No Notice, Know Problem: What to Do Now that the Asylum Offices Are Interviewing Old Cases

by Jason Dzubow

Recently, the Asylum Offices have started scheduling interviews for applicants who filed years ago. In our office, we’ve seen a couple cases from 2015 get scheduled in Virginia, and I have been hearing from other lawyers about their old applications receiving interview notices in Virginia and at other Asylum Offices. That’s good news for applicants who have been waiting years for an interview. But as they say, every silver lining has a black cloud, and the black cloud here is a lack of sufficient notice to prepare for the interview.

Today, we’ll discuss what is happening at the Asylum Offices and what applicants should be doing now to get ready for their interviews. In a future post, we’ll talk about how the Asylum Offices can improve the system and ensure that applicants receive due process of law. (more…)

Continue reading

119 Comments

Overcoming the One-Year Bar After You’ve Filed for Asylum

by Jason Dzubow

The law of asylum requires applicants to file their form I-589 within one year of arriving in the United States; otherwise, their case can be denied as untimely. There are exceptions to the one-year filing rule, and if you are relying on one of those, you would normally include that information in the I-589 at the time of filing.

However, it is also possible to qualify for an exception to the one-year bar after you file for asylum. I recently employed some nifty case law to help a client overcome the one-year bar and win asylum, and I imagine that other late filers might benefit from this client’s experience. (more…)

Continue reading

74 Comments

What You Exclude from an Asylum Case May Be as Important as What You Include

by Jason Dzubow

Sometimes, the evidence you leave out of an asylum case is as important as the evidence you include.

Here, we’ll look at what evidence is best kept out of a case, how to decide whether to submit evidence that has harmful and helpful components, and how to evaluate the risks inherent in excluding unhelpful evidence. (more…)

Continue reading

105 Comments

Is the Asylum System Better in France?

by Jason Dzubow

This post is by Hélène Bonvalot, former Director General at Centre Primo Levi in Paris, France and a Fulbright Fellow at the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) International in Washington, DC.

As the leader of a French NGO working with refugees, I am often asked whether the asylum system in France is more effective than in the United States. Most of my American colleagues believe that the situation cannot be any worse than here, but in fact, seeking asylum is challenging everywhere, with differences and similarities. (more…)

Continue reading

81 Comments

Remembering the Immigration Act of 1924

by Jason Dzubow

The late 1800s and early 1900s was a period of expanding and diversifying immigration to the United States. Prior to that time, the majority of immigrants to the U.S. came from Northwestern Europe, but between 1890 and 1920, most immigrants originated in Southern and Eastern Europe. Predictably, this shift caused a negative political reaction, which ultimately led to the very restrictive and racist Immigration Act of 1924 (also called the Johnson-Reed Act after the Congressmen who sponsored it).

It may be a fool’s errand to look for parallels between 1924 and 2024, but we’re going to try it anyway. And perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the Immigration Act one hundred years later. (more…)

Continue reading

142 Comments

Reimagining the Asylum Office

by Jason Dzubow

A forthcoming article by Professor Faiza W. Sayed of Brooklyn Law School examines the history and failings of the U.S. affirmative asylum system, and proposes some bold solutions that could help save asylum as we know it.

I should start by saying that I am a fan of Prof. Sayed’s work. She and her team at the Safe Harbor Clinic recently published a scathing report about the New York Asylum Office, which examines why that office has the lowest grant rate in the United States. The Professor was kind enough to send me a draft of her upcoming article, Reimagining Affirmative Asylum, which builds on her previous study. Her proposed reforms offer hope that our beleaguered asylum system can still be salvaged. (more…)

Continue reading

65 Comments

Can You Be Deported for Protesting the War in Gaza?

by Jason Dzubow

As protests against Israel and the war in Gaza continue to spread across the U.S., some politicians are calling for non-citizen protesters to be deported. Can foreign students, asylum seekers, Green Card holders, and other non-citizens be deported for participating in protests?

As usual in immigration matters, the answer is: It depends. Here, we’ll discuss whether and under what circumstances the government can deport non-citizens for participating in demonstrations. (more…)

Continue reading

49 Comments

Can the State of Texas Deport Migrants to Mexico? The U.S. Supreme Court Seems to Think So

by Jason Dzubow

This post is by Mikayla Minton, a senior from Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon. Ms. Minton is originally from Humboldt County, California and is majoring in Law, Rights, and Justice and minoring in Journalism and Media Studies. During the spring 2024 semester, she interned at Dzubow & Pilcher and attended American University. Ms. Minton plans on continuing her studies and passions in law school.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled to allow a controversial immigration law to take effect in Texas. The ruling concerns Texas Senate Bill 4 (2023), known as SB4, which allows state officials to arrest and deport migrants who enter the state illegally. While the Court’s ruling involved a preliminary issue in the case, it telegraphed the Justices’ views on state–as opposed to federal–oversight of immigration.

Many conservative lawmakers in the Lone Star State and across the country see the Court’s decision as a win. Meanwhile, the Court’s liberal Justices as well as officials at the Department of Homeland Security described the possible effects of SB4 as “chaos.”

What is the significance of SB4 and of the Supreme Court’s ruling? How might it affect immigration law and states’ rights? And what impact will it have on immigrants? (more…)

Continue reading

52 Comments

Asylum as an Instrument of Peace

by Jason Dzubow

Last week, I attended a concert at my synagogue by the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, a group of young Palestinians and Israelis who perform music together. In his introduction, my Rabbi explained the purpose of the evening. We were not going to stop a brutal war or bring back hostages from captivity. We would not be able to give respite in a way that mattered and is necessary to Gazans or end the suffering there. That’s not what tonight is, he said. I wish it was, but it isn’t. Here’s what tonight is, tonight is a gigantic middle finger (his words, not mine) to everybody who tells us that there is no way forward together. Tonight is what happens when you take microphones out of the hands of yesterday’s leaders and put them in front of today’s leaders. Tonight is the only story that we will see 50 or 100 years from now, G-d willing. We’re opening doors, and we’re opening hearts.

In a way–a less melodious or entertaining way–asylum serves a similar purpose. (more…)

Continue reading

65 Comments

What Happens at the Board of Immigration Appeals?

by Jason Dzubow

Here’s a hopefully hypothetical scenario: You apply for asylum (or some other relief) in Immigration Court and the judge denies your case. What do you do?

The losing party in Immigration Court has the right to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which is a higher court that reviews the decision of the Immigration Judge (IJ) to determine whether the IJ made a mistake. If you “win” your appeal, the BIA will explain the IJ’s error and “remand” (send back) the case to the judge to issue a new decision.

Today, we’ll discuss how to evaluate your chances for success on appeal, how the appeals process works, and what happens if you win or lose the appeal. (more…)

Continue reading

67 Comments

Mistakes Were Made

by Jason Dzubow

I recently prepared an asylum case for a married lesbian woman. The case was complicated by the fact that my client had multiple nationalities, and I was concerned about one country where she held citizenship, and where conditions were less bad for LGBT people (at least when compared with her other countries of nationality). My focus was on gathering evidence about country conditions to support her claim, and I forgot to look at another key aspect of the case–my client’s wife had a pending asylum application of her own.

As these things often go, I was reviewing the case prior to the Immigration Court hearing when I noticed the issue. I spoke to my client and learned that the wife’s case included information that would have been helpful for my client’s case. So now I had a dilemma: Should we amend our case at the last minute and risk harming my client’s credibility (when she tried to explain the change) or say nothing and forgo the opportunity to include helpful evidence? (more…)

Continue reading

54 Comments

A Tale of Two Murders: Laken Riley and George Floyd

by Jason Dzubow

The murder of Laken Riley–a promising young nursing student–has spurred renewed calls for a crackdown against illegal migration into our country. Ms. Riley was allegedly killed by a Venezuelan man who entered the United States at the Southern border in September 2022. 

In response to the killing, Republicans hammered the Biden Administration’s border policy: “Innocent Americans from Laken Riley in Georgia to the 14-year-old rape victim of an illegal immigrant in our home state of Louisiana…. They’ve all been victimized by those whom the Biden administration has released into our country,” says Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

While there are instances of people crossing the border and then committing crimes, blaming all migrants for the bad acts of a very few is unfair and intellectually dishonest. That’s because immigrants–including “illegal” immigrants–improve our country in many ways and actually save the lives of many Americans each year. (more…)

Continue reading

149 Comments

To Win Asylum, Consistency Is Key

by Jason Dzubow

It’s nearly impossible to win an asylum case if the Asylum Officer or Immigration Judge does not believe your story. But how do decision-makers determine whether an applicant is telling the truth or lying? In other words, how do they decide whether the applicant is credible?

There are a number of methods to evaluate credibility: Whether the applicant’s story is plausible (i.e., whether it makes sense in the context of country conditions), whether the person can describe details that we would expect her to know (for example, if she was a political activists, she should know something about her political party), and whether the applicant’s statement is consistent with the other evidence and testimony in the case. Today, I want to discuss “consistency,” since inconsistent statements are probably the most common basis for concluding that an applicant is not credible. (more…)

Continue reading

69 Comments