priority for deportation. The ability of prosecutors to make these decisions is important, since there are not enough resources to deport everyone, and DHS needs to decide where to focus its efforts. The new memo sets forth how DHS attorneys should exercise their “prosecutorial discretion” or “PD.”
There are different types of benefits available to people seeking asylum and people who have been granted asylum. Here we will discuss certain “benefits” – such as work permits, travel documents, and Green Cards – available to asylum seekers and asylees, and how these benefits can be improved.(more…)
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.
Let’s take a break from the doom and gloom associated with the President’s ongoing effort to subvert our democracy and look at something a bit more cheery–A new edition of the book My Trials: Inside America’s Deportation Factories by Paul Grussendorf. Judge Grussendorf’s 35-year career has spanned the gamut in the asylum law field: Immigration attorney, clinical professor, Immigration Judge, Supervisory Asylum Officer, Refugee Officer. His book, styled a “legal memoir,” discusses his time as an advocate and adjudicator and gives an insider’s perspective on our nation’s very dysfunctional immigration system.
While this book is generally targeted at people in the profession, law students, and policy-makers, it would also be useful for asylum seekers themselves. In many respects, Immigration Judges, DHS attorneys (the “prosecutors” in Immigration Court), and Asylum Officers are an inscrutable bunch. What are they thinking about when they interact with applicants and make decisions? How do they relate to each other? What are their outside interests? Judge Grussendorf’s book shines a light on the world behind the façade, and somehow, seeing government adjudicators as human beings is comforting.
That said, the overall picture painted by Judge Grussendorf ain’t pretty. He lays bare an immigration system that is a mess, where many prosecutors are unyielding and out of control, families are ripped apart for no logical reason (other than arbitrary laws that require it), politicians intervene to deny due process and treat immigrants as tools in a partisan game, and where training for judges and DHS attorneys is completely inadequate. The Judge has particular scorn for those DHS attorneys who do not know the law or care about “doing justice,” but who instead simply seek to deport anyone who comes into their crosshairs.
One aspect of the book that held particular interest for me was Judge Grussendorf’s discussions of cases he denied when he was on the bench. Such cases help illustrate how most deportations do nothing to make our country safer or better. Instead, they result in families being separated and good, hard-working people being ripped from their homes. Our harsh and unforgiving immigration laws often prevent judges–including well-meaning judges like the author–from granting relief even when that is clearly the better outcome. Other times, the applicant simply does not qualify for relief. In such cases, Judge Grussendorf did as most judges do: He denied the case and went on with his daily business. On reflection, it is striking that a judge can order someone deported in the afternoon and then go for a pleasant jog in the evening, but that’s the job, and good Immigration Judges can separate their job from their life.
The new edition of My Trials is timely, in that it has come out when Joe Biden is (hopefully) about to take office. While the Democratic Platform laid out a bold agenda, it is unclear whether a President Biden would be able (given Congressional resistance) or willing (given Mr. Biden’s more cautious nature) to pursue that agenda. Judge Grussendorf weighs in with a number of his own ideas for reform–some will require Congressional action; others will not.
A page from My Trials, chosen completely at random.
One of his proposals that I found interesting was the idea of granting Mexico some type of most favored nation status and essentially legalizing all Mexicans in the United States (except for those with criminal issues). Given that so many Mexican nationals are currently in the Immigration Court system, if this group were legalized, it would go a long way toward relieving the overburdened courts.
Judge Grussendorf also proposes removing asylum cases from the court system and delegating them to “Special Hearing Officers,” which are essentially better trained and better paid Asylum Officers. This would allow asylum cases to be adjudicated in a non-adversarial manner while freeing up the Immigration Courts to deal with other types of removal cases and eliminating the current redundant situation where the same asylum case is heard by both an Asylum Officer and an Immigration Judge.
A final proposal that I’ll mention here is the Judge’s idea to greatly reduce the use of pre-trial detention in immigration cases. This proposal is not unique to Judge Grussendorf. However, his real-world experience adds weight to arguments that the practice is dramatically over-used and illogical, and helps illustrate how devastating incarceration is for the non-citizen and the non-citizen’s family (and on the non-citizen’s ability to prepare for his Immigration Court hearing).
I hope that Judge Grussendorf’s book–and particularly his policy proposals–get some attention as we try to reform our immigration system. It seems like too often in this debate we hear from policy advocates and politicians, but not from people who have worked in the trenches. We need voices like Judge Grussendorf’s as we hopefully enter an era where immigration reform is a possibility.
My Trials sheds needed light on the absurd, cruel, dysfunctional, and unfair American asylum system. We are left with the impression that despite the systematic failures, justice in asylum cases is sometimes accomplished. When that happens, it is because individuals working within the system allow their humanity, decency, and respect for the rule of law to shine through and overcome the institutional barriers designed to prevent qualified applicants from receiving the protection they need and deserve. Judge Grussendorf is to be commended for his book, and for his effort to improve our nation’s asylum system.
In order to win an asylum case, you have to prove that there is a reasonably possibility you will face harm in your home country. To do this, you need evidence. Evidence about any past harm, evidence of threats against you, evidence of country conditions, etc. One piece of evidence that can be helpful is a report from an expert witness. Here, we’ll discuss the different types of expert reports and how they can help your case.
First, let’s briefly examine the difference between a fact witness and an expert witness. A fact witness is someone who knows about some aspect of your case. For example, maybe your cousin saw the police arrest you from a political rally. Your cousin knows about one piece of your story, and she can write a letter explaining what she knows. She is a fact witness. An expert witness usually does not have any first-hand knowledge of your case. Rather, according to the Federal Rules of Evidence, an expert is someone with “with scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge” who can “assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” For example, if you are a member of a small ethnic group that is persecuted by your home government, you might find a professor who has studied your group and who can write a report explaining how the government treats members of your ethnic group. The professor is an expert witness.
In terms of admitting expert testimony, the Federal Rules of Evidence are not binding in Immigration Court or at the Asylum Office, but they do provide useful guidance. To be admissible under the Federal Rules, expert testimony must meet three criteria: (1) It must be relevant, meaning it will “assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;” (2) The expert witness must be “qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education;” and (3) The expert’s testimony must be reliable, in that it “is based upon sufficient facts or data… is the product of reliable principles and methods, and [the expert] witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.” The standard for admitting evidence in immigration proceedings is more liberal: The “sole test for admission of evidence is whether the evidence is probative and its admission is fundamentally fair.” Nevertheless, by following the guidance from the Federal Rules, you can help ensure that any expert testimony is given maximum credence by the fact finder.
The standard uniform for an expert witness.
Expert testimony is usually submitted in writing, in the form of an expert report. Accompanying the report is the expert’s CV or a statement of qualifications. It is also helpful to list instances where the expert has previously been recognized as an expert witness by other courts. Experts witnesses sometimes come to court to testify (or testify by telephone).
Expert testimony can be used to support different aspects of an asylum claim. Probably the most common expert report we use is a forensic medical or dental exam. In these reports, the doctor or dentist examines an asylum applicant’s injury to determine whether that injury is consistent with the applicant’s description of what happened. For example, we once had a client who was stabbed in the arm by members of the Taliban. He had a large scar running the length of his forearm. Of course, no medical expert can determine whether the injury was caused by the Taliban. But the expert can opine about whether the scar is consistent with a knife wound. Some experts can also discuss the approximate age of a scar based on its appearance. To create a report, the client would normally need to appear for an in-person examination and give a written description of the incident to the doctor. For this reason, we try to complete the client’s affidavit (or at least the relevant portion of the affidavit) before he goes to see the doctor. That way, he has a description of the incident to bring with him to the exam.
A subset of the forensic medical exams is an evaluation of female genital mutilation/cutting (“FGM/C”). Victims of FGM/C are often able to obtain asylum, and such exams are crucial to these cases. The World Health Organization has categorized FGM/C, and it is helpful for the doctor to explain what category the client’s FGM/C fits into.
Another common type of report that we see are mental health evaluations. These are created by psychologists or other mental health professionals to evaluate the psychological harm (such as post traumatic stress disorder) caused by persecution or the threat of persecution. Sometimes, these reports are generated during the course of treatment; other times, the client visits the mental health professional one or two times and obtains an evaluation for purposes of the asylum case. I tend to prefer the reports created by a treating professional, but in many cases, asylum applicants do not have access to health insurance and cannot afford treatment. In such cases, it may be possible to obtain a pro bono evaluation, which the client can use to bolster her asylum claim. We also use these reports to try to expedite asylum cases. For example, if the report indicates that the applicant’s mental health is being harmed by the long wait, we can sometimes convince the Asylum Office or the court to expedite the person’s case.
Country condition experts can also assist with asylum cases. In my own practice, I use such experts only rarely, as most of the information we need can be found on-line in human rights reports or news articles. However, in specialized situations, a country condition expert can be critical. For instance, an expert can help establish that a person belongs to a particular social group by showing that the society in question recognizes that social group as a distinct entity. Another example is where an expert is needed to interpret a foreign law, such as whether an adoption is legally valid.
In short, there are many ways that experts can help bolster an asylum case. A good starting point for identifying experts and utilizing them effectively is the asylum expert handbook created by Professor Deborah M. Weissman and her students at UNC Chapel Hill Law School. Other helpful resources include the expert data base at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at UC Hastings Law School and the country condition expert list from the Rights in Exile Programme. Some experts on these lists work pro bono; others charge a fee.
Not all asylum cases need testimony from an expert witness (indeed, most of my own cases do not), but where it is needed, it can make the difference between a denial and a grant.
The Master Calendar Hearing–where dozens of people are squeezed into a room and forced to wait for hours in order to talk to a Judge for two minutes–has always been a headache and a waste of time. Now, though, as the coronavirus pandemic continues unabated, attending an MCH seems downright dangerous (lucky for us, we have an associate attorney who covers our MCHs – Don’t forget to wash your hands when (if) you get back!). I’ve written before about alternatives to the MCH, and given the expanding pandemic and the need for social distancing, now seems a good time to re-visit some of these ideas.
Before we get to that, I should mention that MCHs are not the only place where groups of non-citizens are packed together against their will. Far worse are our nation’s ICE detention facilities and private prisons, where conditions were already quite bleak (in the two years before the pandemic, 21 people died in ICE custody). Unfortunately, ICE has not taken effective action to protect detained asylum seekers and other non-citizens from the pandemic (at one facility in Virginia, for example, nearly 75% of detainees tested positive for COVID-19), and the agency seems to have little regard for the health of its detainees (or staff). As a colleague aptly notes, Anne Frank did not die in a gas chamber; she most likely died from typhus, which was epidemic in her detention camp.
Also, it’s worth noting that the National Association of Immigration Judges (the judges’ union) has been working hard for safer conditions in our nation’s Immigration Courts, even if EOIR management has been hostile to some of those efforts. Currently, non-detained MCHs have been suspended, but so far, there is no EOIR-wide policy for what to do instead. Some Immigration Judges and individual courts have made it easier to submit written statements in lieu of MCHs, but the process is still needlessly awkward and time consuming.
MCHs are no more efficient today than they were in olden times.
While we need a short-term fix so that MCHs can go forward during the pandemic, here I want to talk about longer-term solutions. Below are a few ideas for replacing in-person MCHs. While these ideas may not work in all cases, they will help most respondents (and their attorneys) avoid attending MCHs. This would save time and money for people in court, and would also save time and resources for the courts themselves, and for DHS. In addition, reducing the need to appear in person would help prevent the spread of disease. In short, doing away with MCHs is an all around win. So without further ado, here are some ideas to get rid of those pesky Master Calendar Hearings–
e-Master Calendar Hearings: EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts–has been working towards electronic filing for decades, and in some courts, limited online filing is available. Given that the infrastructure is being put into place for online filing, EOIR should create an online MCH. There already exists a system for written MCHs, but this is a huge pain in the neck. It involves a burdensome amount of paperwork, and judges don’t always respond to the documents we file. This means that we lawyers do double work–we submit everything in writing and we have to attend the MCH. Given how unreliable it is, many attorneys (including yours truly) would rather attend the MCH than try to do it in writing.
An effective and reliable e-MCH would be easy to use and efficient. Most cases fit a clear pattern: Admit the allegations, concede the charge(s), indicate the relief sought and language spoken, designate the country of removal, and obtain a date for the Individual Hearing. For attorneys and accredited representatives who are registered with EOIR, this could all easily be accomplished through an online form, thus saving time for all involved.
Orientation Sessions for Unrepresented Respondents: One difficulty during the typical MCH is attending to unrepresented respondents. People who come to court without a lawyer tend to take more time than people who have attorneys. This is because the attorneys (usually) know what is expected at the MCH and are (hopefully) ready to proceed. For people without lawyers, the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) needs to explain what is going on, often through an interpreter. All this takes time and seems like busy work for the IJ (who often has to repeat the same litany multiple times during each MCH). Why not provide pre-MCHs with court staff instead of judges? There, unrepresented respondents can received a basic orientation about the process and be encouraged to find a lawyer. These sessions could be organized by language. Respondents who indicate that they will return with a lawyer can be given a deadline by which the lawyer can either submit the necessary information online (if e-MCHs have been implemented) or come to court if need be. Respondents who will not use a lawyer can be given a date to return for an in-person MCH with a judge. Even if e-MCHs are not implemented, having an orientation session would save significant time for judges and would make MCHs more efficient.
Empower DHS: In Immigration Court, the “prosecutor” works for the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). Most DHS attorneys are overwhelmed and overworked. They have little time to review cases in advance or to speak with opposing counsel prior to the MCH or the Individual Hearing. What if there were more DHS attorneys? What if we could pre-try cases, narrow issues, and maybe even hold depositions? If issues could be hashed out ahead of time, we could shorten or eliminate the need for a MCH, and we could make Individual Hearings more efficient.
All this seems pretty basic. The Immigration Courts are overwhelmed. Reducing or eliminating MCHs will free up judges to do substantive work. It will also save time for DHS, respondents, and their attorneys. And of course, given our new normal with the coronavirus, it will help keep everyone safe. Changes to the MCH system are long overdue, and are especially urgent due to the pandemic. Let’s hope that EOIR can finally rise to the occasion.
This article is by Aldis Petriceks of Harvard Medical School, Erin Shortell of Harvard Law School, and Dr. Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD. Executive Director, Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior; Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School; Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, Harvard Law School Petrie-Flom Center.
The success of an asylum claim relies, to a large degree, on the perceived credibility of an asylum seeker’s memory. The Real ID Act of 2005 states that “[t]he testimony of the applicant may be sufficient to sustain the applicant’s burden without corroboration, but only if the applicant satisfies the trier of fact that the applicant’s testimony is credible, is persuasive, and refers to specific facts sufficient to demonstrate that the applicant is a refugee” (emphasis added). Asylum officers and immigration judges are told, in a sense, to act as mind readers, subjectively deciding whether or not to believe the narratives of asylum seekers.
But how do judges and asylum officers assess credibility? Additional evidence, such as physical signs of abuse or country-level evidence of systematic torture, can bolster credibility in this context. But such evidence may not be available, and even if it is, credibility assessments still turn on asylum adjudicators’ subjective perceptions of asylum seekers’ memories.
Introducing your authors: Aldis Petriceks, Erin Shortell, and Francis X. Shen.
Credibility determinations thus often rest on the consistency (or lack thereof) in an asylum seeker’s story. The REAL ID Act provides that “ … a trier of fact may base a credibility determination on … the consistency between the applicant’s or witness’s written and oral statements … , the internal consistency of each such statement, the consistency of such statements with other evidence of record … , and any inaccuracies or falsehoods in such statements, without regard to whether an inconsistency, inaccuracy, or falsehood goes to the heart of the applicant’s claim, or any other relevant factor.”
Asylum applicants will often recount their stories at multiple points in the legal journey, including immediately upon entry into the U.S.; in a subsequent written affidavit; and before an asylum officer or immigration judge. If inconsistencies or inaccuracies emerge, the asylum adjudicator often infers that the asylum seeker intends to deliberately mislead him or her.
There is, of course, a logic to this inference. If the story changes, one might reasonably infer that the storyteller is purposely crafting a narrative more favorable to a preferred legal outcome.
Intuition is important, but decades of research into the neuroscience of memory suggest that such intuitions need to be carefully examined. Research conclusively shows that memory is not a digital recording of our lives, and thus changes in asylum seekers’ narratives over time may not be due to deliberate deception but rather to the nature of human memory itself.
Autobiographical memories are not accessed as one might re-watch a scene from a movie. Rather, memories are “dynamically reconstructed mental representations,” and they change every time they are retrieved and recounted.
Memory scientists typically talk about three phases of a memory: Encoding (when the sensory systems first register the sights, sounds, smells and more of an event); storage (when that memory gets tucked away in the brain for later use); and retrieval (when the memory is consciously recalled). Context affects each of these stages. Of great relevance to asylum seekers’ credibility is the well-known finding that trauma and stress affect how memories are initially encoded, whether and how they are stored, and how we consciously recall them.
The bottom line for credibility is that inconsistencies in autobiographical recall may not reflect a willful attempt to bend the truth, but rather the biological reality that recalling memories usually involves modification of those memories in ways of which most people are not fully aware.
Do asylum adjudicators take notice of this neuroscience? In theory, they could. The Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate (“RAIO”) Manual for Officer Training tells officers that it is “[their] job to determine whether those inconsistencies and/or contradictions are due to a lack of credibility or may be explained by other factors.” One of these “other factors” is the basic neurobiology of trauma and memory. But in practice, it is difficult to gauge the extent to which asylum officers abide by this instruction.
What would it mean for asylum adjudicators to better understand the relationship between memory, narrative inconsistency, credibility, and the human brain? To begin, it would entail the realization that many asylum seekers have endured tremendous trauma, and that this trauma often has documented effects on memory. Asylum seekers who have experienced trauma in their home countries, on the way to the U.S., or upon entry into the U.S., are often burdened by these effects. Brain scan research on individuals with PTSD, for instance, finds decreased activity in the brain networks associated with autobiographical memory, and an associated decrease in specific autobiographical recall. Given the prevalence of PTSD among asylum seekers, it is likely that many otherwise credible refugees will fail to describe their journeys, fears, and traumas in a detailed, coherent manner across multiple interviews. This failure, however, does not necessarily indicate a lack of credibility.
Acute stress often interferes with autobiographical memory. People perform more poorly on memory tests after injections of hydrocortisone, a compound which mimics the effects of cortisol on the body. When faced with significant trauma, children often recount memories in a vaguer, less detailed manner, regardless of the presence or extent of primary psychological conditions.
It remains unknown exactly how trauma and memory are related in the brain. Some researchers believe that trauma leads to an over-general mode of autobiographical memory largely because the exclusion of detail might prevent re-traumatization. Others argue that trauma directly alters the activity of certain neurological networks, changing one’s ability to retrieve and recall specific memories. Regardless of the particular theory embraced, however, there is general agreement that people with histories of trauma have more altered capacities to remember specific details of events in their lives, and that those alterations are at least associated with measurable changes in neurological structure, function, and physiology.
So far, this neuroscientific knowledge has not been widely introduced to asylum officers or immigration judges. When these adjudicators determine that an applicant is not credible, “they overwhelmingly rely on inconsistencies within or among the various versions of the applicant’s story.” Can this gap between scientific understanding of memory and legal practice be bridged? At the MGH Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior, we think the answer is yes—with sustained effort and input from multiple disciplines.
Three areas are ripe for exploration. First, attorneys and judges need an improved understanding of how autobiographical memory works. To be sure, memory neuroscience cannot provide an asylum officer or immigration judge with an individualized “credibility detector.” But neuroscience can provide evidence for re-examining default presumptions that tend to equate inconsistency with deliberate falsehood.
Second, scientific articles standing alone are not sufficient to inform legal doctrine and practice. Actionable neuroscience requires the development of materials that can be readily adapted by lawyers to put forth arguments related to neuroscience, memory, trauma, and credibility.
Third, extended dialogue is required to explore both the promise and pitfalls of introducing neuroscience into asylum case law. For instance, might neuroscience memory research allow government lawyers to challenge otherwise consistent recollections? Just as a criminal defense attorney might call a “false memory” expert to aid his or her client’s defense, could similar arguments be made in the asylum context to undercut genuine claims of persecution? These and other concerns must be adequately addressed as part of an on-going law and neuroscience dialogue.
As with any new endeavor, the path for neuroscience and law in asylum cases is not clear. But there is much promise, and we hope there will be much more dialogue in the future.
About the MGH Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior: The Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior works at the vanguard of applied neuroscience, making neuroscience actionable for the legal community in order to ensure just and positive outcomes for all those affected by the law. Though the brain and the law are both complex, our work is quite simple: helping judges, lawyers, case workers, enforcement agents and many other actors across the legal ecosystem determine the right solutions for the right people and cases. We promote and enable the sound application of accurate neuroscience to critical areas of the legal process: criminal trials and sentencing, juvenile justice, elder protection and immigration enforcement and asylum. For more, see clbb.org.
Have an asylum case in Immigration Court and wondering what to do while the courts are closed? My friend David L. Cleveland has a suggestion: Get a copy of your file from the Asylum Office. David is a lawyer in Washington, DC. He has secured asylum or withholding for people from 48 countries. He can be reached at 1949.david@gmail.com.
In most cases, when an asylum applicant has their case denied at the Asylum Office, the case is referred to Immigration Court. There, Immigration Judges sometimes deny asylum because the applicant is deemed incredible. The applicant has told the Asylum Officer one thing, but then tells the Judge something different. There are many examples of Judges being annoyed by inconsistent asylum applicants–
In a New York case, the applicant was inconsistent concerning the location of children and where she was raped. Kalala v. Barr, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 8320 (2nd Cir. 2020).
in a California case, the applicant was inconsistent concerning the name of a police station. In this case, the Asylum Officer’s notes were shown to applicant for the first time during the Individual Hearing. Sun v. Barr, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 5397 (9th Cir. 2020).
In an Ohio case, the applicant testified to being beaten inside a church. When she asked about how many members of the church were present at the time, she first said 15. Later, she testified that six church members were present. Onoori v. Barr, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 21310 (6th Cir. 2019).
Now that he has a copy of his client’s file, David Cleveland is finally able to relax.
More generally, Immigration Judges are very interested in what Asylum Officers do and write. In a case decided in 2019, the phrase “Asylum Officer” is used 32 times. Qiu v. Barr, 944 F.3d 837 (9th Cir. 2019). In a 2018 case, the phrase “Asylum Officer” is mentioned 57 times, and “notes” (referring to the Officer’s notes from the asylum interview) was mentioned several times. Dai v. Sessions, 884 F.3d 858 (9th Cir. 2018). In another case, from 2014, an Asylum Officer named “Kuriakose” is mentioned 15 times. Li v. Holder, 745 F.3d 336 (8th Cir. 2014).
In these cases, asylum applicant’s were deemed not credible because their Court testimony was inconsistent with their testimony at the Asylum Office. Most likely, the applicants did not have a record of what they told the Asylum Officer, and of course, since years pass between an asylum interview and an Individual Hearing, it is difficult to remember what transpired at the Asylum Office.
How can I prevent surprise in Immigration Court?
When an Asylum Officer interviews an applicant, the Officer takes detailed notes. Often, these run to 10 pages or more. Later, in consultation with his supervisor, the Officer writes an “Assessment to Refer” or an “Assessment to Grant.” This document is usually three or four pages long. If the case is referred to Court, these notes do not go to the Immigration Judge. However, they are sent to the DHS attorney (the prosecutor), who can review them and look for inconsistencies. At the Individual Hearing, the DHS attorney can use the notes to impeach an applicant’s credibility (“At the asylum interview, you testified that there were 15 people present in the church when you were beaten, but now you say there were only six. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?”).
Asylum Officers sometimes make mistakes or include unexpected information in their notes. They find some sources of information important and ignore other sources. In short, there is a subjective element to these notes that can sometimes work against the applicant and cause surprises in Immigration Court. And, as any attorney will tell you, surprises in Court are usually bad news.
To avoid a surprise in Court, and to find out what the officer wrote, the advocate should make a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request for the notes and the Assessment. Asylum Officer notes are easily available via FOIA. To obtain this information, type your request on a single piece of paper: “Give me the notes and assessment of the asylum officer.” State your name, date of birth, place of birth, address, Alien number, and sign under penalty of perjury. You do not need a lawyer; you do not need Form G-639, although you are allowed to use that form. Send your request via email to: uscis.foia@uscis.dhs.gov
In January 2020, I received the entire Asylum Officer assessment for an asylum applicant from Congo. The client and I are now more relaxed and confident about the case. We will not be surprised in Immigration Court. You can read this assessment at the FOIA page of the Louise Trauma Center. A model FOIA request can also be found at the same page.
The coronavirus is causing unprecedented disruptions to nearly every area of life, and the Immigration Courts are no exception. The courts were already in a post-apocalyptic era, with over one million cases in the backlog, and now the situation has been thrown into near total chaos. The fundamental problem is that EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals–is determined to continue adjudicating cases, even if that means risking the lives of its own employees; not to mention the lives of respondents, witnesses, and lawyers (and anyone who comes into contact with them).
EOIR is closing and re-opening various courts seemingly at random, often times with an after-hours Tweet, such as one last night at 9:23 PM, declaring that the Newark and Seattle Immigration Courts will reopen today for purposes of accepting filings and litigating detained cases (non-detained cases through April 10, 2020 have been postponed). In reaction to this latest news, Susan G. Roy, an attorney and former Immigration Judge (and my friend from law school – Hi Sue!) wrote last night–
NJ has the second highest number of corona virus cases in the nation, second only to NY. The Newark Immigration Court was closed because someone tested positive for the virus. Now a DHS attorney is fighting for his life in ICU, another attorney is very ill, and an interpreter has tested positive. These are the ones we know about. The Court was set to reopen on April 12. That is a reasonable time to ensure that everyone is safe and that the risk of transmission is limited. How is it even remotely reasonable to decide to open TOMORROW? Even if it is only for filings, court staff and others will be forced to violate the Governor’s Executive Order [directing all residents to stay at home], put themselves at great risk, and risk contaminating others, while many people who work in the same building remain under mandatory quarantine. You are ruthlessly jeopardizing the lives of your own employees, not to mention the public, for no legitimate reason.
There’s a new dress code at the Boston Immigration Court (and yes, this photo really is from the Boston Immigration Court).
And it’s not just advocates who are upset about EOIR’s decision-making. The National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ” – the judges’ union) and ICE attorneys are also reacting with anger. In response to EOIR’s tweet reopening the courts in Seattle and Newark, NAIJ responds, “Putting our lives at risk, one Tweet at a time.” And Fanny Behar-Ostrow, an ICE prosecutor and president of AFGE Local 511, says of EOIR: “It’s like insanity has taken over the agency,“
One of our members recently had a detained master calendar hearing scheduled for this past Friday, March 20, at the Varick St. Court. In order to prepare the bond application and for the master, the attorney and his staff met with the client‘s mother. A request for a bond hearing, together with the required relief applications, and a request for a telephonic hearing, were hand delivered to the Court at noon on Wednesday March 18th, 2020. The attorney did not receive any response to the motion for a telephonic hearing, and repeated calls to the court that day and the next went unanswered. To ensure that the Court was aware of the request, the client‘s mother retrieved from the attorney‘s office, Thursday evening, a letter to the court confirming the request for a telephonic hearing. She traveled to the court in Manhattan, from Long Island, and delivered the letter to the Clerk, and thereafter waited in the waiting area with family members of other detainees and other attorneys who were compelled to appear.
Today we received confirmation the client‘s mother has been diagnosed with COVID–19 virus, through medical testing. Can you imagine the number of people she came into contact with as the result of the decision to keep this court open? In addition to exposing the attorney and office staff, she traveled from her home on Long Island, on the Long Island Railroad, to Penn Station, from there to the subway and ultimately to the Court. Undoubtedly she came into contact with, and exposed, countless numbers of people, who in turn exposed countless others.
Anyone with a basic grasp of the fundamental principles of epidemiology – easily garnered from watching CNN or the local evening news – understands how easily this virus spreads. Given this, the decision to continue to keep the courts open can only be construed as a conscious decision on the part of EOIR to subject our Immigration Judges, court staff, interpreters, DHS attorneys, institutional defenders, members of the private bar, our clients, their families, and all whom they come into contact with, to an unreasonable risk of infection, serious illness and death.
NAIJ echoes this sentiment: “With [New York] the epicenter of the virus, DOJ is failing to protect its employees and the public we serve.”
The appropriate path forward is painfully obvious. EOIR should immediately close all courts for all cases. Staff should work remotely when possible to re-set dates and adjudicate bond decisions (so non-criminal aliens who do not pose a danger to the community can be released from detention). That is the best way to protect everyone involved with the Immigration Court system and the public at large.
Finally, I think it is important to name names. The Director of EOIR is James McHenry. I have never been a fan. Mr. McHenry was profoundly unqualified for his job, having gone from supervising maybe half a dozen people in a prior position to overseeing thousands at EOIR. However, he was politically aligned with the goals of the Trump Administration and he got the job. I have previously described the functioning of the agency during Mr. McHenry’s tenure as maliciousness tempered by incompetence. But these days, it is more like maliciousness exacerbated by incompetence. And in the current crisis, incompetence can be deadly. It’s time for Mr. McHenry and EOIR to do the right thing: Close the courts now.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”) recently announced a new way to check case status on-line. The system provides information about cases that are (or were) pending before the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals. According to the EOIR press release–
The automated case information application allows users to receive the most recent information about a case after inputting a unique alien registration number. Available information includes next scheduled hearings, decision information at the immigration court and Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) levels, and court and BIA contact information. Immigration courts’ operating statuses are also included.
The new portal can be found here. By entering your Alien number, you can view your case information in English or Spanish. This new system is similar to the old EOIR telephone hotline (which still works–you can call 800-898-7180 to obtain information about your case). The online system provides similar information to the hotline, but in written format.
Easy access to court information is great, but maybe it could be a bit less public.
Overall, I like this online system better than the telephone hotline. It is more convenient and faster to use. It also includes some helpful information that the hotline does not provide, such as better court contact information and news about court closures (at the bottom of the portal home page). That said–and I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth–I do have a few quibbles with this shiny new toy (shocking, I know).
First, and maybe most significantly, when you enter your Alien number and go to the page with information about your case, you will see your full name displayed at the top. This makes me nervous. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I don’t like seeing my asylum-seeker clients’ names displayed for all the world to see (not to mention their A-numbers and information about their cases). I worry that information like this should not be so publicly available.
To be fair, you can’t access this information without the person’s A-number, and when you call the EOIR hotline, you can obtain essentially the same information already. It’s just that having this information available in written format somehow seems less secure. Also, because the online portal is so much faster than the telephone hotline, it’s not difficult to enter one A-number after another and get information about lots of random people. This is particularly easy since A-numbers are assign sequentially. So if you know one person’s number, you can change it slightly and find other (random) people’s names and numbers. Whether this information could be used for nefarious purposes, I do not know, but given the human capacity for mischief, I imagine it is a possibility.
Perhaps a partial solution here is to provide less information about the alien–maybe just the person’s initials. Whether that would provide much protection against bad actors, I am not sure, but it seems safer than displaying the full name. Another possibility would be to require users to enter their Alien number and their name in order to access the system. This would at least make it more difficult to gain access to random people’s information.
A second quibble is that the portal does not distinguish between removal, Withholding of Removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). In each case, the decision information will indicate that the person has been denied relief (in contrast, where a person has been granted asylum or a Green Card, the system will indicate that the Immigration Judge “granted the application”). This is the same information that is provided through the telephone system. Having talked to some government techies, I know it is not always possible to obtain more specific information from existing databases, but it would be helpful to know whether a person has been denied all relief or has been granted Withholding or CAT.
A third issue is that the online system does not provide any information about the Asylum Clock. This is surprising, since the telephone hotline does give information about the clock. For some asylum applicants, it is possible to get clock information from USCIS by entering the asylum receipt number (not the Alien number) here. But given this fancy new online system, it’s too bad that clock data is not included as part of the package.
Finally, and this is perhaps an unfair criticism, it seems to me that EOIR could do a lot more with this website. For example, it could include contact information for the relevant DHS office (you can find that separately here). It could indicate whether biometrics are current. Each individual Immigration Court has its own webpage (which you can access here) with information about office hours, staff, parking, and more. It would be nice if the portal provided a link to the relevant court’s webpage. Maybe it could also include links to local pro bono resources and to the Immigration Court Practice Manual. And if we’re really ambitious, it could include information about how to submit a complaint against an adjudicator, other court personnel or an attorney. Dare to dream.
One last point–the new portal is only useful if people know that it exists. Instead of all the mumbo jumbo on the Notice to Appear and the Immigration Court scheduling order, why not include a prominent (and I mean **PROMINENT**) link to the new online system? This new system is not bad (despite my kvetching) and it would be great if more people learn about it.
These days, anything resembling a positive development in immigration world should be celebrated. EOIR’s online portal is a helpful tool for immigrants and their advocates. I hope EOIR will continue to upgrade this system to make it more secure and more useful for us all.
EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review–has proposed a fee increase for applications before the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”). The new fees purportedly reflect the cost of adjudicating the various applications that EOIR reviews, and include the following–
Increase the fee for Form EOIR-26 (Notice of Appeal from a Decision of an Immigration Judge) from $110 to $975.
Increase the fee for Form EOIR-29 (Notice of Appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals from a Decision of a DHS Officer) from $110 to $705.
Increase the fee for Form EOIR-40 (Application for Suspension of Deportation) from $100 to $305.
Increase the fee for Form EOIR-42A (Application for Cancellation of Removal for Certain Permanent Residents) from $100 to $305.
Increase the fee for Form EOIR-42B (Application for Cancellation of Removal and Adjustment of Status for Certain Nonpermanent Residents) from $100 to $360.
Increase the fee for filing a motion to reopen or reconsider with the immigration court from $110 to $145.
Increase the fee for filing a motion to reopen or reconsider with the BIA from $110 to $895,
Also, the new fees include a $50 fee for asylum cases filed with the Immigration Court (I wrote about this previously after USCIS proposed a similar fee for asylum cases filed with that agency).
EOIR hopes to revive the tradition of paying your executioner.
As you can see, the new fees are significantly higher than the current fees. EOIR Director James McHenry justifies the fee increase as follows–
The proposed fee increases are marginal in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars and would mitigate the significant taxpayer subsidization of these forms and motions. EOIR is long past due for a review of its fee-based filings, especially as its caseload and costs have increased substantially since 1986.
As usual, Mr. McHenry’s comments reflect his lack of compassion for vulnerable immigrants, not to mention his tenuous grasp of reality. A 900% fee increase for BIA appeals is certainly not “marginal,” and will likely preclude many people from exercising their right to due process of law. Sadly, though, the rights of immigrants have never been a priority or a concern for Mr. McHenry, at least as far as I can tell, and so his comments are hardly surprising.
Now, to be fair, EOIR has not increased fees for 30 years, and so a review of current fees is overdue, and a reasonable fee increase could certainly be justified. Let’s take, for example, the most impactful of the new fees, the fee to appeal an Immigration Court decision to the BIA. The current fee is $110. According to EOIR, had this fee been adjusted for inflation (starting in 1986), it would be $252.63 in today’s dollars. So in that sense, the current fee is less than it should be (whatever that means). The new proposed fee of $975 is nearly nine times the current fee, but “only” about four times the adjusted-for-inflation fee.
Also, a fee waiver may be available for those who need it, using form EOIR-26A. This form (at least in its current iteration) is fairly simple, and seeks information about the applicant’s income and expenses. It’s not clear how much evidence is needed to support the contentions in the form, but given the wide latitude of adjudicators to grant or deny a fee waiver, it seems to me that the wise applicant will include significant supporting evidence (which may require a lot of work). Pursuant to the regulations, EOIR has the “discretion” to grant a fee waiver. However, the regulations also indicate that, “if the fee waiver request does not establish the inability to pay the required fee, the appeal or motion will not be deemed properly filed.” Does this mean that an appeal filed along with a fee waiver will be rejected if the fee waiver is denied? Will EOIR provide some type of notice, so that applicants can raise the fee and pay for their appeal? How much time will EOIR allow to pay the fee? It’s hard to be optimistic about any of this, given that the whopping new fees seem purposely designed to dissuade applicants from pursuing their rights before the Immigration Courts and the BIA.
Finally, EOIR’s main justification for the new fees is that costs for the agency have increased, and raising fees will help cover EOIR’s expenses and protect tax payers–to the tune of about $45 million per year. To come up with their numbers, EOIR completed a study where they looked at who adjudicates the various applications, how long it takes, and how much it costs (taking into account salaries, but not other expenses such as overhead or employee benefits). How accurate is this study? I have no idea. Different appeals, for example, require very different amounts of work. Some appeals are simple; others are complicated. But even assuming the new fees accurately reflect EOIR’s expenses, I think that fee increases of this magnitude are unfair for two main reasons.
First, EOIR’s justification for these fees is a con job. They talk about the expenses of immigrants, but not the contributions of immigrants to our society. The Trump Administration tried this trick at least once before, when it suppressed a study showing that refugees contribute more to our economy than they take, and instead released a distorted study, listing only the costs of helping refugees. You simply can’t separate out the costs of maintaining an immigration system from the benefits we as a nation derive from that system. Yet that is what EOIR is doing here: Director McHenry decries the expenses to the system, but we learn nothing about how immigrants contribute to our economy (and the weight of the evidence indicates that immigration benefits our economy).
Second, in its mission statement, EOIR indicates that it “is committed to providing fair, expeditious, and uniform application of the nation’s immigration laws in all cases.” How can it fulfill this mission if the people before the Immigration Courts and the BIA cannot afford the relief to which they are entitled? To have a functioning legal system, people in our country need access to courts–civil courts, criminal courts, and immigration courts, among others. Our’s is not (and should not be) a nation where you receive only the justice you can afford. Non-citizens who live in our country should not be an exception to this rule. Or, as the indefatigable Paul Wickham Schmidt writes—
Correcting errors on appeal is probably one of the most important functions the Government performs. That’s particularly true when the public segment “served” is generally limited income individuals and the getting results correct could be “life determining.”
At this stage, the new fees are proposed, but not yet in effect. The public can submit comments about the proposal, and perhaps that will cause EOIR to modify its plan. To submit comments, see page 2 of the proposed rule.
Make no mistake, these proposed fees are another attack on immigrants, justified with half truths, and implemented because immigrants are too vulnerable to fight back. All people of good conscience should continue to resist these terrible policies, which directly impact our non-citizen neighbors, but which, in the end, harm us all.
The latest data on asylum grant rates in Immigration Court is out, and as expected, the news is not great. Overall asylum grant rates in court continued to decline in FY 2019, but the news is not all bad. Courts adjudicated a record number of asylum cases this past year: 67,406, up from 42,224 last year and 19,779 in FY2015. Many cases are still being granted. Indeed, even though grant rates are down, in absolute numbers, more asylum cases are being approved than ever (this is because the total number of asylum cases adjudicated is way up). Also, the percentage of applicants represented by attorneys continues to climb (slowly). Here, we’ll take a look at the newest data and what it means for asylum applicants.
Let’s start with the bad news (so no one can accuse me of being an optimist). In FY2019, 69% of asylum seekers were denied asylum or other relief in Immigration Court. This continues a negative trend that began in FY2012, when the overall denial rate was at an all time low–only about 42% of asylum applicants were denied in that glorious year. Since then, denial rates have been steadily climbing. Last year (FY2018), the overall denial rate was 65%. Despite the general negative trend, if we break down the reasons behind the high denial rate, perhaps we can find a silver lining.
On a positive note, courts granted asylum to 19,831 people in FY2019. They are pictured above, celebrating.
One factor affecting the overall denial rate was the large number of decisions for cases where the applicant was not represented by an attorney. For unrepresented applicants, the denial rate was 84%. Interestingly, unrepresented cases move much more quickly than represented cases: 45.3% of unrepresented cases that started in FY2019 were resolved in FY2019. In contrast, only 9.7% of represented cases that began in FY2019 have been decided. I suspect that many of the unrepresented cases are for detained applicants, as such cases tend to go much faster than non-detained cases (since the government does not like to pay for incarceration). Also, it may be that some unrepresented applicants who are recent arrivals in the U.S. have their cases adjudicated on an expedited basis.
Another major factor affecting denial rates is country of origin. Four of the top five source countries for asylum seekers are El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras. Together, these countries represented about 22% of all asylum cases decided in Immigration Court in FY2019. But for various reasons (harsh U.S. laws, difficulty proving nexus), these countries tend to have higher-than-average asylum denial rates–in the range of 80% denials. So if you factor out these four countries, the overall denial rate would be lower (if you are from one of these countries, it is very helpful to talk to a lawyer and think through the most effective way to present your case). You can look up the success rate for people from your country here (this data can be broken down by court, but not by individual judge).
Other factors that contribute to the high denial rate include detained cases and one-year-bar cases, which are both harder to win than non-detained cases and cases filed on time. A final–and unexpected–factor in the high denial rate is the government shut-down of January 2019. During that period, only detained cases were adjudicated, and since such cases are more difficult to win, the denial rate during the shut-down shot up to nearly 75%. This in turn pushed up the overall denial rate for the year.
For asylum seekers who are wondering about the likelihood of success in court, all these variables must be considered. If you are represented by an attorney, if you are not from Central America or Mexico, if you are not detained, and if you file your case on time, the overall asylum denial rate should be significantly better than 69%. So I guess that is good news, sort-of.
But of course, overall denial rates are of little consequence given that grant rates vary by judge (sometimes quite dramatically). To find the name of your Immigration Judge (“IJ”), call 800-898-7180. When the machine answers, follow the instructions and enter your Alien number. You can then press “1” and hear your next court date and–hopefully–the name of your IJ. If your IJ is not listed in the system, it may mean that no one is yet assigned to the case, but you can double check by calling the Immigration Court directly and asking the receptionist whether your case is assigned to a judge. Once you know your judge’s name, you can look here to find asylum denial rates for your particular IJ (for new judges, there may be no data available).
A few points about the individual IJ data: First, it is probably best to look at the most current denial rate (FY2019), since recent (negative) changes in the law may have affected the percentage of cases judges approve. Thus, the older data may be less relevant to a case today. Second, as we discussed, representation rates and country of origin affect overall grant rates. If you scroll to the bottom of the IJ’s page, you can get some idea of the representation rate before that judge, as well as the source countries for asylum seekers that the judge sees. If the IJ adjudicates many unrepresented cases, and/or many cases from Central America and Mexico, this may increase that IJ’s denial rate. Finally, some IJs decide large numbers of detained cases and this would also negatively affect the judge’s grant rate (the data that I see does not list the percentage of detained cases decided by each judge).
Having said all this, I am not sure how useful it is. Unless you move, you have basically no control over who will be your judge. It is better, I think, to focus on what you can control: Gathering evidence and witnesses, preparing your case, and finding a competent attorney. In my experience, most IJs are fair and will listen to your case. The biggest factor in determining whether you win is usually the case itself, and the most productive thing you can do is focus on the variables you can control, and present the strongest case possible.
Finally, I would be remiss not to thank TRAC Immigration for their continued superb work gathering Immigration Court data (often under difficult circumstances). So thank you, TRAC, and keep up the good work.
