Question: Who do you think is more likely to deny an asylum case, an Immigration Judge appointed by a Republican president or an Immigration Judge appointed by a Democratic president?
As far as I can tell, no one has ever researched this question before; so our team of statisticians here at The Asylumist spent the last few months crunching the numbers, and we now have our answer. If you’re like me, you might find their conclusion a bit surprising. (more…)
Here’s one thing that seems clear about the management at EOIR–the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts–no one who works there has ever represented a noncitizen in Immigration Court. How do I know? If the leadership at EOIR had any experience in court or with clients, they would not be implementing so many misguided, destructive, and ineffective policies that are doing great harm to immigrants, their attorneys, and even to DHS attorneys (the prosecutors in court).
The latest dumb idea involves an effort to administratively close cases where the respondent (the noncitizen in Immigration Court) may have some temporary or permanent relief available from USCIS. (more…)
The Associated Press recently reported that DHS will implement a “limited experiment” to provide detained migrants at the border with “access to legal counsel.” The new approach will start with a “tiny number of migrants,” and then perhaps expand from there. DHS is partnering with an as-yet-unnamed organization to supply the attorneys, who will help with credible fear interviews (initial evaluations of asylum eligibility for newly arriving migrants). The program is part of DHS’s efforts to accommodate the end of Title 42, which had restricted the number of people eligible to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, and which is expected to wrap up in a few weeks.
This new “limited experiment” calls to mind the ongoing effort by advocates to create an immigration public defender’s service, which would provide everyone in Immigration Court access to a lawyer. These efforts have not made much progress, and currently, very few noncitizens in Immigration Court receive a government-appointed attorney.
Here, I want to discuss the benefits of universal representation for asylum seekers, including those in court and at the Asylum Office. I also want to suggest an alternative to representation by lawyers, who are expensive and relatively scarce. (more…)
USCIS recently released some new information to Congress about the affirmative asylum backlog, and–surprise, surprise–the news is not good. The backlog continues to grow at a record-setting pace, meaning that under the agency’s last-in, first-out (LIFO) policy where new cases receive priority over old cases, those waiting for an interview are falling further and further behind. Worse, USCIS has indicated that they do not have the resources to reduce the backlog, and they don’t expect to receive those resources any time soon. (more…)
Here’s a common situation: A person files for asylum at the Asylum Office and her case is pending for years. During that time, she marries someone who does not have immigration status in the U.S., and she wants to add her spouse to her pending asylum application. And here’s another (less common) scenario: A person has a pending asylum application and the person’s child arrives in the United States and wants to join their parent’s case. Today, we’ll discuss how to add a dependent to an existing asylum case. (more…)
If you follow tech news, you probably know about Chat-GPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) program that has been writing college essays, designing buildings, and even crafting condolence emails after mass shootings. Just last week, we learned that this program “can now outperform most law school graduates on the bar exam, the grueling two-day test aspiring attorneys must pass to practice law in the United States.” The test consists of multiple choice and essay questions, and Chat-GPT’s score placed it “in the 90th percentile of actual test takers,” which “is enough to be admitted to practice law in most states.”
Perhaps in an effort to make lawyers feel better, the “National Conference of Bar Examiners, which designs the multiple choice section, said… that attorneys have unique skills gained through education and experience that AI cannot currently match.” “Currently” being the operative word.
While I do not expect to lose my job in the immediate future, I can see areas of immigration law where AI would be able to assist attorneys and increase efficiency. And I can also imagine a future where AI takes over many, if not all, tasks performed by attorneys, Asylum Officers, and Immigration Judges. (more…)
Much has been written about the inconsistent and unpredictable decision-making at our nation’s Asylum Offices and Immigration Courts. And while it is true that the officer or judge who decides the case makes a difference, for most asylum applicants, the strength of the case is the determinant factor. Here, we’ll look at some common reasons why asylum cases get denied, and we’ll explore what can be done to improve your chances for a successful outcome. (more…)
I recently saw a shocking statistic: 76% of cases denied by the Asylum Office and referred to Immigration Court were granted by Immigration Judges. If this number is accurate (and the source–TRAC Immigration–has always been very reliable), it means that IJs essentially overrule Asylum Officer denials in 3 out of 4 cases. Put another way, Immigration Judges are finding that Asylum Officers make the wrong decision in most of their cases. Can this really be true? What’s going on here? (more…)
Growing up gay in Nigeria was dangerous, both physically and psychologically. Despite the obstacles, Edafe Okporo managed to build a life for himself, get an education, and find a job where he helped gay men access healthcare. During his years in Nigeria, Mr. Okporo watched as conditions worsened for members of the LGBT community. The country enacted anti-LGBT legislation, which criminalized homosexuality and encouraged community members to report sexual minorities to the police. In 2016, a mob attacked Mr. Okporo in his home and beat him into unconsciousness, chanting “Gay! Gay! Gay!” The last straw came later that same year when–ironically–Mr. Okporo received recognition for his activism by a U.S.-based NGO. The NGO posted an article about Mr. Okporo online, essentially “outing” him to anyone with an internet connection. He immediately fled his home and fled his country.
In his new book, Asylum–A Memoir & Manifesto, Mr. Okporo recounts his tale of persecution, his escape to America, and his experience with the U.S. asylum system. (more…)
The Biden Administration has proposed new regulations that restrict who is eligible to claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The new rules anticipate the end of Title 42, a public-health program that limited the number of people who could seek protection at the border. Advocates have condemned the new measure, labeling it a “transit ban” that is unworkable and a violation of U.S. asylum law. Whether the policy is illegal, I am not sure, but it certainly seems unworkable in the sense that it will likely not deter many asylum seekers from coming to the border to ask for protection.
Here, I want to talk about the new rule, and what impact it might have on asylum seekers at the border and in the interior. (more…)
If you have engaged in criminal conduct in the U.S. or overseas, it could affect your eligibility for asylum in the United States. But how do you know what type of criminality impacts an asylum application? The short answer is that it can be very difficult to determine the effect of a given criminal conviction. Also, even where there is no conviction, in some cases, a person’s eligibility for asylum can be compromised. Indeed, the intersection of criminal and immigration law is a confusing and complicated area, and there exists a whole legal field–known by the portmanteau “crimmigration”–devoted to its study.
It is of course impossible to cover an entire legal field in one blog post, and so here, we will discuss only the basics. But hopefully this will provide enough information to help you determine whether your asylum application is in jeopardy, and whether you need to seek more specific advice from a lawyer. (more…)
I don’t mean to be a Negative Nelly, but why is it that when USCIS tries to make things better, it often creates more problems? The latest difficulty involves a (presumably) well-meaning effort to allow asylees to adjust status (i.e., get their Green Cards) more quickly. The problem is that the memo creating the new policy is confusing, and leaves us (or at least me) wondering about how best to conform to the new system. (more…)
Not long ago, USCIS started accepted the I-589 asylum form online. Of course, I resisted filing online because (1) I don’t like learning new things, (2) I don’t like computers, and (3) I REALLY don’t like learning new things on computers. But I also don’t like waiting (literally) six months for my clients’ asylum receipts, all the while not knowing whether USCIS has lost their application. And so urgency and lawyerly duty have finally overcome inertia, and I filed my first I-589 online.
Here, I want to talk about the process of filing online and give some suggestions for improving the “user experience” (short answer: There are advantages to filing online, but there is also room for improvement). (more…)
Immigration Courts across the U.S. have been randomly rescheduling and advancing cases without regard to attorney availability or whether we have the capacity to complete our cases. The very predictable result of this fiasco is that lawyers are stressed and overworked, our ability to adequately prepare cases has been reduced, and–worst of all–asylum seekers are being deprived of their right to a fair hearing. Besides these obvious consequences, the policy of reshuffling court cases is having other insidious effects that are less visible, but no less damaging. Here, I want to talk about some of the ongoing collateral damage caused by EOIR’s decision to toss aside due process of law in favor of reducing the Immigration Court backlog. (more…)
In response to record numbers of migrants arriving at our Southern border–2.2 million in FY2022–President Biden has announced some new rules designed to deter people from coming to our country to seek asylum. At the same time, these rules also open a new pathway for “up to 30,000 migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti… to enter the United States on ‘parole’ each month if they have financial sponsors here and pass background checks.”
Today, we’ll discuss the import of these new rules. We’ll also look at how the rules might affect asylum seekers who currently have cases before the Asylum Office or Immigration Court. (more…)